What
is Guided Imagery?
A mental image can
be defined as a thought with sensory qualities. It is
something we mentally see, hear, taste, smell, touch, or
feel.
The term “guided imagery” refers to a wide variety of
techniques, including simple visualization and direct
suggestion using imagery, metaphor and story-telling,
fantasy exploration and game playing, dream interpretation,
drawing, and active imagination where elements of the
unconscious are invited to appear as images that can
communicate with the conscious mind.
Once considered an “alternative” “or complementary”
approach, guided imagery is now finding widespread
scientific and public acceptance, and it is being used to
teach psychophysiological relaxation, alleviate anxiety and
depression, relieve physical and psychological symptoms,
overcome health-endangering habits, resolve conflicts, and
help patients prepare for surgery and tolerate procedures
more comfortably.
Mental images, formed long before we learn to understand
and use words, lie at the core of who we think we are, what
we believe the world is like, what we feel we deserve, what
we think will happen to us, and how motivated we are to
take care of ourselves. These images strongly influence our
beliefs and attitudes about how we fall ill, and what will
help us to get better.
All healing rituals involve manipulation of these images,
either overtly or covertly, and thus guided imagery can be
considered one of the oldest and most ubiquitous forms of
medicine. The healing rituals of various cultures that have
persisted over time all have a certain level of clinical
efficacy, and while we may attribute these therapeutic
benefits to ‘placebo effects’, they have real and
measurable effects with important implications for our
understanding of the healing process.
In the early 1970s, inspired by the pioneering work of
Irving Oyle, Carl and Stephanie Simonton, Robert Assagioli
and others, Drs. David Bresler and Martin Rossman began to
develop and research contemporary imagery approaches for
patients coping with chronic pain, immune dysfunction,
cancer, heart disease, and other catastrophic and
life-threatening illnesses.
By integrating techniques originating from Jungian
psychology, Gestalt therapy, Psychosynthesis, Ericksonian
hypnotherapy, object relations theory, humanistic
psychology, and advanced communications theory, these
approaches were constantly redefined, expanded, tested, and
codified, giving birth to Interactive Guided
Imagerysm, an extremely powerful, yet remarkably
safe and rapid therapeutic approach for mobilizing the
untapped healing resources of the mind.
In 1989, the Academy for Guided Imagery was founded to
provide in-depth training for clinicians and health
educators, to raise public and professional awareness about
the benefits of imagery, and to support research,
professional communication, and the dissemination of
imagery-related information.
Since then, the Academy has obtained professional
accreditation, recruited an interdisciplinary faculty,
sponsored and conducted clinical research, and set the
highest contemporary standards for Professional
Certification in Interactive Guided Imagerysm.