Images and Symbols: The Glue of Habit, The Lubricant of Change

CHAPTER FOUR

A Manual of Guided Imagery and Other Techniques

BY ARLENE F. HARDER, MA, MFT

Chapter - 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10 - 11 - 12 - 13

Long before I began graduate studies, I enjoyed metaphors and symbols. I don’t know if my corpus callosum [see You Need Both Sides of Your Brain] is larger than average or structured in such a way that it wants to weave together the way in which both sides of my brain process information. But I had often noticed the relationship between a thought that was very logical and one that was not.

Out of that observation I would create analogies to explain the correlation. Sometimes my metaphors worked, other times I just muddied the waters and could see that my trying-to-tie-everything-together perspective was too convoluted to be helpful for others to understand what I meant. A straight-forward logical statement of the facts, or a clearer metaphor, would have worked better.

I needed a way to balance the concrete, rational, verbal way I thought with the symbolic, non-verbal, intuitive approach I used in evaluating my experiences. I found a way to do this with Psychosynthesis, an approach to psychology developed by Roberto Assagoli, an Italian psychiatrist. The name of this approach to understanding human behavior takes its name from the combination of psyche or “self” and synthesis or “integration” — what we might call “getting your act together.” It is an easy-to-understand, holistic approach for balancing linear and holistic, verbal and non-verbal, concrete and symbolic, and logical and intuitive thought processes.

With Psychosynthesis I was introduced to the concept of the “true self” that operates in the best interest of both us and others. I also met my “subpersonalities” who believe they are the center of who we are. These constellations of behaviors, beliefs, memories and perspective on life are clusters of energy that prevent us from seeing the whole picture. The “little child,” the “stubborn one,” the “angry and demanding one,” and dozens more, lie waiting for some circumstance to set them off and take over.

As I worked on my own subpersonalities, such as the “critic” and the “perfectionist,” I realized that integrating the images and emotions of the right brain — images that add depth and flavor to our lives and play a vital role in making us human — with more rational thought processes, allowing me to create metaphors that more closely expressed the relationship between what I experienced with both my left and right hemispheres.

Consequently, I have often incorporated techniques I learned in Psychosynthesis in work with clients. Yet like many therapists and coaches, I use a variety of techniques. Sometimes good old behavioral methods are called for. Other times, simply listening works best to allow the venting of a current crisis or long-suppressed emotions. Often helping a client choose a goal and work toward it with clear steps is the best way to proceed.

In all my work, however, I am always aware that intuition, images and symbols play a vital role in expanding the mind and solving many seemingly intransigent problems. That is why for more than twenty years I have used imagery and similar techniques for my own personal growth, created dozens of imagery exercises for clients, taught imagery workshops, and written about imagery on my websites.

A Manual in Four Parts

In Images and Symbols: The Glue of Habit, the Lubricant of Change, I bring together years of practice in the field of imagery and arrange the material into the following four parts:

PART ONE: Opening Up the Right Side of the Brain

This first part, which you are reading right now, introduces you to the basic concepts of imagery techniques and discusses why and how imagery can increase creativity and expand the potential for using intuition to solve many of the situations you face each day.

PART TWO: Hidden Resources for Successful Living and Satisfying Relationships

This second part, with twenty-five guided imagery exercises (also called “scripts”), is designed to help you learn how to get your ego out of your way. The exercises cover topics ranging from learning how to access the wise voice within to strengthening relationships and managing anger. They are highly useful not only to get yourself out of a rut when you’re in therapy, but moving on to a goal when you are working with a coach.

PART THREE: Healing Imagery to Cope With Stress and Illness

Here you will find twenty guided imagery scripts and other exercises that will help you achieve and maintain vitality and deal with the aches, pains and illness that are part of every life. Using these when you are sick and/or facing a medical procedure, will help you participate more fully in treatment, which research has shown reduces pain and decreases recovery time.

Many of these exercises were created for imagery classes I taught at The Wellness Community—Foothills in California. This is a psychosocial support center I co-founded in 1990 that is part of a national program for cancer patients and their families.

PART FOUR: Using Personal Symbols Every Day

The final part of the manual focuses on the way in which symbols can reinforce goals, remind you of the qualities you want to express, and support your purpose in life.

Writing for Therapists, Coaches, and Clients

I suspect that some of you who are reading this first part of the manual, and who may want to purchase the other three parts, are therapists and coaches who had been introduced to imagery techniques in a yoga class, in your own work as a client in therapy or coaching, or in a continuing education workshop, etc. Recognizing the power of these techniques, you may want to understand more about images and symbols before introducing these powerful techniques to your clients.

If you have had quite a bit of experience with imagery and have bought this manual to add to your repertoire of imagery techniques, I’m sure you will find more than a few ideas you haven’t tried yet.

However, I also assume that some of you have been clients, are currently clients, or plan to be clients of a therapist or coach. You, too, may have experienced a few, or many, guided imagery exercises. This book is also for you because I believe that the more you use these techniques on your own — or with the help of the professional with whom you’re working — the effort you make for personal growth will proceed more smoothly.

Knowing that such a broad audience may be reading this manual, the question for me in writing this has been: Who is the “you” to whom I should address my words? Finally, I decided that I would address the book to the therapist, coach, or client who has had limited experience with guided imagery. Since I firmly believe that you can’t effectively take another person through these exercises if you, yourself, haven’t gone through them, I am hoping that therapists and coaches will work on the exercises much as their clients will.

Different Approaches to Using Imagery Scripts

I have written these scripts with the hope that you will feel free to experience them in whatever way is best for you. As with all imagery scripts, you can use any of these in three ways.

Simply read it as you would read any article, with the purpose of learning something and exploring how the ideas might apply to you.

Go into the piece more deeply by reading it several times to yourself. Pause when you come to breaks identified by three periods (. . .) in order to have time to experience that part of the imagery exercise in whatever way seems best to you.

Consider what happens when you read a novel. You get caught up in the scene that is unfolding, which is what makes Stephen King scary and Elisabeth George less so, but still engaging. You know intellectually that what you’re reading isn’t really happening to you. But the images in your mind that correspond to the words on the paper bring the novel to life. You participate in the story vicariously because you already have images within your own mind, based on your experiences, that give meaning to the words the author uses to express the way he or she sees the character.

Imagine how much more powerful it would be to read an imagery script with the deliberate intention of placing yourself in the scene that is being described. Allow yourself to feel as much a part of the process as you can, being aware of the “images” you experience of sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and touch suggested by the script. And be sure to sense how your body feels as you go through the exercise.

First read the script out loud into a tape player (or have a friend or family member read it for you). When you play the tape back, listen just as you would if you were listening to an imagery CD or tape you purchased. Don’t worry if you don’t like the sound of your voice at first. Our recorded voice always sounds strange to us; that’s because we are now hearing our voice from vibrations that come through the air, together with the resonance of those vibrations within our bones, which is how we normally hear ourselves.

Images and Symbols at the Grocery Counter

I once had the privilege of listening to a talk on imagery and healing by Rachel Naomi Remen, a physician, professor of medicine, therapist, long-term survivor of chronic illness, and founder of Commonweal, a support group for people facing terminal illness. As she began leading the exercise, someone started to turn down the lights. “Leave them on,” she said. “I want you to know how to do this when you're standing in a grocery line. It's easy to find your calm center within when everything's quiet and the lights are low, it's much harder if life is going on around you..”

After reading about imagery and practicing a few of the exercises, I hope that that you, too, will someday soon be standing in the check-out line and find you can be in touch with the calm center within you created when experiencing imagery exercises.

© Copyright 2008, Arlene Harder, MA, MFT