Examples of Visual Connection Mapping logging the drawings

Visual Connection Mapping Drawing 135 and Visual connection mapping drawing 133

Visual Connection Mapping also applied a primitive but efficient data log of the drawings in order to keep track of the amount of drawings, and also to keep a basic record of the clients. For example, these two drawings are actual visual connection mapping units. On the right of each corner is a number, the unit number is to document the drawings – not the contents of the conversation. The above Vick drawings display a tiny tag stating the number 135 and 133. The series of drawings started at 1 and moved upwards.

Another way of logging the Vick drawings (Vick drawings means visual connection mapping drawings) was to attempt to keep a record of how many times I would speak with a client. For example, Vick drawing 133 has a pink number tag stating number 25. That means that I had the same individual twenty five times.

Another layer of recording the data of Vick drawings was the detail number, see 4/4 on the bottom right corner of Vick drawing 135 and 2/4 on the bottom of Vick drawing 133. These two details mean that that was the number of drawings I did in that session on the Wednesday morning at Our Place Society, on Pandora in the City of Victoria, Vancouver Island BC Canada.

The logging of data of the Vick drawings kept in the privacy and the confidentiality of the conversation.

 

Conversation starts to rise

Visual Connection Mapping is intended to convey the feeling that the individual who is talking has been listened to. Over time structures and patterns in the conversation start to rise. These developments can lead to making connections to seemingly random topics. Sometimes these random topics seem to lead to logic and clarity. The conversation gets turned into a verbal personalized story which turns into circles, triangles and squares. These circles, triangles and squares are often put into symmetrical formations. The symmetrical formations on the page is the logic and the clarity of the personalized story. The natural balance of lines, curves, triangles and circles is the thread of topics through the verbalized monologue or dialogue. It is the belief that the visual illustration shows the individual that he is being taken seriously and without any form of judgement. In contrast to visiting a counselor or general practitioner who may listen and then write down a diagnostic DSM code classifying an individual through charts, Visual Connection Mapping is based on the individuals own experience of his own existentialism versus someone else’s judgments of him. The pictures of Visual Connection Mapping provide the viewer with the opportunity to unravel his own life situations. This method is human being to human being. Human beings can help each other by intention.

 

Code of Hammurabi 1772 BC

When conducting Visual Connection Mapping sometimes I may or may not consider what is justice and what is not justice.

Three components of justice that I may / or may not consider when applying Visual Connection Mapping are from the principles of the Code of Hammurabi from 1772 BC, namely

1. actus reus
2. mens rea
3. non compos mentis

Just World Hypothesis and VCM

Sometimes / on occasion, Visual Connection Mapping would apply theories from others, such as the Just World Hypothesis, namely that actions and conditions have predictable and appropriate consequences.

Array of authors continue to inspire VCM

“The entire world needs diversity of ethno – linguistic entities for its own salvation, for its greater creativity, for the certain solution of human problems, for the constant rehumanization of humanity in the face of materialism, for fostering greater esthetic, intellectual, and emotional capacities for humanity as a whole, indeed, for arriving at a higher state of human functioning.” Joshua A. Fishman (1982)

Many homeless individuals, VCM

When I conducted Visual Connection Mapping in the drop in center at Our Place Society on Pandora in Victoria City Vancouver Island, BC Canada every Wednesday morning from 0900 to 1100 am (for a number of years pro bono as a trained and qualified Mental Health and Addictions Practitioner), many individuals without a home and living on the streets of Victoria City, BC would refer to the Bible text of Jeremiah, specifically and often even themselves quoting, Jeremiah 10:23 on the corruption of man. They would not be referring to themselves (the individuals without a home in Victoria City, BC) but rather the staff in charge, the three levels of government and society as a whole.

At the drop in center: what do I see?

Date December 18, 2014 at the drop in center at Our Place Society time 1030 am. Often professionals and non professionals would want to know what I saw when I went to Our Place Society because they themselves were curious but did not want to venture into the drop in center where the paid staff and the volunteers monitor and manage the influx of 800 vulnerable people coming in and out the drop in center every single day of the week.

Title: What do I see?

I look out the window while I sit in the drop in center at Our Place Society and I see individuals. One man is sitting on the concrete floor outside. He is a middle aged man. His hair is short and brown/black. Next to him  is a little dog, that looks like Bengy.

 

The dog is orange in color and wrapped up in a blanket, with just his head sticking out. The man has a green t-shirt on and a dark red dress shirt. He moves his head from left to right. He has a cigarette behind his right ear. He sits and remains seated while he talks to a standing man dressed all in grey clothes. His dog has a black leash band around his neck and the dog sits on a black and grey sports bag.

