Publications and Press

Publications and Press

Publications and Press

The SoulPages method is not an idea that came out of a workshop. It has been published in two peer-reviewed professional journals and in two professional books, taught as a certified facilitator training since 2016, used in a large-scale intervention with women displaced by war, and shown in a New York gallery. This page gathers what I have published and where the work has been presented.

My name is Rakefet Hadar. I am an art therapist, an author, and the founder of the training school for SoulPages guides. I hold a BA and an MA in Design from Buckinghamshire in England, and an MA in Art Therapy from Lesley College in Massachusetts. My academic papers were published under my earlier name, Rakefet Link-Skop, so if you come across that name in a database or a search result, it is the same person and the same method.

Layers of Meaning: Elements of Visual Journaling, book cover
Color Archetypes: Healing Processes in the Visual Journal, book cover
Gates of Hope Art Journal, book cover
A spread from Gates of Hope Art Journal

What professional papers have been published on the SoulPages method?

Two peer-reviewed papers setting out the method and the theory beneath it, and two chapters in professional books, one from an academic press and one from a national arts therapies association. Each one has a full summary in English on this site.

Internal Journey Journaling: The Visual Journal as a Therapeutic Tool

Bein HaMilim (Between the Words), issue 11, the journal of Kibbutzim College of Education, 2016. The paper that laid the foundations: the five principles of working in a visual journal inside a therapeutic relationship, a mapping of Winnicott’s four stages in the development of play onto the stages of therapy, and the line that runs from Jung’s Red Book to the notebook of today. It closes with a full case study of a mother I worked with for three years in a mothers’ group. At that point the method was still called Internal Journey Journaling; the name SoulPages came in the years that followed.

Read the full summary in English

“Bringing Back the Light”: The Visual Journal in the SoulPages Method as an Intervention for Hope and Resilience Resources

Psychologia Ivrit (Hebrew Psychology), May 2024. A professional account of group work with women displaced from their homes by war: the seven elements of the method, the four pillars of the intervention, and the clinical reasoning behind working through a woman’s own resources rather than through the difficult memory itself.

Read the full summary in English

“Bridges to Myself”: Easing Tension, Discovering Resources and Connecting to Hope Through the Seven Elements and the Visual Journal

A chapter in Protocols of Strength and Hope: A Guide to Facilitating Arts-Based Workshops for Building Resilience in Collective Crisis and War, initiated and edited by Dr Ronen Berger, published by Ono Academic College in partnership with the Community Stress Prevention Center, 2024. The book gathers 33 detailed workshop protocols written by arts therapists working through a period of war, and was released free online.

My chapter is protocol 32. It sets out a complete process for making one page in a visual journal following the seven elements of the SoulPages method: structured step-by-step facilitation, an equipment list, and an audience of ten years old and up. It was written specifically to work with people who do not enjoy making art or are certain they cannot.

Read the full protocol in English

“When Words Hurt and Heal”: Visual Journaling with Displaced Women

A chapter in Safe Studio, an Anthology: Creative Texts in the Wake of War, published by YAHAT, the Creative and Expressive Arts Therapies Association, October 2024. Editors: Dr Tamar Kichli-Borochovsky, Nona Orbach and Chen Jakobi. It is the association’s first anthology, a collection of personal and creative testimonies from the arts therapists who set up some fifty Safe Studios for displaced families. My chapter opens the section called Gathering Materials.

It is not a protocol but a testimony. It describes the open hotel lobby that turned into a studio, the journals volunteers had hand-sewn in advance, and the suitcase we kept the materials in, which became a transitional object for the group in its own right.

Read the full summary in English

Where else is the method cited and applied by others?

In Connecting to Strengths and Hope, Through Creation: Theory and Protocol, by Dr Ronen Berger, Vered Rahat and Liat Schwartzman, advised by Prof. Mooli Lahad, published by the Community Stress Prevention Center, second edition October 2024. It is a resilience programme for teenagers, running in the centre’s resilience units since March 2024.

The protocol I wrote is the basis for two of its workshops, and is credited to me by name in both:

  • Protocol 5, “Bridges to Myself, visual journal”, based on my protocol and extended to work with three-dimensional materials.
  • Protocol 18, “Visual journal, bridges to a better future”, adapting the same principles towards connecting to hope and imagining a new reality.

Layers of Meaning is also cited there as further reading on the visual journal in work with loss.

The method also travels through creators who name it in their own work. In September 2026 Tracey Young published Inner Journey to the Upper Worlds, crediting the SoulPages method and linking back to this site.

