Imagery


Book Description

The fifth volume of Imagery emanates from the matrix of presentations offered after the conventions of the American Association for Mental Imagery for the years 1987 and 1988. The first meeting was held in Toronto; the second at Yale University. An overview of the presentations covered such a variety of subjects that we thought the subtitle would be most appropriately--Current Perspectives. For the first time in five volumes, two contributions are related to anthropological imagery by Caughey and Brink. John Caughey, whose book, Imaginary Social Worlds pioneered the social psychology approach to the silent inner imagination, offers a fine chapter in anthropological imagery of his own experiences with Sufi mystics in Pakistan and Micronesian Islanders in the Western Pacific compared to middle-class Americans. Nicholas Brink follows with a chapter on "The Healing Powers of the Native American Medicine Wheel. " Theoretical studies with interesting experimental designs are presented by Huneycutt, 'fA Functional Analysis of Imagined Interaction Activity in Everyday Life" by Kunzendorf and Hoyle on "Auditory Percepts, Mental Images and Hypnotic Hallucinations: Similarities and Differences in Auditory Evoked Potentials"; and by Giambia and Grodsky on "Task- Unrelated Images and Thoughts While Reading. " The relationship between creativity and mental imgery is presented by H. Rosenberg and W. Trusheim entitled, "Creative Transformations: How Visual Artists, Musicians and Dancers Use Mental Imagery in Their Work," and Colalillo-Kates discusses "Dreamjourneys: Using Guided Imagery and Transformational Fantasy With Children.




Handbook of Therapeutic Imagery Techniques


Book Description

Consists of a description of a multitude of imagery techniques that have been grouped into four categories: hypno-behavioral, cognitive-behavioral, psychodynamic/humanistic and humanistic/transpersonal.




Imagery


Book Description

Imagery--the miraculous quality that human beings use to re-evoke and reorganize perceptions--is no longer considered idio syncratic. It is an absolutely integral part of human development and motivation which gives substance to subjective meaning and realistic aostract thought. A necessary ingredient of the trans mission and development of human life, imagery must be understood and carefully studied to enhance our knowledge and our lives. The imaginations people have of one another and the imagina tion one has of oneself are composed of the stuff that we call imagery. To my way of thinking, there is waking imagery (consist ing of our stream of images while we are awake) and dream, or sleep imagery (consisting of all that goes on in our minds while asleep). Daydreaming, reverie, fantasy, hallucinations and unbidden images are forms of waking imagery. Dreams, nightmares, hypnogogic and hypnopompic images are all part of sleep imagery. To be aware of and to study the manifestations and complexity of waking imagery--which appears to function in an effortless, instantaneous and ubiquitous manner--is now considered a fit sub ject for study after a half century of denial. The interest in and study of imagery has been far more empha sized in Europe than in America. In Sweden, for example, all clinical training for psychologists includes major emphasis on the works of Hanscarl Leuner and my own work in imagery.




Contemporary Child Psychotherapy


Book Description

Contemporary Child Psychotherapy: Integration and Imagination in Creative Clinical Practice demonstrates the step-by-step process of developing the depth of understanding, creativity, knowledge and skill that underpin a modern integrative child psychotherapist. Portrayed is a flexible model that is fluid and evolving, bringing together traditional, long-held ideas with fresh perspectives and up-to-date research. In bringing together psychoanalytic theory, attachment theory, trauma theories, the arts and creativity, neuroscience and the body, a rich framework is created. From this, the individual integrative child psychotherapist can choose the interventions which best foster the emotional development of each unique child and their parents today.




