Emotion-Image Therapy. Analysis and Implementation. Nikolay Linde
the symptoms of her fear. Being in an imagined situation she felt rapid heartbeat and breathing, fear bordering panic, and the coming fainting. I asked her to imagine these symptoms as an image sitting on the chai in front of her. The image was surprisingly calm, not aggressive and fear was not revealed in it. It was some furry creature looking like Winnie the Pooh that was looking at the client with some expectation. It became clear at once that it was a part of the client’s personality that evidently felt a kind of emotional dependence and was waiting for something. And if so it could be the childhood state of the client [the Inner Child], it means that in her childhood the client had some emotional problems, connected, no doubt, with one of the parents, most probably with the mother. If this image is connected with the state of fear, then it is the child’s fear. And what can be the fear of a child who is looking expectantly? Most likely this is the fear of being alone, the fear of being rejected! I pondered a little, and then the client offered:
– Maybe I should send it away? [She didn’t understand that it was the image of herself in her childhood]
– By no means! [The experience shows that such offers express the hidden conflict attitude to the Inner Child]. On the contrary, tell it that you will never leave it never reject it. That you accept it totally as it is. This is for experiment. I will later explain.
– It is getting smaller.
– Repeat the same words one more time… How are you feeling?
– I am feeling better, the fear diminishes. Now it has turned into a wooden doll lying on the chair. [The image of a doll means regression to the age of a suckling baby.]
– Keep on repeating the same…
– Oh! [She looked surprised.] For some reason it got into my breast and dissolved there! [It means that she accepted the Inner Child as a part of her personality and by doing so removed the conflict with her childhood part. If this conflict was really the phobia’s cause, then the feeling of fear must stop.]
– That’s fine, l will explain it to you later. Imagine again that you are in the lift… What are you feeling?
– … [She looks surprised even amazed, as she couldn’t say a word]
– Is 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