Paula Góes explores the importance of imagination in psychosynthesis, for both clients and therapists.
One of our most extraordinary characteristics is the capacity for imagination. Everything we see in the world (with the exception of those things created by nature), started with an idea in someone’s minds. From the old-fashioned printer that materialised this article, to once only-imagined devices, such as 3D-printers, and including the ideas in this paper, everything starts with imagination. Arising first as seeds in the creator’s mind, ideas make their way into physical reality.
As creative beings, we all use imagination and symbols everyday, yet these are often engaged in unconscious, unconstructive and even harmful ways.(1) In our modern world, imagination is stultified,(2) and people have been conditioned to mistrust, ignore, suppress and feel guilty about their natural imagery.(3) Nevertheless, man relates to life ‘by way of symbolic meanings’, and it’s precisely these ‘symbolic meanings that have gone awry in neurosis’.(4)
In addition to manifesting objects and ideas in the physical world, imagination is an important personal growth resource, as it allows people to envisage alternative ways of living, thinking and feeling. To that end, psychosynthesis offers techniques to train the imagination, which, if skilfully applied, can empower clients to conceive the positive changes they wish in their lives, which is essential for the engagement of their will. If inappropriately used, on the other hand, engaging the imagination can also be potentially harmful.
Application, usefulness and limitations
I first heard about our stultified imaginations while studying for the Postgraduate Diploma in Psychosynthesis Counselling at the Psychosynthesis Trust. I didn’t know the meaning of the word ‘stultified’ and trainer Alan Frater’s explanation brought a powerful image to my mind: ‘lotus feet’ – the custom of applying binding to the feet of young girls to prevent further growth. This painful symbol gives richer meaning to the following quote from James Hillman: ‘The modern vision of the world and ourselves has stultified our imaginations… Some people in desperation have turned to witchcraft, magic and occultism, to drugs and madness, anything to rekindle imagination and find a world ensouled. But these reactions are not enough. What is needed is a revisioning, a fundamental shift of perspective out of that soulless predicament we call modern consciousness.’(2)
I remember my strong reaction to a question asked by my therapist during a session in which I was particularly despondent about my life. She asked what I imagined my life might be like in 20 years. This upset me terribly because I couldn’t even conjure up what I wanted it to be in three years. How could I not feel lost, if I had no ability to glimpse what I wished for myself? I had to start to excite my imagination, fantasise and hold my visions exuberantly, if I was to follow them. Many times, I had turned in despair to the tarot to feed my soul with a vision of my future self. This time, I used my daily meditation practice to explore possibilities. In a few days, I was able to fast forward my life in my mind’s eye, and even though I didn’t arrive at a precise prediction of my future, I did find a helpful image of what I wished my life to be like by the time I’m 60. This inner image, sparked by skilful command of my imagination, renewed my commitment to my path.
Ideal models
How clients imagine their ideal model of living is a question that was pivotal to my work as a trainee counsellor. Many clients face illness, emptiness and despair, maladies ‘caused by a person’s inability to wish’(4) – wish here being a ‘forming of the future, a moulding by a symbolic process which includes both memory and fantasy, of what we hope the future will be’.(4) Imagination, required for the formulation of wishes, is a skill that’s either undeveloped or uncontrolled, as Robert Gerard puts it, and needs to grow into skilful imagination: ‘If it is undeveloped, the person, when asked to visualise, often cannot see anything, for everything has to be intellectualised and cannot be experienced directly in the world of images. If imagination is uncontrolled, it may run rampant, cause a great deal of trouble, produce wild fancies, idle daydreaming, all the way to psychotic autistic fantasies. So, the purpose becomes to develop imagination, but in a way which will be creative, constructive, for the growth and development of the whole personality.’(5)
Along the same lines, Roberto Assagioli classified imagination, in the sense of evoking and creating images, as ‘one of the most important and spontaneously active functions of the human mind’.(1) Nonetheless, it ‘has to be controlled when excessive or dispersed; to be trained when weak; and to be utilized owing to its great potency’.(1) Terms associated with imagination appear in seven out of 10 of Assagioli’s Psychological Laws, and according to him: ‘All these symbols can be utilized in psychological exercises for fostering the corresponding transpersonal experiences and to bring about an increasing synthesis between the personal and the transpersonal aspects or levels, the manifestation of the Whole Man.’(6)
Working with the imagination
To that end, Assagioli and later contemporary authors(7), (8) compiled many techniques for the training and use of imagination, such as visualisation, guided imagery and auditory/sensory evocations. These lay the foundation for the use of a variety of psychosynthesis tools, such as identification/disidentification, meditation upon seed thoughts, free writing/drawing and ideal models. Applicable to a wide range of people, with very few limitations, these tools increase clients’ repertoire of knowing skills, help them to control and direct energies, bring catharsis, and motivate the development of desired trends.
