with/against the grain...

With the grain…

In, “On Teenagers and Tattoos,” Andres Martin, urges other therapists to see adolescent tattoos as a tool to get into the minds of teens, rather than how everyone else perceives tattoos, as a fashion statement, or something to do to fit in. Dr. Martin explains how these tools can be used to go deeper into the minds of teens and see that these tattoos are not just fashion statements, but instead cries for help. Tattoos can be uses to identify different psychological issues teens face. To begin, Dr. Martin believes tattoos are a way to recognize identity crisis amongst teens. Teens get prove a point, that they have control over their own bodies. Tattoos also serve as a representation of the past or present event that adolescents want to hold on to forever. He goes on to show that tattoos are a way for teens to set a type of permanence in our mobile urban world. He concludes with saying instead of judging these youths tattoos, his colleagues should use their patients skin as a tool to see what they really feel and think.

Against the grain…

In, “On Teenagers and Tattoos,” Andres Martin tries to urge therapists to use tattoos as another tool to get into the minds of teens, but how is a tattoo, going to do this? A tattoo is a piece of art, a permanent mark on your body, how will it leak into the minds of teens? Dr. Martin says these tattoos can explain identity crisis amongst adolescents, but identity crisis is a much deeper level, you can’t look at a teens tattoo and say that he/she has had an identity crisis. He goes on to say that tattoos are a way to hold on the past and make a type of permanent mark on their lives. Tattoos are forever but it doesn’t necessarily mean that this piece of ink is going to help you remember an event forever. He concludes by saying that tattoos get you into the minds of teens, but sometimes, teens do it for the peer pressure and just to fit in. Sure in some cases, this idea of his could work, but for the majority teens, get tattoos for reasons of fitting in and being cool, not due to deeper psychological reasons.