Emotion-image therapy (EIT) [analytical and effective]. Nikolay Linde
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times, until the full positive change of the image and the state is achieved. If the result is negative the doctor interprets it too, then this impact can be canceled and a new impact of a completely opposite meaning may be applied. But the reasons of the initial failure are analyzed and sometimes it turns out that in spite of the explanations and clear instruction, the client did everything in the opposite way. For example, the doctor asked him to accept the Inner Child but the client rejected it again. The reasons of such actions are again analyzed together with the client.
The interpretations are often given later when the correction is successfully completed. Though, when the individual work lasts long and consists of a number of séances, numerous interpretations and explanations are given, many impacts are made which let remove layers of psychological defenses and delusions one after another.
Different technics, which will be described below, may be used to correct the problem revealed. A special chapter will be devoted to these technics. They are used not automatically but according to the meaning of the problem. The methods of correction themselves are essentially emotional impacts, not just “technical” changes of images.
12. Working with resistance. A client is often resistant to realizing something about himself and changing it, even though he says he seeks self– knowledge and recovery. We have said already that in keeping with the principles used in psychoanalysis, we analyze the resistance itself. Usually we ask the client to create the image of what prevents him from understanding and changing himself. Then this image it studied as all others.
For example, a woman participating in the work of a therapeutic group, who usually answered my questions promptly and without thinking, suddenly started “to brake”. The reasons of that were not clear and I asked her to present an image of her “braking”. For some reason, it was the image of a three– year– old girl. Then I asked her to sit down on the chair where the image of the girl was projected and identify with it. When she did so her “braking” became even stronger, she stopped answering my questions altogether: why? what for? I guessed and asked: “Who are you braking for?” She answered at once: “For my grandmother!” Then I found out that at the age of three the girl was brought up by her authoritarian grandmother and resisted her by passive stubbornness. It turned out that her resistance to me as a doctor was the transfer of her resistance to her grandmother! In psychoanalysis, it is considered that the realization of the fact is sufficient for removing the resistance, but in actual fact it is not true, because the initial conflict is not resolved. Because of that we went another way, we offered this woman to tell her grandmother on behalf of the girl that she is clever enough and doesn’t want her grandmother’s lectures and pressure. After some repetitions the girl [and the client in the same person] felt full liberation from the grandmother’s influence and “the braking” stopped.
My student Irina Tabolina offered her original method of working with resistance. When the client, having identified himself with the image, doesn’t answer questions, doesn’t see the image and doesn’t feel anything, she asks him to stand up from the chair, move behind the back of the chair and tell who he is and who doesn’t let the client speak. If the client is still silent, he is asked to make another step back and stand behind the back of the previous imagined character. He is asked once again who he is and why he doesn’t let the client speak. This process sometimes continues as far as seven steps back. But sooner or later after one more step the client begins to speak, and then it becomes clear which parts of his personality or images of other people stopped him from moving forward. After that the resistance stops.
Other methods of work with resistance are also possible, for instance those which are traditional in psychoanalysis and in other therapeutic modalities. For example, you can praise the client for fortitude and resourcefulness that he displayed showing his resistance. You can say that he is awarded the honorary medal “Hero of Resistance”. You can conclude an additional agreement with him: “I will gain success in therapy even if my mother [my father] and my doctor don’t like it”. After that the resistance diminishes or completely disappears.
2. Creating the hypothesis
We have already said that the whole study of images is conducted proceeding from a hypothesis, that in some way emerges in the mind of the doctor. It is necessary to pay special attention to this process as everything depends on it. How does a hypothesis appear? This is a creative process and it can’t be fully discovered. But we can explain what a hypothesis is and define some important prerequisites for it to emerge as well as the procedures of its verification.
A hypothesis is a well– grounded supposition of the consultant about mechanisms and the psychological reason, that gives rise to the client’s problem. In the course of the work the hypothesis turns into a sure knowledge.
In literature, there is practically no information about how a therapeutic hypothesis is created. It is connected with the fact that, as it was said before, it is nearly impossible to describe the creative process that leads the doctor to his guesses. Besides a hypothesis is created on the basis of this or another theory, that’s why hypotheses may be different and the process of creating them differs in different schools. However, we will try to fill this gap as much as possible, despite differences in schools.
A well– formed hypothesis contains the answers to the following questions:
– What unrealized [frustrated] desire [or attraction] of the client gives rise to the problem under study?
– What is the nature of the barrier that doesn’t let achieve the desired?
– Which conditions or events of the client’s past were conductive to the origin of the conflict?
For example, a client has the fear of water. The imagined gradual plunging into the water showed that the fear comes when the water touches her throat. It seems to the girl that the water can strangle her. To the question if anyone ever strangled her in the past she answered in the affirmative: “A man attacked me in the dark park, tried to strangle me. But some people were passing by, so he got frightened and ran away”. She is afraid of dark alleys too.
The hypothesis is obvious:
a] the frustrating need of security;
b] the barrier to feeling safe and secure is her past experience, when the client couldn’t defend herself, felt helpless and frightened. The fear materializes in the situations which, by association, make her remember the trauma [water touching her throat or dark alleys];
c] the event that caused the fixed state of fear – the attack of the maniac who tried to strangle the girl. The memories don’t come by themselves probably because they were ousted, the emotions are experienced without the realization of their connection with the initial situation.
The final check of the hypothesis happened after using the method of restructuring of the past experience. For this purpose, the client was asked to imagine herself to be strong, invincible and doing with this scoundrel all she wants. She beat him till felt fully satisfied, and he [in her imagination] didn’t run away. She felt that she was not afraid of him any longer, the imagined plunging into the water didn’t frighten her either. In her mind, she could plunge into the water not only to her throat but even with her head underwater and she didn’t have any fear. This confirms that the hypothesis and curing actions were correct.
This case is quite simple to analyze, that’s why it is given here as an example. But even here you can notice that there appear some new aspects of the hypothesis. For example, the idea is raised in what way the past experience gives rise to fear and why the client remembers only emotions and not the traumatic situation.
A hypothesis can have many additional ideas explaining:
1] in what way inner psychological conflict originates symptoms;
2] what the meaning of every symptom from the viewpoint of its place in the structure of the problem as a whole is;
3] why the client doesn’t understand some psychic phenomena;
4] in what other way the inner problem can tell on the client’s life;
5] what forms of adaptation the client uses to avoid facing the problem;
6] what he gains from the existence of the problem;
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