Image is everything, image is nothing: a reflection on/of(f) Tessa Adams' paper.

This article presents the authors comments in the article "Image, Imagination, Constructing Gender Through Visual Representation in Search for the Ideal," by Tessa Adams. While the thrust of the paper implies that as counselors and therapists we overlook or ignore imaged gender, perhaps we should question what image infers and then see what its influence might be in counseling and therapy. An image is firstly a reflection, and as such alludes to something or someone as a preceding 'prime mover'; it also extends its meaning onwards by way of interpretation. The underlying theme is that they are objects to be seen, produced, consumed, objects of consumption. The image is therefore of the order of the economic, and this infers a series of assumptions. As Tessa comments, potentially we ignore it, or worse, do not see its pervasiveness. Image, both in the seen and spoken sense, becomes a putting of time and life behind itself. Our engagement with it as therapists is a consumerism that objectifies our existence, but contrarily, not bringing it to awareness also perpetuates that existence.