ABSTRACT

The 9/11 Memorial and Museum was selected for the case study and source of data because of its unique collections-donor relationship that suggested explicit demonstrations of Psychotherapeutic Object Dynamics. The data collected in our interviews reinforced commonly held understandings of the meaning of objects in everyday life, the potency of objects within museum environments, and the value of participation, co-creation, and open-content generation in exhibitions. In many instances, subjects referred to the 9/11 Memorial and Museum as a place where their objects will be kept safe. The 11 individuals who shared the intimacy of their experiences, challenges, and areas of growth enabled us to begin to see evidence of human-object-healing dynamics in a museum setting. The themes of hope, power, identity and connection that emerged from this case study resonated with those from the field study with Trails Carolina.