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Guided Imagery GUIDED IMAGERY: A Psychosynthesis Approach History and Manual for Practitioners by Martha Crampton, Ph.D First published in 1974 by the Quebec Center for Psychosynthesis Inc., 3496 Marlowe Avenue, Montreal First revised edition published in 1977 by the Canadian Institute of Psychosynthesis, Inc. Second revised edition published by The Synthesis Center Inc. in 2005 www.synthesiscenter.org AUTHOR’S PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION In the years since this monograph was first published, the field of guided imagery has grown by leaps and bounds. It has now become part of the mainstream, not only in psychotherapy, but in fields such as mind- body medicine, creative problem-solving, education, and the popular self-help literature. The power of the mind to create health or disease is now widely recognized. A wide spectrum of practitioners from diverse schools of thought now incorporate imagery techniques in their work. In recent years, The Academy for Guided Imagery has trained practitioners in the skills of “interactive imagery”, particularly in the health care field. Their web site, academyforguidedimagery.com has information on their conferences, educational materials, and other resources. Dr. Marty Rossman, a co-founder of the Academy, has written a book, Guided Imagery for Self-Healing, which provides information on more recent developments in the field. Dr. Rossman has a web site of his own, thehealingmind.net, which also provides a wealth of resources for self help. As I re-read the history part of this monograph I was once again touched to connect with the work and the spirit of the great pioneers of Guided Imagery (originally called “mental imagery”). For some mysterious reason, the territory of Depth Psychology was opened up primarily in Europe. I feel privileged to have had the opportunity to work with some of the inspired European innovators in this field and feel a debt of gratitude as I ponder again their profound contributions. I am particularly grateful to Robert Desoille whose writings I stumbled across in a colleague’s library in Montreal. His “waking dream” method opened my awareness, as it did for a generation of seekers in Europe, to the treasures of spiritual wisdom available in the depth psyche. As the French language material has not been published elsewhere in English, this monograph fills in a gap for the English-speaking reader. The issues it raises are timeless ones and still of great relevance today. The Manual for practitioners was originally developed for my students at the Canadian Institute of Psychosynthesis in Montreal. However, the principles and examples it offers will be useful to anyone seriously interested in Depth Psychology or Guided Imagery. I must ask the reader’s indulgence for my archaic use of the masculine pronoun. This was written before the days of gender-neutral language and would be too onerous to change. I hope you will find nourishment in these pages. “An article by Martha Crampton in the early 1970’s was a major source of instruction for me as I began to study the art of guided imagery. Martha’s clear and elegant style elucidated the complexities and essence of this intimate way of being with people in a way I had not previously encountered. I am so happy that these treasures will once again be available and strongly encourage anyone who seeks to deepen their understanding of the imagery process to read them. “ —Martin L. Rossman, M.D., President of The Healing Mind Inc. 2 SCOPE OF THIS MONOGRAPH This paper will present a method of guided imagery practiced by the author within the context of psychosynthesis. This method, which we have called "Dialogic Imagery", will be placed in historical context. It will be described and compared to other major schools of mental imagery within the practice of psychotherapy and personal growth. The discussion will be limited to imagery techniques of an extended nature-—i.e. ones in which the subject remains in an altered state of consciousness over a period of time which may vary from thirty minutes to an hour or more. The relationship of this method to the principles of psychosynthesis will be discussed, along with guidelines for practice. A series of transcribed sessions is included with commentary. HISTORICAL ROOTS OF DEPTH IMAGERY WORK Man has long sought contact with the deeper and higher realms of his psyche through the use of techniques involving mental imagery. The "vision quest" of certain Amerindian tribes, in which a young man would practice fasting, flagellation and other austerities in isolation until he obtained a vision of his totem animal, has been described by ethnographers. Peoples throughout the world, from time immemorial, have employed hallucinogenic drugs in the attempt to enhance their inner life and to gain access to new realms of visionary experience. The practices of induced dreams and dream incubation are other forms of evoking the symbolic potential of the psyche which have been widely utilized. These customs apparently were