Guilt, Imagination, and Freedom

Guilt, Imagination, and Freedom: The Foundation of Psychotherapy Within Imagination

Francis X. Clifton, Ph.D.

For Colette, who bore the flame onward

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Table of Contents

Guilt, Imagination and Freedom: Foundations of Psychotherapy Within Imagination

Preface Acknowledgements Introduction Human Existence As The Clearing For The Appearance Of Things From Psychology To A Psychological Phenomenology Toward An Epistimology Of The Senses Imagination As The Sharpener Of The Senses A Clinical Paradigm For The Use Of Imagination In The Treatment Of Emotional Pain And Suffering I. Contacting Deeper Levels Of Self Through The Use Of Imagination II. Night Dreams As The Presencing Of “What Is” III. Imagination As The Presencing Of “What Is” Deconstruction Of Negative Self-Images Waking Dream: Living Possibilities A Prolonged Experience Of Guilt Feelings: A Clinical Case Example Of Psychotherapy Within Imagination Case Illustration Clinical Intervention A Guided Waking Dream: A Case Example Guilt Imagination And Freedom Guilt Guilt Feelings Ontological Guilt Imagination: Dwelling In The “No” Of The “Where” Freedom As Awareness Glossary Bibliography

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Preface This book originated as my Ph.D. dissertation and has been used in some way by many students since. At the time that I wrote this there was not much published on the therapeutic use of imagination. Obviously, the writings of Carl Jung on the use of active imagination were in print. His student, Barbara Hannah’s, classic work was in print as was Robert Desoille's Directed Daydream and Henri Corbin's work on The use of Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn-Arabi. There was also Assagioli's Psychosynthesis and H. Leuner 's The Use of Imagery in Psychotherapy. Carol McMahon was exploring the historical use of imagination in mitigating the disease process. J. Singer developed the use of imagery methods in psychotherapy and behavior modification. Mary Watkin's Waking Dream also existed at the time.

I believe that the publication of Gerald Epstein's Waking Dream Therapy was a pivotal book in the field. He gave both a historical and modern scientific understanding of the use of imagination, drawn from the work of Collette Aboukler-Muscat, his inner work and his medical training. His book stands as a reliable introduction to imagination as a therapeutic and transformative process.

My text at the time sought to explicate two interlinked foundational principals of work in imagery. The first task was to demonstrate how imagery could disclose mental blockages in individuals and restore openness to life. Secondly, I wanted to show how imagery could enable one to experience new attitudes while one explored inner space. Inner experience became outer experience as new pathways were explored and lived.

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Today there are many books on the subject of imagery, some of which tend toward the hubristic. The profound simplicity of imagery enables explorers to travel into the land of Soul. Presenting that journey as a means of attaining things, cars, houses, fame and a myriad of other “non-needs� denigrates the work and the value of consciousness. Since there is little intrinsic value ascribed to consciousness in many psychological circles today, the profound trial of inner work is ignored. Intention has overrun the field with materialism and mystery slumbers beneath such arrogance. Coming home to our Self is our individual destiny and more so our task. The journey requires our fullest attention.

So, I am persuaded to publish Guilt, Imagination and Freedom: The Foundation of Psychotherapy Within Imagination. It has been designed to act as a compass. I believe that it keeps the mystery of imagination alive by providing existential structures in which to frame experience. This can assist the clinician or student of imagery with guideposts along the path.

Acknowledgements: I would like to express my appreciation to the following mentors who contributed greatly to this work. Firstly, to Mm. Collette Aboukler-Muscat who personally read the text several times and offered many profound insights and amplifications during the writing. Secondly, I offer my gratitude to Gerald Epstein who showed me the road to the imaginal. Special thanks to David Shainberg, William Barrett, and Renier Schurman for the generous sharing of their philosophical understandings.

Deep appreciation goes to Vivian Lind who enabled me to find the form of the whole text in a slice of one of my poems. My gratitude to Valerie Clifton for her support and friendship during the writing of this text. Sincere thanks goes to Marlyn Songtang, Maria Ciprianni and Majorie Cano for their generous time spent in reading and correcting the text.

Thanks to Stan Grinatol for his inspired cover design. Finally, a deep and special thanks to Bernadette Cusack, my editor, who gave tireless hours to readying the text for publication.

