This article examines autotheory and clinical trauma theory in relation to the author’s studio-based visual arts practice. This is addressed through surveying the development of the drawing series An open love letter. This ongoing series stems from an expanded practice of life drawing and explores experiences of love in relation to PTSD. Trauma is an event that fractures the sense of self, sometimes culminating in PTSD. As someone who experiences PTSD, physical symptoms (sweating, vertigo, emotional flooding) have pulsed against researching trauma. Memory, symptoms, and theory tangle together, challenging expectations of objectivity. The article addresses how autotheory supports the validity of establishing visual arts research engaged with trauma and trauma theory from the embodied experiences of a trauma survivor. The article additionally traces how readings of clinical trauma theory and autotheory inflected across each other in this research. First, through a clinical-trauma-theory reading of autotheory, it examines how autotheory positions itself as restorative of ideological dissociations. Specifically, autotheory intervenes in trends in art practices by privileging conceptual modes over the embodied and emotional. Following, this research establishes the significance of an autotheoretical reading of trauma theory to articulate the embodied experience of the theory. This demonstrates the capacity of autotheory to embrace the associations between research, practice, and lived experiences.

中文翻译：

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生活绘画扩展实践中的创伤与自论

本文探讨了与作者基于工作室的视觉艺术实践相关的自体理论和临床创伤理论。这是通过调查绘图系列一封公开的情书的发展来解决的. 这个正在进行的系列源于对生活绘画的扩展实践，并探讨了与 PTSD 相关的爱情体验。创伤是一种破坏自我意识的事件，有时会导致创伤后应激障碍。作为经历过创伤后应激障碍的人，身体症状（出汗、眩晕、情绪泛滥）已经对研究创伤产生了影响。记忆、症状和理论纠缠在一起，挑战对客观性的期望。这篇文章探讨了自论如何支持建立视觉艺术研究的有效性，并从创伤幸存者的具体经历中进行创伤和创伤理论。这篇文章还追溯了临床创伤理论和自体理论在这项研究中是如何相互影响的。首先，通过对自论的临床-创伤-理论解读，它考察了自论如何将自己定位为意识形态分裂的恢复者。具体而言，自论通过将概念模式置于具身和情感之上来干预艺术实践的趋势。接下来，本研究确立了对创伤理论进行自我理论解读的重要性，以阐明该理论的具体经验。这证明了自论能够将研究、实践和生活经验之间的联系纳入其中。