Emotion-image therapy (EIT) [analytical and effective]. Nikolay Linde
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there no fear?
– No, there is the expectation of fear…
– This is just the habit, but there is no fear. Your problem has been solved. Your claustrophobia is your childhood fear of being alone. A closed – up space provokes your fears of being alone. Some time ago you probably had some injury. Did your mother do anything in the wrong way? If you wish you can tell me but it is not necessary.
– Yes, I was always afraid to stay alone. If there is somebody near me I am not afraid. In my childhood I was always waiting for my mother’s return from work… [She was crying.]
– Don’t ever send away you Inner Child, he wouldn’t feel alone anymore! Do you like this result?
– Yes, I do! [She rushed to embrace me still crying.]
I wished her all the best in her life, hoping for a future meeting. Still a few minutes were left before the beginning of the meeting, I was not late…
On the next day her friend called ne by cell phone, she confirmed that everything was all right.
These two examples are given to show how quickly and easily the analyses of a psychological problem and its correction can go on with the help of the EIT. As doctors say:” The one who diagnoses well, treats well”. These cases also illustrate the principle, that when you work with the EIT “the cure” happens here and now, if the correcting influence is used adequately. But to be able to get such results one must know a lot, quickly analyze problems and train one’s intuition. The work of the doctor that we can see is only “the above– water part of the iceberg”, its effectiveness is determined by having and correct using of “the under– water part”. So not always things happen so easily and quickly, often the image analysis is long and hard. Not everything depends on the doctor, 80 % of success is provided by honest and concerned work of the client.
1. SPONTANEUOS IMAGES
The EIT method is based on the certainty that something accidental doesn’t really happen by accident, and spontaneous images created by the client, that express his feelings and his psychosomatic state, demonstrate exactly the problem which gave rise to this undesirable emotional and psychosomatic state. Every séance confirms this principle as well as all other projective psychological methods.
But the first question that is posed to me during seminars is: “Are all people able to easily produce images?”
Yes, certainly. All people are able to do it. If a person wasn’t able to operate imagined images, he wouldn’t have finished the primary school. There they asked him: “If you have two apples and you give one to Vasja, how many apples are left?” Visually imaginative and visually active thinking is more simple and easier to understand than abstract– verbal. We have already said that images are primary language of our psyche, created by nature itself.
All people have dreams, our psyche creates absolutely ingenious stories, makes “movies” about ourselves, and we must use these abilities. We try to use spontaneous images which are created by the subconsciousness, they are most truthful. For that reason we ask the client to tell us about the very first image that comes to his mind, proceeding from the principle what occurred will do.
Another thing is that not all people want to use the language of images. There are a few categories of inconvenient clients.
1. A highly intellectual man with a technical mindset. This type of people usually tries to speak at an abstract– logical level treating himself as a mechanism. He doesn’t trust freely emerging images, he wants to logically substantiate everything, to work consciously, to discuss versions, to control the process. He is careful not to plunge in the world of emotions, his technical mindset made a comfortable niche where he can avoid any contact with the irrational part of his personality. The problem is that his problems are in the irrational world of emotions, and it’s right there that he doesn’t want to go. According to Sigmund Freud, he is disposed to psychological defense called “intellectualization”. People with obtrusiveness are also disposed to such defense.
Sometimes it helps if you tell such an English anecdote and it is to the point:
A drunk man is looking for something in the park under a street lamp. A policeman comes up to him.
– Sir, what are you looking for here?
– Well, I’ve lost my keys over there, in the park, I can’t get into my house!
– But sir, why are you looking for them here if you lost them there?
– But it is dark there!
You can say that the EIT method gives to the patient a hand flashlight so that he could look for something where it is dark.
2. Any other clients who are suspicious about psychotherapy. They are afraid to trust the doctor, want to expose his incompetence, to contradict him. They perceive therapy like struggle. They realize that creating an image they reveal themselves and it is just this that they are afraid of. You have to spend some time to win his trust and create the atmosphere of cooperation.
3. Clients who create images but don’t associate emotions with them. They discuss and dream up but they don’t feel. They work but as if from the outside towards themselves, which means that nothing happens to their feelings. You must switch over to discussing the reasons why they avoid having real feelings.
In every case when images are difficult for the client to create it is the sigh of some worry [the ways to facilitate creating images are discussed below], or some defense mechanisms. So as psychoanalysts realized before, if you face a defense or resistance you should focus on this defense or resistance. This can be discussed verbally but it is better to ask the client to create the image of the defense preventing the creation of images, to find out how it works and for what purpose and so on.
But in the final analysis, if this method doesn’t suit somebody it only means that he is deprived of the opportunity to use its advantages. If he wants to get the result he must try and if he wants to find a more suitable method then let him try. The choice is very big today, and every person can find what he likes more, what will prove more effective in solving his problem. We don’t claim that we have created a panacea. In medicine in general a lot of people look for their method and their doctor, even the right diagnosing may be a very complicated task.
The second questioned that is usually asked is where you can find a full list of images and their interpretation. I have already mentioned that there are special reference books on this matter, there is a brief dictionary of images in this book too, but it is not enough. The question should be asked in a different way: how to analyze images? In our method there are no mechanical ways of analysis, the work is always creative, but there are main principles and methods of image analysis.
The following methods may help:
1. The study of sensory qualities of an image. At first the doctor asks the client to describe the image in detail. If it is a tree then what kind of tree it is, trees may be different…If it is a stone then what its form is, its color, its weight. If it is a dwarf then how tall it is, how it is dressed, how his face looks. For example: You said it was a stain. What kind of stain? Stains can be different. Is it big? What about its form, color, consistence?
In determining the character of an image its color is very important. According to the color definitely positive colors are shining, silver, gray, sparkling, transparent, blue, light– blue, golden, rainbow, white, pink and so on. But color alone doesn’t reveal the meaning. Sparkling colors definitely have the emotional tone of joy. All nature images are positive: trees, grass, soil, flowers and so on. Intuitively all people think that black colors are by all means “bad”. This is not true. Black soil, for instance, is quite a positive image. But other black images may simply hide their real meaning. For example, a black imp is the image of a mischievous, naughty child. But doesn’t mean he is bad. “Bad” colors have the tone of poison, they are rotten, annoying, oppressive and so on. The same is true of disharmonious, sounds. So are all stinking smells, like that of burning rubber. Kinesthetic feelings – pressing, causing pain, prickly, tearing feelings, that of something alien. The feeling of emptiness,