3 Ways Tattoos Help People Cope

Tattoos can serve as a way to mark life experiences and create a transformed sense of self, both in mind and body. They are also a personal expression by which an individual conveys and communicates important information about their life experiences to the world.

But can people use tattoos as a way to make sense of and navigate life transitions? This was the central question of a study led by Professor Maja Krtalić at the University of Wellington in New Zealand.

More specifically, she and her research team maintain that life transitions, such as getting married or losing a loved one, create a “before and after” experience. It involves something ending, a period of confusion, and a new beginning. It is a disruption of reality that leaves a person striving to create a new one.

Enter tattoos. Krtalić and her colleagues understand tattoos as an “embodied personal space of information” that serve as a mode of communication, a document, and a personal history archive that can uniquely support the process of change.

In order to investigate the relationship between life events and tattoos, the research team interviewed 23 adults, ranging in age from their twenties to their sixties, about their life experiences and tattoos. From there, the investigators analyzed participants' narratives.

The results were striking. Krtalić and her collaborators identified three functions that tattoos serve in the process of life transitions. Their findings are summarized below.

1. Tattoos as enablers of transition.

Participants’ narratives included both positive and negative life events that triggered a sense of change. What emerged was a need to actively create a clear distinction between their past and the new chapter they were embarking upon. Tattoos provided a way to represent this change.

2. Tattoos as initiators of transition.

Some participants' narratives focused less on specific life transitions and more on the broader need to define their place in relation to their physical and social worlds. In this context, tattoos were a starting point for this transition, providing a visible symbol of their evolving identities—as independent adults, immigrants, members of the queer community, etc.

Tattoos initiated embracing their life transition and how they represent themselves in their relationships. One participant remarked:

I decided to separate, and it kind of left me exploring who I am. And one of the things I'd always had in the back of my mind to do was get a tattoo, so that was the impetus for the first tattoo.

3. Tattoos as resolvers of transition.

Participants used tattoos to cope with and resolve the emotional conflict triggered by life transitions. By etching the event on their skin, the tattoo “held” and “recorded” the memory. It also provided a tool for closure and healing.

For some, tattoos helped transform distress over the appearance of certain body parts by “beautifying” them with a tattoo. This act led to a shift in how they viewed their physical selves. One interviewee shared:

“I [tattooed] a butterfly on a piece of my body that I used to feel ashamed of, which is now something beautiful to look at.”

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