What books have I written?

  • Layers of Meaning, book cover
    Layers of Meaning: Elements of Visual Journaling, 2019, published by Stackpole Books. The first publication to bring every element of the SoulPages method together in one place, and a creative course in its own right. It appears as a bibliographic source in my 2024 paper. The book page · On Amazon.
  • Color Archetypes, book cover
    Color Archetypes: Healing Processes in the Visual Journal, 2023. The book that sets out the colour language of the method. Each colour is read as an archetype, an inner figure with a voice and a role in the process, rather than as an aesthetic choice. It is the foundation of the Color Archetypes facilitator training. The book page · On Amazon.
  • Gates of Hope Art Journal, book cover
    Gates of Hope Art Journal: The SoulPages Method for Visual Journaling, November 2025. An art book that grew out of nine months of work with a group of women who survived the massacre at Kibbutz Be’eri. Each gate introduces one of the women, her personal journey, and the journal pages she made on her way towards recovery, alongside journaling exercises to work with. The book page · On Amazon.

Where has the work been interviewed and presented?

What can you watch on video?

Filmed documentation of the exhibitions, of the Bringing Back the Light project and of the book, together with a recorded interview. Most of these live on my YouTube channel.

  • Be'eri Visual Journal ExhibitionBe’eri Visual Journal ExhibitionJuly 2025 · 1:32
  • Gates of Hope: The ProjectGates of Hope: The ProjectMarch 2025 · 1:39
  • Bring Back The Light ProjectBring Back The Light ProjectApril 2024 · 3:55
  • The Inspiration Place, Episode 193: Creating an Art Certification ProgramThe Inspiration Place, Episode 193: Creating an Art Certification ProgramMay 2022 · 23:41A filmed interview with Miriam Schulman on building a professional training in the SoulPages method.

What was the Bringing Back the Light project?

A volunteer network I set up with Merav Shaked to bring visual journaling into the hotels and the centres where displaced families were living. The figures, as they appear on the project page:

  • More than 60 guides and professional facilitators trained in the SoulPages method volunteered on it.
  • Around 30 centres were opened.
  • Dozens of additional volunteers hand-sewed personal journals for the participants.
  • Teams of two to four guides arrived at each session with a personal kit for every woman there.

Out of that project came a long stretch of work with a group of women from Kibbutz Be’eri, who made work in a visual journal over nine months, and from that work came an exhibition and a book.

The exhibition was shown at David Benrimon Fine Art in New York from 24 July to 7 August 2025: Bringing Back the Light: The Visual Journals of the Women of Kibbutz Be’eri.

The Be’eri survivors’ SoulPages exhibition

Frequently asked questions

Is the SoulPages method professionally recognised?
It has been published in two peer-reviewed professional journals, Bein HaMilim of Kibbutzim College of Education in 2016 and Psychologia Ivrit in 2024, and chapters on it appear in Protocols of Strength and Hope, published by Ono Academic College, and in the Safe Studio anthology published by YAHAT, the Creative and Expressive Arts Therapies Association, both in 2024. It has been taught as a facilitator training since 2016. It is not a substitute for psychological therapy and does not claim to be one.

Who wrote the papers, Rakefet Hadar or Rakefet Link-Skop?
The same person. Both academic papers were published under the name Rakefet Link-Skop, and the name I work and publish under today is Rakefet Hadar.

Where can I read this work in English?
A full summary of every paper and chapter is published here on this site and linked from each entry above. The original papers were published in Hebrew; the summaries carry the method, the reasoning and the findings in full.

What is the difference between Internal Journey Journaling and the SoulPages method?
They are two names for the same method. Internal Journey Journaling is the name it appeared under in the 2016 paper, and SoulPages is the name it has carried since.

May I cite this work, or invite Rakefet to speak?
Yes to both. For academic citation, reference the two original journal papers by title, journal and year as listed above. For talks, workshops or collaborations, get in touch through this site.

This work is still going. If you came here to find out whether there is something real behind the method, the answer sits in the papers, in the books and in the exhibition. And if you came here to begin something of your own, start here, and there is a free lesson waiting when you join the list: soul-pages.com

SoulPages is a mindful art practice

SoulPages is a mindful art practice

some people will say that mindfulness is the opposite of art creation since you are supposed to delve into just being and not doing.

As I see it- art is a special kind of mindfulness practice.

Art, for me, is not about doing or creating a beautiful piece; it’s about just letting yourself be one with the colors, the materials, the shapes, the words, and your subconscious.

