ba/Qupic

This project aims to show how a creative design process can play a crucial role in providing mental health support and to explore the possibility of design therapy as an addition to conventional forms of psychological support. Therefore, one of my main research questions is “Can we have “Design Therapy” similar to Art Therapy?”.

I conducted qualitative research in video call interviews with ten different people, all Syrian 20-29 years old, living outside of Syria in 2021, and suffering from PTSD symptoms.

Following a creative process, based on the interviews and Plutchik’s wheel of emotions, I made examples of psychological tests. Furthermore, inspired by the lobes of the brain, I designed a concept item. This item gains its shape from translating the psychological tests’ results into pieces of visual information.

Qupic is a memorable object to remind the people I interviewed of the importance of communication. With more time to put into research, testing and further consultation from experts, Qupic has the potential to be a pedagogical or an archival tool.