Using Mental Imagery in Counselling and Psychotherapy


Book Description

The therapeutic potential of working with clients' mental images is widely acknowledged, yet there is still little in the counselling and psychotherapy literature on more inclusive approaches to the clinical applications of mental imagery. Using Mental Imagery in Counselling and Psychotherapy is a unique, accessible guide for counsellors and psychotherapists who wish to develop their expertise in this important therapeutic practice. Contemporary practitioners have at their disposal a large repertoire of imagery methods and procedures comprising the contributions from different therapeutic schools and clinical innovators. Valerie Thomas identifies some of the common features in these approaches and offers a transtheoretical framework that supports integrative practitioners in understanding and using mental imagery to enhance therapeutic processes. The book: Examines the development of the theory and practice of mental imagery within a wider context of the history of imagination as a healing modality; Describes the different ways that mental imagery has been incorporated into therapeutic practice and evaluates recent developments; Reviews explanations of the therapeutic efficacy of mental imagery and considers how recent theoretical concepts provide a means of understanding the role that mental images play in processing experience; Includes reflections on ways to develop more inclusive theory and proposes a model that can inform integrative practice. Using a wide range of clinical vignettes to illustrate theory and cutting-edge research, Valerie Thomas proposes a new integrated model of practice. Providing clear and detailed guidance on applying the model to clinical practice, the book will be essential reading for psychotherapists and counsellors, both in practice and training, who wish to harness the therapeutic efficacy of mental imagery.




Unlocked


Book Description

Unlocked tells the stories of ten different people in therapy in various cultural and geographical contexts - from Saudi Arabia to Venice or New York. Each narrative explores a unique presenting situation and uncovers the complexities of the therapeutic experience. All therapeutic work described in this book happens online. Inspired by real client sessions, the therapist narrator and the clients' stories are fictionalized for privacy. Rather than presenting a barrier, Unlocked demonstrates how a curious and skilled therapist can make the most of the unexpected gifts that the 'screen' offers--be it the intrusion of a pet, a parent breaking into the session, or a client taking her therapist for a ride outside. Therapeutic conversations that happen on the screen have a surprising close-up quality; these stories convey the renewed intimacy and intensity of such practice and present new possibilities for the therapeutic process. They will be of interest not only to therapists who are transitioning their practice online but also to those considering therapy or curious about the therapeutic process.




Theoretical and Clinical Applications


Book Description

When discussion began four years aga about launehing the American Association for the Study of Mental Imagery there was still a great deal of skepticism on the part of many academic and clinical psychologists. They held to the gradually diminishing view that mental imagery was too idiosyncratic a subject for intensive study. However, there were sufficient visionaries to recognize the undeniable importance of imagery for the functioning of life in memory and the transmission of information. Through the valiant efforts of these pioneers in psychology, art and movement therapy, and others in the field of human relations the organization has grown and flourished. Even more important is the burgeoning of knowledge about the ubiquitous nature of imagery and its impact on life. The third annual meeting of AASMI was held in 1981 at Yale University under the sponsorship of president-elect Jerome L. Singer. Sixty-five persons presented papers, workshops and theoretical studies. This volume represents the broad array of topics and approaches offered at the conference. While it is informative and stimulating to read and study the articles in this volume they can convey only a fraction of the excitement and the knowledge available to those who attended the conference. The reader will reap a two-fold benefit from this volume, for not only does it cover a vast array of topics related to imagery, but it also offers the strong possibility that the results of these works can be included in one's daily work as a clinician and/or researcher.




The Power of Human Imagination


Book Description

For at least half of the twentieth century, psychology and the other mental health professions all but ignored the significant adaptive pos sibilities of the human gift of imagery. Our capacity seemingly to duplicate sights, sounds, and other sensory experiences through some form of central brain process continues to remain a mysterious, alma st miraculous skill. Because imagery is so much a private experience, experimental psychologists found it hard to measure and turned their attentian to observable behaviors that could easily be studied in ani maIs as well as in humans. Psychoanalysts and others working with the emotionally disturbed continued to take imagery informatian se riously in the form of dream reports, transferenee fantasies, and as indications of hallucinations or delusions. On the whole, however, they emphasized the maladaptive aspects of the phenomena, the dis tortions and defensiveness or the "regressive" qualities of daydreams and sequences of images. The present volume grows out of a long series of investigations by the senior author that have suggested that daydreaming and the stream of consciousness are not simply manifestations in adult life of persist ing phenomena of childhood. Rather, the data suggest that imagery sequences represent a major system of encoding and transforming information, a basic human capacity that is inevitably part of the brain's storage process and one that has enormous potential for adap tive utility. A companian volume, The Stream of Consciousness, edited by Kenneth S. Pope and Jerome L.