It’s important to bear in mind, however, that ‘in working with the imagination, the negative must be addressed before the progressive and desired good may come about’.(8) Once the client’s problems are confronted head on and embraced, and they are able to perceive reality beyond presenting issues, the role of the therapist is to facilitate conscious acceptance and cooperation with symbols, helping them relate images to their history or external objective world, and access their own inner sources of healing and wisdom.
Because one of the goals of psychosynthesis is the fostering of the ethical and spiritual independence of clients, the emphasis of such exercises is not on the therapist’s guidance or reactions, but on an open exploration of the client’s relationship to images and their own interpretations. The therapist must make sure that messages evoked are grounded in the client’s life, either within the sessions or in follow-up discussions. Motivating clients to engage their own will to apply insights is a differential of psychosynthesis, as Crampton explains: ‘Though it values the wisdom and healing available through the unconscious, psychosynthesis also considers it necessary to help the person assume responsibility for what the unconscious reveals, and to use his will to integrate this material in his life.’(9)
Limitations and contraindications
Moreover, the therapist must be aware of the limitations and contraindications of engaging the client’s imagination in order to discern to whom, when and how to apply such tools, bearing in mind that, valuable as it is, working with symbols is not without restrictions: ‘…symbols have their dangers. In fact, he who takes them literally and does not pass beyond the symbol to reality, but halts before it, does not arrive at the underlying truth.’(6)
Among the cases requiring special attention are those of individuals for whom the ‘sense of reality is deficient or tends to fluctuate’,(1) and those with naturally over excited imaginations. In addition, clients mostly interested in the technique itself, rather than the integration of insights, should be treated with discretion. Talking about visualisation, Assagioli warns that therapists must ensure that substitution doesn’t become a symptom: ‘For example, certain obsessive-compulsive individuals would sometimes use, or rather misuse, this technique and make of it a ritual, which continues to utilize their chronic symptomatology.’(6)
The limitations vary from technique to technique. Using imagination to evoke ideal models is contraindicated with clients who ‘are victim to an excessive superego or internal critic’.(8) Mental imagery will be used to a limited degree with those who ‘prefer to indulge in the fascinating world of archetypal experience to the neglect of their practical life in the outer world’.(9) Auditory evocation shouldn’t be used with those who hear inner voices, ‘in which split parts of his personality or unconscious sub-personalities become so autonomous’.(1)
Additionally, therapists should avoid the technique of imaginative evocation of sensations when working with excessively body-oriented individuals, or those who pay unnecessary attention to their psychical conditions, such as hypochondriacs. Assagioli maintains that images ‘tend to produce the physical conditions and the external acts corresponding to them’.(1) So, the appearance of somatic symptoms may be a danger arising from the engagement of active imagination. Jungian psychologist von Franz recalls a psychogenic heart attack experienced by a client shortly after talking to a recurrent shadow figure from his dreams. This unconscious spontaneous reaction, she concludes, was ‘a psychogenic heart attack that warned the artist not to forget the heart’.(10)
As for challenges, therapists may face situations involving blocks and resistance to this type of work, such as lethargy, doubt, irritation, or attempts to edit, justify or analyse images and symbols hastily. Common among these situations is the perception that imagination isn’t real and shouldn’t be taken seriously. In a society that teaches us ‘to mistrust our imaginations as something alien to rational thought and sensible living’,(3) helping clients to trust theirs is a painstaking task that requires therapists to model the practice. Therapists may find it helpful to develop their own faculty of cognitive imagination and be able to visit the ‘mundus imaginalis’ themselves.(11)
I imagine, therefore I will
Noticing that Jung’s four fundamental psychic functions of the human being (sensation, feeling, thought and intuition) didn’t provide for a full description of man’s psychological life, Assagioli added impulse/desire and imagination. He then placed the will at the centre of his Star Diagram, closer to the Self, as a regulator between all other functions. In turn, pondering on the natures and similarities of imagination and will, I wonder whether the former is intrinsically linked to the latter, or even precedes it.
