Whenever he uncovered the images "concealed" within his troubled feelings, the great psychoanalyst Carl Jung observed, he became "inwardly calmed and reassured" (3, p. 185). "Start[ing] with your point of trouble" (4, p. 208), as Jung did, is a time-honored method in therapeutic imagery.

Start by letting your depression engulf you: really feel it. Then let a mental image of it take shape -- a place, an object, a soundscape, a tactile image, an image of yourself (perhaps exaggerated in some way)... If you're blank, keep saying "I feel like..." Take time to develop and refine the image until it seems to fit your depression like a glove.

Now, be with the image, and either allow it to change of its own accord (this is a movie, not a snapshot) or actively nudge it along yourself. The goal is for the image to develop organically from negative to positive.

Say your image is of a desert. To actively work on it, you might roll in some clouds and let it rain. Then imagine vegetation springing up, transforming the desert into a fertile plain. If you let the image unfold of its own accord, it might follow a less predictable course. Perhaps the sun would grow hotter and hotter, literally incinerating or vaporizing the desert, leaving you suspended in a cool, dark vacuum. Then, drops of heavenly rain would condense, showering you with a wonderfully vitalizing torrent, while, down below, a lush valley would spring to life.

Books Popular Music Classical Music Videos Search by keywords:

Toys Consumer Electronics Search by keywords:

4. Gerald Epstein, Healing Visualizations (New York: Bantam, 1989).