In mindfulness practice, the intention is to feel everything and be aware of everything.

In SoulPages, the mindful artistic method that I developed- the main idea is to observe your inner world through the seven elements of creation.

 

The seven elements are Intention, Magical coincidence, background, color, image, line, and text.

It’s possible to look at the elements as layers of meaning, in each element, you can discover new things about yourself.

So when you are creating with a concentration on each element at a time- you are practicing mindfulness!!

So many of my students tell me that they feel more peaceful and relaxed after creating every day with the elements. They feel that their perception has changed and they can connect with positive thinking inside.

SoulPages is the best journaling method that promotes healing and well-being!

SoulPages is the best journaling method that promotes healing and well-being!

SoulPages is a method based on art journaling techniques, creative writing, visualization, and especially lots of creativity and imagination.

 

It was proven that daily art practice could change our lives, increase our well-being and create abundance.

Jung discovered the importance of creating art. He was a talented painter and sculptor.

He created mandalas as a healing practice.

Jung was maybe the first person who created art journaling pages!

In the Red book, he painted images he “saw” in his inner journeys.

Around his painting, Jung used to write notes and explanations.

 

The main healing factor of SoulPages is the positive anchoring!

In our psyche, we have constant battles between positive forces and negative energies.

You can see any person as full of these energetic patterns that balance themselves.

Usually, we can balance ourselves with our positive reservoir of experiences and inner voices. Still, in some cases, we don’t have enough positive inner parts, and we need to activate more parts inside us.

 

This is the beauty of this method- the idea that you can always use the collective archetype reservoir to activate positive inner parts that can become part of your inner world.

A daily joyful art practice that can change your life

A daily joyful art practice that can change your life

Many people ask me where they can learn art journaling for beginners

My honest answer is that it doesn’t matter if you are a beginner or advanced in my special journaling method- SoulPages journaling.

If You want to develop your inner world and learn fun, joyful art techniques on the way, you should learn the SoulPages method with the seven elements.

The seven elements are like tools that help you develop your inner strength and learn easily how to manifest abundance and joy in your life.

The seven elements are Intention, Magical coincidence, background, color, image, line, and text.

 

In my book “Layers of meaning- elements of visual journaling,” I’ve written about all the elements. 

In this short article, I want to talk about the importance of a daily practice of just 10 minutes.

I call this practice “7 elements in 10 minutes.”

Its very good to do this exercise in the evening

  • We start with color and background– we draw a shape with watercolors on our journal.-this should take 2 minutes.
  • then we write around the shape of whatever comes to our mind- We give it two minutes. This is the Intention element.
  • We add a collage image to the shape- 1 minute
  • We create lines and mark making- 2 minutes
  • We look at what we did and think of what surprised us. this is the magical coincidence– 2 minutes
  • We write one or a maximum of two words we gained from this process inside the shape-the text element 1 minute.

 

The benefits of a daily artistic practice

The benefits of a daily artistic practice

Recently I have been going through a challenging time in my life, and I’ve decided to start a daily artistic journal practice.

I call it “10 minutes SoulPages practice a day”

Every day I create for ten  minutes only

I work quickly without thinking about anything. 

I try to activate my subconscious and let it send me important words.

Words and images that can transform me!

My artistic journal receipt:

I work small

I use the seven elements

I use the energy of one word to create change.

I write and doodle around the image until I understand its significance to my life.

I feel that my life became so much reacher since I started this practice

I hope you will join me and start creating with me!

I aim to spread this practice everywhere because I believe it can heal us individually and as a global community.

How you can improve your life by creating an art diary?

How you can improve your life by creating an art diary?

Since I was thirteen, I have written a diary almost daily.

Writing to myself helped me upload some of the difficult feelings I felt, It helped me feel less lonely when my parents divorced.

 It also helped me realize how important self-exploration is.

I continued to write in notebooks and later on my computer, but I stopped around my late thirties.

I lost the magic of writing to myself, the words were not enough to express what I felt.

And then, at the age of 45, I discovered the visual journal, and I felt that my life changed in ways I couldn’t even begin to realize.

I met with one of my friends, and she showed me a notebook that looked like a diary.

This is a visual art diary, she said.

I was hooked!

Inside her visual art diary I saw amazing doodling, images, words,

I felt she could take all the content of her subconscious and just poor it into this amazing notebook.

 

This was the day that changed my life- I went home and made my first visual journal; this was the name that I decided to give this amazing practice.

I never stopped creating since and I wish I never will!

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