Behind the dog and the man is a full shopping cart to the left and to the right is a wall of different textures of materials that looks like a white mattress with a sheet on it, clothes towered on top and all kinds of cloth I cannot easily identify.

Crowding starts to grow in the open outside courtyard as two other individuals sit in their disability four-wheeled driving wheel chair – like devices. One man is brown in complexion with a red hat and a red logo on his black jacket and the other man is dressed completely in black, with a black wool hat on. Both individuals are smiling while they look content socializing with one another. Another man directly behind them has a clown hat on.

It is purple, red, yellow, green and black with about five points sticking out. He is a man between 30 – 40 years old and stands with a blue pack on his back with a rolled up pink blanket wrapped inside a blue thin camping mattress, all neatly placed snug coupled to his backpack. His blue and red lined scarf and two water bottles marks his craft of travelling like a soldier prepared.

(Image of a U.S. soldier carried his bag as he prepared)

He stands tall and still with a cup of coffee in his hand. He stares out past the black steel gates at Our Place Society’s courtyard and has a very clear spirit of happiness glowing from him.

Then he disappears and magically found his way inside the drop in center and our eyes met for a millisecond. His pupils in his eyes were dilated and he was smiling. Then he disappeared behind a staircase. I did not see him again.

Stigma among stigmatized

Title: Stigma among stigmatized, my journal entry about Visual Connection Mapping which I conducting at Our Place Society 919 Pandora Ave, Victoria, BC V8V 3N4.

Within the realm of marginalized there is a hierarchy. This hierarchy rests in the hands of individuals with more power. They apply a revisionism. This revisionism is like how historians write about facts that occurred in the past. To be more specific, in the Second World War and how the Israelites were targetted by the SS. There was a hierarchy in place. A hierarchy whereby each individual followed orders and the majority of system was like a dystopia versus a utopia. The cause and effect of the dystopia is the hierarchy system. It is within this system structure that the human being in the lower ranks cannot voice ones opinion, instead one is to follow orders. Even in 2014 this hierarchy system is in place. It is even in places like Our Place Society where the most marginalized apply the hierarchy system themselves. This leads to a stigma among the stigmatized. To me, it is the hierarchy system which causes marginalization and at the same time it is the best and only human system which is operable. Written August 15, 2013 Picture of the author here under. Sept. 17th, 2017. Greater Victoria Area, Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada. (Putting my mark on my work by showing my face)

Self evaluation / reflection

Post plan Dated October 23rd, 2014. Have conducted Visual Connection Mapping (VCM) for one (1) year in the drop in center at Our Place Society, on Pandora in Victoria City, Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada

Self evaluation / self reflection on my journey as a VCM helper

1. What am I doing?
2. How am I doing this?
3. The strategy is (…)
4. Why?

What am I doing?

Creating a new way of thought regarding treatment resistant psychosis

How am I doing this?

By leading by example

The strategy is (…)

Validating treatment resistant psychosis especially treatment resistant ambivalence and counterattacking both levels with straight-lining and transparency

Why?

The Mental Health Act in Victoria City, Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada and the Involuntary Treatment Clause regarding law around schizophrenia in my mind are not helping but instead causing individuals with treatment resistant psychosis with no resources and no supports to land on the streets; and I do not agree with this. I believe this to be an injustice to humanity.

 

Eyes to the soul

Above is a image of Visual Connection Mapping (VCM 34)

While working with the City of Victoria’s most vulnerable population on Pandora ST at Our Pl;ace Society, British Columbia Canada – I often experienced a profound sense of religious feelings. Often Bible verses would help me to understand and gain insight into what I was feeling and they often helped me put undescribeable situations, feelings and observations into some sort of context, which often lead to a kind of transcendence experience, which was impossible to slot into language. It went so far beyond the English Language.

Brainstorming ideas

1. Dyscalculia
2. Pre-frontal cortex: eyes to the soul

Books referenced

1. Title: The genius engine : where memory, reason, passion, violence, and
   creativity intersect in the human brain
   Author: Stein, Kathleen
   Locations:
   McPherson Library: QP383.17 S74

Quotes and Bible verses for inspiration to help with conducting Visual Connection Mapping

1. “Happiness is a butterfly, which when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but which, if you sit down quietly, may alight upon you.” Nathaniel Hawthorne
2. “To live is to be militant.” Seneca, Letters
3. “Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.” Isaiah 43: 18 – 19
4. “There is that maketh himself rich, yet hath nothing: there is that maketh himself poor, yet hath great riches.” Way of Righteous Life 13:7

Paintings that I referenced and looked up

Rembrandt, Return of the prodigal son, 1668