Most of my writing has been about teaching and research in psychology.  I have written about issues such as personality, stress, identity, existentialism and phenomenology, and narrative.  But some writing has crossed the border and let art and artists teach me about psychology. Here are some examples:

Painting Lessons
Sometimes, one needs to leave one's usual domain in order really to understand it.  Art classes became the way for this psychologist better to understand psychology, and better to teach it.
From Ouellette, S.C. (2003). Painting lessons. In R. Josselson, A. Lieblich, D. McAdams (Eds.), Up Close and Personal: The Teaching and Learning of Narrative Research. Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association.
To read the complete article, please click here.


Women in the Garden
Two 19th, early 20th century, women gardeners, Celia Thaxter and Marianna Van Rensselaer, used their garden art to create identities that enabled a kind of freedom in very restrictive interpersonal and social circumstances.  In their hands, art became a way of expanding the self.
From Schenker, H. & Ouellette, S.C. (2000). The garden as women’s place: Celia Thaxter and Mariana van Rensselaer. In B. Szcygiel, J. Carubia, & L. Dowler (Eds.), Gendered landscapes: An interdisciplinary exploration of past place and space. University Park, PA: Center for Studies in Landscape History.
To read the complete article, please click here.

What Giacometti Taught Me about Psychobiography
"Why this compulsion to record what one sees?  When one loses oneself in the task
of recording as exactly as possible what one sees, it’s a matter of the same need
whether one is a scientist or an artist….  Both science and art mean: wanting to
understand."  Alberto Giacometti, 1962
From Ouellette, S.C. (2001). What the art of Alberto Giacometti taught me about psychobiography. Clio’s Psyche, 8, 145-148.
To read the complete article, please click here.

If you want to see a listing of more publications by Suzanne or more information on her scholarly work, please click here.