Publications

Most of my writing has been about psychology.  I have written about things like how personality makes a difference for individuals' response to stress, volunteering in the midst of the AIDS crisis, the relationship between identity and living with a serious illness, the meaningfulness of gardening, the links between existential and phenomenological philosophy and psychology, and how to teach narrative and other forms of qualitative psychology.   

Some writing has crossed the border between psychology and other forms of thinking.  In that writing, it shows how art and artists have taught me about psychology. Here are some examples:

Painting Lessons

Sometimes, one needs to leave one's backyard 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.