THE MASK PROJECT: FINDING IDENTITY
OUTSIDE OF ADDICTION
February 3, 2014 · by christabrennan · in Addiction, Mental Health. ·
We all have roles we play throughout our lives. Sister, daughter, worker,
friend, student, lover. These roles are not bad, in fact they help us to survive,
but there comes a time when these roles overstep a boundary, and we start
to lose ourselves in them. We become so adept at playing the part we think
we should play that our own identity becomes the understudy.
For many people who struggle with addiction, they have lost themselves to
the drug and begin to play roles that are not healthy. Manipulator, liar,
criminal, abuser, thief, prostitute. These roles are unhealthy but helped them
to survive in the world of addiction all the same.
For an addict, the struggle to find their identity begins in recovery. For the
first time in a long time they are asking the question, “who am I?” and that’s
really scary. It is also brave, and one of the reasons I have such respect for
individuals working through their recovery.
This mask project is an opportunity to express “who am I?” in a visual and
tangible way.
Here are some examples:
This mask was made by an individual who struggles with bi-polar disorder and cocaine abuse. He said
the black side of the mask represents his anger and depression, the white represents when he is
happy and feeling “good”. He said he is only ever depressed or manic, no middle. The stitches across
the mouth represent that regardless of which side he is on, something holds him back from opening up
and speaking about his feelings. He said, “I feel unworthy to talk about how I feel”. the inside of the
mask represents all his emotions and feelings. They are wild and overwhelming, lacking boundaries,
while the outside is far too constricted. The struggle for him is to merge the two sides, expressing his
feelings without being controlled by them.
For other participants there was some resistance. This was consistently manifested by leaving the
inside of the mask blank. Here, the outside represents a Mardi Gras mask, and the inside was left blank
intentionally because he “doesn’t want to wear any masks on the inside”. Later the individual said, ” I
ran out of time”. For this particular person, he had time to finish but chose not to. Each person had
the same amount of time. And in art therapy there is significance in what a person chooses to paint
first, and what they choose to leave blank, or neglected. While some may see this as over analyzing, it
is important to consider the choices made during the art making process. They help us to understand
the subconscious and see past the aesthetic. In this project, each person who left the inside blank also
happened to be very guarded individuals who struggled with expressing their emotions for fear of
being vulnerable.
Acting as a psychological self-portrait, this mask project is a very accurate indicator of where a person
is at in their quest for the “self”.
