Emotion-image therapy (EIT) [analytical and effective]. Nikolay Linde
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of his parents’ family and so on.
For example, if you answer points 1– 4 about the previous story, you may suppose;
1] that the client has distorted relationships with men;
2] that she doesn’t only refuse to go into the water bur develops a pseudo theory that something is “happening with her head”;
3] that she has a closed character, that’s why she didn’t tell anybody about the attack;
4] that she displays a helplessness complex in other situations and so on.
You can verify these suppositions asking the client additional questions, but they may be unnecessary because the main reason is clear and the treatment has taken place.
The given example, however, doesn’t reveal the process of creating the hypothesis, you may say that it just “fell” in the hands of the doctor practically in the form of clear knowledge. So, we should reveal not only what the ideal form of a hypothesis should be but also how it is created and checked.
1. First and foremost, the basis of creating a hypothesis is a certain psychotherapeutic theory. It may be psychoanalysis, Alfred Adler’s theory [30– 32], transactional analysis of Eric Berne [33– 36], gestalt therapy [37– 39], Victor Frankl’s logotherapy [40], and so on. Usually a doctor naturally advocates one definite concept and creates a hypothesis in the frameworks of concepts used in it. But he may use another theory most suitable to explain the given case. Such eclectic approach seems to be most sensible at present.
2. The awareness of the so called particular models facilitates the search for an adequate hypothesis. These models readymade theoretical constructions which exist in scientific psychotherapeutic world. They explain the origin of different symptoms. The doctor tries the patterns known to him to explain the phenomena he faces and chooses the one that is most suitable, checking it by asking test questions. A lot of such models are described in my book “Psychological counseling. Theory and practice” [5].
3. The knowledge of different therapeutic cases also helps the doctor. New cases may be somewhat similar to those he had in his practice before. Or it may remind those he read about in literature. Or those he watched in the work of other professionals, for example when he studied in a group.
4. His own practice of being a client in the course of the so– called learning therapy. He solves many problems by analogy with problems he solved before, using the whole arsenal of methods of the professional instructing him. Gestalt therapists joke that “the client always brings us our problem”. For that reason psychotherapy cures the psycho– therapist himself, and curing the client is a by– result. But there is more truth than humor in this joke. The doctor always applies the client’s problem to himself, if he can solve it for himself he will solve it for the client too.
5. The doctor is also helped by broad erudition, the knowledge of philosophy and religion, just great life experience, being familiar with various life collisions and people’s characters.
6. The doctor is led by intuition, his ability to empathy, using the feeling of emotional resonance with the current state of the client, his ability to put himself in the situation of the client, being attentive to details, meditations leading to insight.
7. Finally the doctor must be very shrewd and have a great intellect. His work at the stage of creating a hypothesis is like the work of an investigator. Among detectives you can meet a Sherlock Holmes and a useless Lestrade, the same may be true of doctors. You should train your professional and psychological thinking.
8. But probably the most important thing that helps a doctor is the skill of looking for “evidence”. In psychoanalysis this is the method of free associations and dream analysis, in A. Adler’s therapy it is the analysis of early memories, in therapy through emotions and images it is the work with the images of emotional states, in cognitive therapy this is registration and analysis of automatic thoughts and so on.
A ready hypothesis originates very seldom. At first it is very vague, then is verified and checked. They are collected as parts of a mosaic from very different sources. To collect them you use various methods allowing to extract the necessary information out of the subconscious world of the client and from the anamnesis. But you should remember that you can get part of the information by asking simple questions about the life story of the person. A client may deliberately hide some information, he may distort some information, and he may simply not know something about himself. We gain some information watching his non– verbal behavior, and some we “calculate” analyzing the facts given by the client.
Fig. 4. Creating a hypothesis with the help of theoretical structures unites in one system: symptoms – emotions – images – inner conflict – past events – chronic negative state.
We have already mentioned that in the EIT the main source of “evidence” are images produced by the client, when he is asked to imagine how feelings and emotions look. For example, a girl complains about the pain the whole left part of her body. She is asked to create the image of what causes this pain. In surprise, she said that she saw her father who is shouting something in her ear and she didn’t want to hear it. The reason of her psychosomatic state becomes quite clear, though you can still ask her many questions clearing up her relations with her father and thy will probably take us to her distant childhood. To correct her state, I asked her to offered her to tell the image of her father: “Shout, shout louder, I want to hear you better!” In surprise, she confirmed that “the father” calmed down and the pain she felt passed. Because the pain originated from virtual struggle with the opinion or her father whom she was afraid of. When the struggle stopped, the pain disappeared.
But whatever method a doctor uses he collects the necessary and sufficient information about how the problem reveals itself at present and in the life story of the client and tries to make one whole of it from the point of view if cause and effect. If the picture he created lack some parts, he asks additional questions to fill these gaps. All methods like those of free associations of creating images are just ways to ask the right question. The task is to get answers to key points of the hypothesis, enumerated above, which must be revealed.
Let me give an example that will show clearly the stages of creating a hypothesis and its verification, besides it illustrates our principles of working with the problems of “the Inner Child” [see below].
At a seminar a student asked me to help her solve her problem. She dealt with gestalt therapy, asked the gestalt therapist to help her, but he failed and she was disappointed. She agreed to solve her problem in the presence of all her student groupmates. She complained about feeling inner weakness, apathy, but her main symptom as she thought was “the fear of her stomach”. In other words, there were some unpleasant feelings hidden in her stomach, like some tension, some fear and these feelings became stronger when somebody touched her stomach, even if tis somebody was a friend. She struggled with this feeling she even made a hole in the area of her navel for a ring, but nothing helped. She was also tortured by the thoughts whether or not she would be able to have children in future [she was 20 years old and not married yet]. Let’s call her Kate.
I asked her to create the image of this “fear of the stomach” on the chair in front of her. She said at once that it was a nasty dirty rat with a long tail. The rat wanted to eat something in her stomach, some black spot. It was this spot that was afraid! So the symptom [it was fear] turned into an image.
– Ask her why she is doing it?
– For me not to exist…
– Why is it necessary that you not exit?
– It simply wants me not to exist…
– Why?
– Because I am unnecessary, not wanted…
Commentary. Evidently, “the rat” expressed the hidden desire of the girl to die [the hidden suicide]. Most often it appears under the influence of something the parents say or do, which have the meaning “don’t live”. The feeling that that you are not wanted is the result of those words or actions. What was left