Tracing the self through visual arts: self-portraiture as a creative reflective practice for social work students

Self-portraiture is a visual artistic technique that offers numerous benefits, particularly as a creative reflective practice. This article explores its creative and reflective application in fostering self-awareness and identity exploration among students who participated in a self-portraiture workshop as part of an Erasmus+ Blended Intensive Programme (BIP) held at a German research university. The workshop included both theoretical and practical components about self-portrait methodology, including its artistic history and contemporary applications in health and social caring professions. Participants were students-mostly from the social work discipline- representing diverse European and international backgrounds. Students’ feedback revealed that self-portraiture facilitated sustained reflection, encouraged articulation of personal identities, and enabled integrative meaning-making across cognitive and affective domains. Students reported enhanced self-understanding and an increased ability to connect lived experience with academic learning. The article contends that, with proper theoretical and practical preparation, self-portraiture constitutes a valuable addition to the repertoire of visual methodologies in social work education. It contributes to ongoing scholarly discussions on reflective learning, student engagement, and pedagogical innovation by conceptualizing self-portraiture as a creative reflective practice within the framework of creative critical pedagogies.