Guilt, Imagination and Freedom

Introduction This project, through the exposition of the phenomenon of guilt feelings, will present a paradigm for the therapeutic use of imagination in the treatment of emotional pain and suffering.

The phenomenon of guilt feelings is to be understood as the feelings that ensue from an experienced transgression against an authority, be it a moral code or a personal authority figure.

The clinical use of imagination is applicable to most modes of psychological disturbance, but for the purpose of clarity in developing a treatment procedure, it will be applied in this text to the treatment of prolonged feelings of guilt. The imagination is a unique non-rational human faculty which enables an individual to experience directly events of self awareness that are excluded from the realm of logical reasoning. The event of self-awareness is the direct, undeniable awareness of the “what is” of one’s life which will later be developed as the condition for the simultaneous happening of human freedom.

Imagination as the forgotten realm of human existence is now being retrieved by many schools of psychotherapy for the treatment of emotional disturbances.1 Unfortunately, in most cases, imagination is viewed by clinicians as simply

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The following four publications will give the reader a review of the current psychotherapeutic uses of imagination: Assangioli, R. Psychosynthesis, New York: Viking Press, 1965.

Leuner, H. “The Role of Imagery in Psychotherapy, “ in Arieti, S. and Chryzanowski, G. (eds.), New Dimensions in Psychiatry, New York: John Wiley, 1975.

Singer, J. Imagery and Daydream Methods in Psychotherapy and Behavior Modifications, New York: Academic Press, 1974.

Watkins, M. Waking Dreams, New York: Gordon and Breach, 1976.

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another technique to be grafted onto a pre-existing body of psychological theory and practice.

It is my position in this project that in order for the imagination to be clinically effective, a fundamentally different understanding of human existence must be grasped, an understanding which is phenomenological and radically removed from the traditional scientific conception of human existence as seen in modern psychology.

Guilt feelings block awareness of an individual’s deeper level of self, as does any prolonged emotional disturbance. Emotional disturbances are any emotional or affective reactions which become protracted modes of being. It does not matter whether the emotion is deemed positive, such as joy, or negative, such as resentment. What creates the disturbance is the duration of the state, which clouds one’s deeper self. This deeper level of self is not to be understood as a fixed “I,” but rather as an open and receptive clearing for the presencing of possibilities in one’s life.

Persistent emotional or affective states become enduring self-images, and it is these self-images which become identified by an individual as the essential being of his or her existence. In this situation, one’s openness and receptivity is blanketed by the acceptance of fixed-identity images of self.

Naturally, one’s freedom of becoming is lost to oneself. If an individual cannot release himself/herself from feelings of guilt, the Self as an open and receptive clearing for the presencing of possible becomings is gradually covered over by a fixed image of the being of one’s existence as being guilty.

He/she attaches to perceiving himself/herself as an enduring guilty being, while detaching from his/her deeper self as the clearing for becoming. How to release oneself from the fixed self-images of being states to the open and receptive level of becoming is the primary concern of this project.

The major thesis of this text is that the clinically directed use of imagination can:

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(1) release an individual from enduring emotional or affective states (guilt feelings will be used in this text as an example of one such protracted state); (2) enable an individual to directly experience one’s deeper self; (3) open an individual to the multiplicity of one’s own possible becomings within a context of personal freedom.

In past historical epochs, religion, with its rituals of atonement, had the power to absolve individuals of guilt feelings, as well as the means of inculcating these feelings of guilt. As the sacred world withdrew and the technological world gained ascendancy, religion’s power of absolution greatly diminished. In the twentieth century, psychology, and more specifically psychotherapy, has taken charge of combating the life-negating effects of a guilt-ridden mode of existence.

Since its inception, psychotherapy has been and continues to be a practice grounded in the principles of modern science. The methodology of modern science can be described as the application of a preconceived framework of thought to a particular region of objects by a human subject in an attempt to gain certainty about, an explanation for, and control over these objects. Psychotherapy’s region of concern is the treatment of emotional pain and suffering. A mode of existence weighed down by guilt feelings is one such region of intervention.

