Authentic
Counselling Training
Working with Imagery
[Under
construction: 23 August 2004]
This
document in all parts is copyright © Peter Hughes from the date of construction
given above. Please feel free to make use of it for solely personal purposes.
However, should you wish to use it for teaching, training, commercial or other
purposes, you are required first to obtain my permission.
Imagery work
"Words can be used as
counters, but they have a life and history of their own" (Hobson, p.61)
and for each individual that life and history is very diverse and, where images
are concerned, that history may reach a long way back, even beyond conscious
memory. As noted above, images may have referents in the client's experience at
which no-one else could even begin to guess, and may also exist in combination
with other images that have no obviously ‘logical’ connection.
A counselling client’s
imagery can be worked with in many different ways: through words alone,
expressively on paper or using some other medium, in a guided way, in a way
that seeks transformation. Whilst choice of approach will be decided by the
counsellor, that decision will be informed, at least in part, by the client’s
preferences. The client of a person-centred counsellor may bring to the
counselling room a poem or a drawing: how is the counsellor to respond? Another
client might ask to work with stones or to speak to an empty chair: how is the
counsellor to respond? Can imagery work be brought into a person-centred way of
counselling; and if so, how?
Imagery involves
symbolisation, which means that the imagery can easily be made subject to
interpretation. Consequently, therapeutic approaches that involve
interpretation as a way of working, such as Freudian and Jungian
psychoanalysis, and psychosynthesis, typically have developed ways of working
with a client’s imagery. Those ways of working may ascribe more public meanings
to the client’s inner expereinces. On the other hand, person-centred ways of
working with a client’s imagery give full respect to the meanings a client
attributes to those images. Indeed, Carl Rogers, in the video-taped interview
with Cathy, explored in detail some of Cathy's metaphors and images. However,
the person-centred counsellor may be faced with some difficulties: some styles
of working with imagery are far from non-directive; the person-centred core
conditions of genuineness, empathic understanding, and unconditional positive
regard may get in the way of imagery development, intruding on the unfolding of
the client’s inner world of metaphors and images, and overlaying the client’s
world with that of the counsellor. A popular way of working with a client’s
imagery involves reducing the presence of a person-centred relationship. It is
valuable to consider ways of being more abstinent about personal interaction,
for example, reducing the usual level of eye contact.
Working
with Imagery pages: Introduction
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Bibliography
This
document in all parts is copyright © Peter Hughes from the date of construction
given above.
These
documents have taken me years of my own, unpaid time to perfect. Please feel
free to make use of them for solely personal purposes. However, should you wish
to use them for teaching, training, commercial or other purposes, you are
required to ask me first.