Photography is an amazing tool for communicating with our minds and a means of shaping pathways, learning and transforming our brains; it is a neurobiological language and an imaging method of the foundations of life and consciousness.” — Ivana Dostálová
RESEARCH AREAS
The main mission of MUPhotoSci is:
- Research of the new approaches and methods and the development of photography- and visual mindfulness-based technologies to work with brain neuroplasticity and mental images subset and bringing them into clinical research and treatment of neurodevelopmental diseases and neurodivergence to improve patients´ quality of life and disease prognosis
- New approaches in the treatment of eating disorders (including both above mentioned based and biological treatments)
- Exploring the therapeutic, neuroplastic and healing use of photography
- Research on photography as an imaging method in neuroscience
- Research on photography as a tool for exploring the relationship between subjective and physical reality
- Development of a method of photographic and visual inquiry and photography-evoked mental awareness
- Bringing biological insights to the study of consciousness
- Development of a saturating biological model of consciousness
- Development of photography-based saturating healing compassionate technologies
METHOD
There is a fundamental question on what the selection of mental images subset from the set of mental images available depends? And what set of mental images is the “available”, where it has its origin, when and where and how it is created?* MUM Methodology provides and delivers in a natural way a combination of the latest NEUROSCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE (working with the brain neuroplasticity), PHOTOGRAPHY (using the therapeutic, neuroplastic, and healing effects of photography) and THE GRADUAL SHIFT OF MENTAL IMAGEs SUBSET (based on Biological Saturating Model of Consciousness, Dostalova 2024, unpublished*) in conjunction with human wisdom (MEDITATION). The methodology uses photography as a tool for visual objectification of the subset of mental images and brain re-learning. The main working pillar of the methodology is PESORM* (Photography-Evoked Self-, Other-, -Relations-Mindfulness Visual Photographic Inquiry). Photography and visual language are in PESORM* the tools which bring us a new way of communicating with our mind on a neurobiological level. MUM has been and continues to be developed to be accessible to all without discrimination and is in no way related to photographic skills. MUM methodology is based on gradual training, thus it is a process methodology, not a one-off.
HUMANE MISSION
The humane mission of MUPhotoSci is:
- To serve people and humanity – from clinical scientific and biological research, via bringing humanity, kindness, true values, meaning and compassion to the society, to therapeutic support
- To explore and search for the fundamental foundations of life
- To search for the biological, universal, physical and neurodevelopmental common origins of neurodiversity and so-called mental illnesses and to bring biological evidence to support the rights of individuals who have developed under the influence of specific trauma and underlying neurobiological desaturation, to improve their quality of life and their integration into society
IMPACT PROGRAMS
- We are developing the BIRDS OF MIND Treatment Program and Pathway for eating disorders, including those with comorbidities and neurodivergent forms
- We are developing Preventive and Mental Health Care Program and Pathway for WOMEN in Today´s World
PREVENTION & CARE
We strive to engage photography, visual language°, and cultivating of visual mindfulness:
- in the prevention and avoidance of mental illnesses and to mental health care
- as a tool in the treatment of anxiety, coping with serious illness, etc.
- as a complementary approach for civilisation diseases to reduce subjective perception of stress (e.g. cardiovascular disease, T2DM and others)
- as a tool in therapy and scientific research
- °= our own holistic approach, visual language always means photographic visual language and our own approach of photographic and visual inquiry*photography-evoked self-, other-, relations-mindfulness.
“WE TAKE CARE OF PEOPLE’S MENTAL HEALTH AND WELL-BEING THROUGH PHOTOGRAPHY, VISUAL AWARENESS, VISUAL LANGUAGE AND ART OF SEEING, WE USE PHOTOGRAPHY TO CONNECT PEOPLE AND COMMUNITIES, AND WE USE PHOTOGRAPHY TO HELP WHEREVER VERBAL COMMUNICATION IS NOT ENOUGH, OR IS NOT POSSIBLE. WE INTERCONNECT PHOTOGRAPHY AND VISUAL PERCEPTION WITH THE LATEST NEUROSCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE AND WE BRING THE NEW (SELF-) APPROACH TO HEALTHCARE.”
Right now, right here … each of us is forming our “bubble”, our vision of our universe — ourselves, others, everything around us, ourselves in relation to others, ourselves in relation to everything around us, ourselves now in relation to our life story.
So let’s stop for a moment and really look, let’s learn together the art of HOW to see that all, how to see ourselves, how to see our life stories. What is VISUAL (PHOTOGRAPHIC) LANGUAGE, how does it differ from the verbal one and what all it enables us?
MUPhotoSci brings into the field of prevention and mental health care the conbination of photography (the mindful, therapeutic, neuroplastic and healing potential of photography), work with visual perception and mental image setting, mindfulness, neuroscience and meditation to bring humanity, compassion, humility, joy, belonging and gratitude to the society and communities as a part of its human mission:
- to care of people’s mental health and well-being
- contribute to global and planetary peace by reducing the epidemic of trauma and toxic stress
- to put a camera in peoples´ hands for and in such a way that they learn to perceive themselves and everything that affects them and their life through it, and to learn to work with themselves and their minds through the camera and visual perception
- to support and teach individuals to truly perceive, see, experience and be able to internally express themselves for themselves in every moment
- to activate sight-heart-soul-mind axis
- to work with the “mind’s eye” for a more joyful, fuller and calmer perception and experience
- to gradually shift the subset of mental images in a positive direction, and enabling people to live a happier and fuller life
