Using Mental Imagery In Counselling And Psychotherapy

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.

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.

`I would recommend reading this enjoyable book in which the authors convey practical, creative and compassionate authenticity throughout. I think it will appeal to experienced counsellors, psychotherapists and arts therapists. It will also be a valuable resource to students′ - Therapy Today `Hall et al bring many years of practice and academic experience to their material. The book is accessible in its style and makes extensive use of interesting case histories′ - Eisteach (Journal for the Irish Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy) `fascinating scenarios.... a useful book to have - I have really enjoyed reading it′ - International Arts Therapies Journal (Online) Guided Imagery is a unique, practical guide to using imagery in one-to-one therapeutic work with clients. Through numerous examples drawn from their own experience, the authors show how the techniques involved can be integrated into everyday practice. The authors describe the different processes of using guided imagery and working from a script and show how drawing can be used to augment imagery work. In addition to planned strategies for using imagery, they also show how images which arise spontaneously during sessions can be harnessed and used to enhance the therapeutic process. The practical strategies and techniques outlined in the book are examined in the context of a variety of theoretical frameworks (the person-centred approach, gestalt, existentialism and psychosynthesis) and research findings. Potential pitfalls and ethical considerations are also explored, making Guided Imagery a useful resource for practitioners and an ideal text for use on counselling and psychotherapy training courses.

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.

In Using Mental Imagery to Enhance Creative and Work-Related Processes, Valerie Thomas explores the productive use of mental imagery skills to engage with the processes of creativity. Practical and original, the book offers detailed guidance for a highly effective method that can provide rich insights into the development of a range of creative enterprises, including artistic and work-related projects. In this accessible and innovative book, Thomas pays equal attention to the theory and application of mental imagery. First, she explains how imagination-based methods have been developed and theorised within the discipline of creative behaviour, especially with regard to dual-processing theories of creativity. The book then considers mental imagery as a dialogical method informed by contemporary post-Cartesian theories of embodied cognition that reprise an earlier premodern understanding of imagination as a mediator between body and mind. Thomas introduces a particular approach to mental imagery that, informed by a functional research-informed framework (the Interactive Communicative model of mental imagery), can be applied very effectively to creative processes. The second half of the book provides detailed guidance on how to apply this particular method and is copiously illustrated with case vignettes. It includes chapters on using imagery theorised as conceptual metaphors such as the plant image for representing creative capabilities and the building image for representing creative and work-related projects. It also explains how to use imagery to represent and work with the conceptual processes of undertaking qualitative research projects. This original and wide-ranging book advances the scope and use of creative image-work in diverse settings. It will be an essential resource for everyone who is interested in developing their own mental imagery skills for creative real-world applications and for all professionals such as coaches, therapists and research educators who want to facilitate creativity in others.

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.

Imagery and the Threatened Self considers the role that images of the self play in a number of common mental health problems and how these images can be used to help sufferers to recover from mental health problems.

Imagery is one of the new, exciting frontiers in cognitive therapy. From the outset of cognitive therapy, its founder Dr. Aaron T. Beck recognised the importance of imagery in the understanding and treatment of patient's problems. However, despite Beck's prescience, clinical research on imagery, and the integration of imagery interventions into clinical practice, developed slowly. It is only in the past 10 years that most writing and research on imagery in cognitive therapy has been conducted. The Oxford Guide to Imagery in Cognitive Therapy is a landmark book, which will play an important role in the next phase of cognitive therapy's development. Clinicians and researchers are starting to recognise the centrality of imagery in the development, maintenance and treatment of psychological disorders - for example, in social phobia, agoraphobia, depression, PTSD, eating disorders, childhood trauma, and personality disorder. In the fields of cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience, researchers are identifying the key role that imagery plays in emotion, cognition and psychopathology. The Oxford Guide to Imagery in Cognitive Therapy has been written both for clinicians and researchers. For clinicians, it is a user-friendly, practical guide to imagery, which will enable therapists to understand imagery phenomenology, and to integrate imagery-based interventions into their cognitive therapy practice. For researchers, it provides a state-of-the-art summary of imagery research, and points the way to future studies. Written by three well-respected CBT researcher-clinicians, it is essential reading for all cognitive therapists, who have recognised the limitations of purely 'verbal' CBT techniques, and want to find new ways to work with clients with psychological disorders.