common in ancient Greece and Egypt, as well as in India, China, Islam, early Christianity and primitive peoples (de Becker, 1965). These practices form an interesting link with contemporary use of guided imagery in that the person provoking a dream to seek guidance for an important decision or healing of an illness tried to establish contact with a "god" or archetypal healing image that could provide this help. In much the same way, modem mental imagery techniques evoke numinous symbols through which the subject receives inner guidance and healing experiences. In the field of Western psychology, the early pioneers in the use of mental imagery were Francis Galton (Galton, 1883), and Alfred Binet (Binet, 1903), both of whom were primarily interested in its relationship to intelligence and mental faculties. In the psychotherapeutic realm, it was Pierre Janet who first noted the interest of the reverie state and attempted to use images in his therapeutic work. In particular, he found that a technique of substituting one image for another was effective in his efforts to overcome the "idees fixes" of hysterical patients, (Janet, 1898), and certain schools of mental imagery still employ his technique of substitution. The first psychotherapeutic approach based primarily on the use of mental imagery techniques, according to the authors of the most authoritative text in this field (Virel and Frétigny, 1968) was that of the German doctor, Carl Happich. Happich's method, which he started to develop around 1920 utilized a number of predetermined scenes such as a meadow, a mountain, or a chapel, as points of departure. The approach employed by Happich is described in the English translation of Kretschmer's article (Kretschmer, 1951) which appears in the book Psychosynthesis (Assagioli, 1965). His subjects would go through the prescribed visualisation, reporting their experience afterwards to the guide. Happich used this technique in both diagnostic and therapeutic modes, and would have his patients repeat the visualisation until they were able to experience positive symbols, eliminating negative signs such as a rotting stump in the meadow. His emphasis was strongly religious and Christian, and his goal was spiritual integration. In addition, Happich had his patients meditated on what he called "designs", which were mandala-like structures, and on words or sayings. He believed that preliminary relaxation was important to the success of his method, and to this end emphasized breathing exercises. In France, the use of guided imagery techniques in psychotherapy developed at first under the inspiration of Robert Desoille who borrowed the name for his method, "rêve éveillé" or "waking dream" from Leon Daudet. Desoille was an engineer who had studied some psychology on his own. He never claimed to be a professional psychotherapist, nor did he charge fees for his sessions, though today his method is the basis of one of the two 3 major schools of mental imagery in France and is widely practiced by therapists there. His work is less known in the English-speaking world owing to the unavailability of most of it in translation. Desoille went through many phases in his evolution with the "waking dream" method. His source for the method, though never officially acknowledged, was the occultist, Eugéne Caslant, who taught a technique in which subjects visualized. themselves as rising or descending in imaginal space as a means of psychic development (Caslant, 1937). Caslant seemed to believe that the archetypal figures thereby encountered were actual celestial beings, though Desoille was inclined to interpret them as archetypes of the collective unconscious. From his occultist origins Desoille went through a period in which he was influenced by Freudian thought, then by Jung, and finally by Pavlov, (Desoille, 1961), though it seems that the latter may have been more related to his political leanings than to his basic psychological affinities. In Desoille's method, the subject lies down with eyes closed in a darkened room. He is asked by the guide to imagine various scenes of rising or descending in imaginal* space. Desoille recommends beginning with the images of ascension which he associates with sublimation and evocation of the person's higher ethical and spiritual tendencies. The images of ascent frequently lead to encounters with archetypal celestial beings and finally to experiences of a mystical nature in which the subject merges with or is surrounded by light. Desoille believes that such experiences are strengthening and reassuring to the subject, preparing him to face the usually more difficult experiences of descent in imaginal space. The images of descent lead the subject down through holes in the earth or under the sea to encounter archetypal images of animals, monsters and ethonic or underworld entities representing his more primitive, instinctual side. He is encouraged to confront these experiences with courage, and Desoille is not opposed to having the subject destroy his antagonist on occasion.
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