Assagioli seemed to support this when he claimed that ‘we cannot perform the simplest voluntary act, for instance, the movement of a muscle, unless the image of the movement has first been evoked’, and stated that ‘visualization is a necessary stage for action’.(1) May added that ‘there is no will without a prior wish’, asserting that ‘imagination is the home of intentionality’.(4) For him, the wheels are set in motion by the conception of the possibility, as fantasy pushes reality to a new depth: ‘Fantasy is the language of the total self, communicating, offering itself, trying on for size. It is the language of “I wish/I will” – the projection in imagination of the self into the situation.’(4)
Paraphrasing Émile Coué, Assagioli reminds us that ‘when will and imagination come into conflict, imagination wins’.(1) All of these suggest that the two must work in close cooperation, and I argue that perhaps one of the reasons behind failure in engaging clients’ will is their under-developed imaginations or inability to conceive goals and wishes. Paradoxically, at the same time that the activation of the will requires imagination, this too requires a degree of engagement of the will: clients must be willing to practice just to strengthen their ability to skilfully work with images.
What is more, these two functions, the basis of almost all psychosynthesis techniques, are very similar in nature. Like the will, imagination can operate concurrently at several levels – feeling, sensatiofn, thinking, and intuition, both consciously and unconsciously.(1) Besides, imagination can be trained, no different to the will. Further, as essential as developing skilful will is developing skilful imagination: it is necessary to de-stultify and educate both.
With this in mind, an augmentation of the Star Diagram can be imagined. I propose adding creativity as a new, broader psychological function, and relocating imagination to the centre, alongside the will, showing that they are intrinsically interlinked, forming a wheel revolving around the Self. In my imagination, it is a dynamic diagram resembling a toy windmill.
Using the metaphor of life as a journey, the ability of a traveller to locate where they are and imagine their next destination is a fundamental prerequisite for any change of direction, should they find themselves travelling an undesirable path. Without being able to face issues and imagine the life they wish, people are hardly able to engage their will skilfully, in order to make manifest any necessary changes. Imagination is, therefore, as essential to the process of psychosynthesis as it is for living.
In order to successfully apply imagination in clinical work, therapists must not only be familiar with techniques for developing and engaging their clients’ imagination, but they must also be aware of their applications and limitations. They must consider the appropriateness of active and receptive methods of working on a case-by-case basis, holding a sensitive and flexible approach, as there is not one single method that applies to all.
It’s also important to consider the role of the therapists’ own imagination, which must be sufficiently developed too. When acting as ‘external unifying centres’,(1) therapists hold the client’s potential, until they are able to provide internal unifying centres for themselves. Finally, by understanding that no particular goal must be attained, and that individuals have valuable inner wisdom, therapists shall not interfere with the client’s freedom when exploring their inner worlds, but help them integrate insights.
Last but not least, I argue that will and imagination are interdependent forces; equally essential to psychosynthesis and that they therefore deserve equivalent status in my Windmill Diagram. Inextricably tied up as regulators of other psychological functions, these two central motors take equivalent positions alongside the Self, to paraphrase and extend Assagioli’s celebrated quote: the centre of pure consciousness, imagination and will.
[Ends]
Paula Góes completed her training as a counsellor at the Psychosynthesis Trust in 2015.
References
1. Assagioli R. Psychosynthesis: a collection of basic writings. New York: Penguin; 1976.
2. Hillman J. Re-visioning psychology. New York: HarperPerennial; 1992.
3. Young Brown M. Unfolding self: the practice of psychosynthesis. New York: Allworth Press; 2004.
4. May R. Love and will. New York: Delta; 1989.
5. Gerard R. Psychosynthesis: a psychotherapy for the whole man. Los Angeles, CA: Psychosynthesis Research Foundation; 1961. [Online] http://synthesiscenter.org/articles/0114.pdf (accessed 14 October 2013).
6. Assagioli R. Symbols of transpersonal experience. Journal of Transpersonal Psychology 1969: 1. [Online.] http://www.psykosyntese.dk/a-182/ (accessed 13 October 2013).
7. Ferrucci P. What we may be: the visions and techniques of psychosynthesis. Wellingborough: Turnstone Press Limited; 1982.
8. Whitmore D. Psychosynthesis counselling in action. London: Sage Publications Ltd; 2000.
9. Crampton M. Guided imagery: a psychosynthesis approach. The works of Martha Crampton (CD). Amherst: Synthesis Distribution; 2005.
[Online] http://synthesiscenter.org/articles/Martha%20Crampton%20Guided%20Imagery.pdf (accessed 13 October 2013).
10. von Franz M. Active imagination in the psychology of CG Jung. Boston and London: Shambhala; 1993. [Online.] http://www.jungny.com/carl.jung.248.html (accessed 16 October 2013).
11. Corbin H. Mundus imaginalis or the imaginary and the imaginal. Cahiers Internationaux de Symbolisme 1964; 6:3–26. [Online.] http://hermetic.com/moorish/mundus-imaginalis.html (accessed 14 October 2013).