The techniques of psychotherapeutic treatment have been contingent upon the principles of modern science, which determine the manner in which emotional pain and suffering have been seen by the practitioner. Thus, the practitioner’s vision is determined by the positing of mechanical principles, such as the causality and non-contradiction, upon an explanatory framework from which the practitioner views emotional pain and suffering. No matter which explanatory prism is used, be it mechanical, behavioral, or structural, the

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subject (practitioner) remains split off from a direct encounter with the object (the experience of the other).

The clinical use of imagination is a complete and comprehensive form of psychology when practiced in a phenomenological manner. The human faculty of imagination enables the events of appearances to appear, and in this form of psychotherapy, the practitioner must be humble before the appearance of things. The therapist who is humble before the appearance of things endeavors to glean the meaning of the appearing phenomenon from the thing itself and refrains from interpreting the phenomena according to a preconceived body of psychological theory.

Before starting the exploration of the phenomenon of guilt feelings, attention will be turned to the developing this fundamentally different understanding of human existence as the basis for this comprehensive form of psychotherapy, herein known as “Psychotherapy within Imagination.� This form of psychotherapy is grounded in a shift from viewing human existence as being categorized by operating mechanically to viewing human existence as fundamentally categorized by openness and receptivity. Openness and receptivity are ontological characteristics in these structures, and they are descriptive of the fundamental existence of human beings. This fundamental understanding of human existence is essential for the overall thesis of this project, for if one does not sense the qualities of openness and receptivity, one could not experience its loss during prolonged experiences of guilt feelings. A psychotherapist, practicing without openness and receptivity, will remain split off from directly experiencing the other (client).

The experiencing of guilt feelings, naturally, is not the only experience that clouds human openness and receptivity, but it is a mode of human existence which, when prolonged and profound enough, can seriously limit an individual’s capacity for movement in life. The clouding of openness and receptivity, as well as the blockage of movement in life, will be

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developed through a description of the clinical experiences of an individual in “Psychotherapy within Imagination.” The case description demonstrates phenomenologically how an individual’s temporal experience becomes affected in a prolonged experience of guilt feelings.

Fundamentally, human existence can be experienced and/or understood as an openness and receptivity to all phenomena that comes into appearance. Phenomena, with their meanings and contexts of reference, address human beings because human existence is the open and receptive clearing in which all events make themselves present. This openness and receptivity is the condition for all awareness, as well as all modes of thinking, whether scientific reasoning or phenomenological synthesis. A computer can be aware of meanings and contexts of reference; it can also make judgments about them, but, only to the extent that it is programmed. Openness and receptivity are not of the computer’s nature; the computer is always dependent on a human being to determine which phenomena it will receive.

Human existence has many faculties of receptivity, such as reasoning, intuition, mood, imagination and dreams, to name but a few. All these modes of receptivity are dependent on the senses. It is through these faculties that actions are taken in life, for if a human being were not able to perceive a possibility in an open and receptive manner, he/she would not be free to move toward making the possibility an actuality in his/her life.

If a human being becomes blind during the course of life, the visual capacity to perceive phenomena becomes deficient. This is not to say that human beings without visual perception are unable to be open and receptive, in fact, they could possibly be more so than a fully sighted person, however, the visual receptivity is gone, and thus the manner in which he/she is open and receptive to the shining forth of phenomena is affected. Like blindness, guilt feelings affect the openness and receptivity of human existence, although in a different and more profound manner.

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Degrees of openness and receptivity vary throughout one’s life, but to the degree that one’s openness and receptivity are free of clouding, one is more free to perceive and actualize the possibilities that enter into the light of one’s existence.

Many modes of human existence contribute to the veiling of openness and receptivity, but for the purposes of this project, the mode of human existence which fails to be released from guilt feelings will be developed.

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HUMAN EXISTENCE AS THE CLEARING FOR THE APPEARANCE OF THINGS Human existence as openness and receptivity, posed by Martin Heidegger, represents the ontological movement away from classical and modern scientific forms of thinking. Classical thinking looked speculatively behind all phenomena for a cause, whether a material or an infinite one. Modern scientific thinking, as described earlier, can be understood as the application of a perceived framework of thought to a particular region of objects by a human subject, in order to gain certainty about, explanation for, and control over these objects. Both modes of thinking ignore the phenomena itself, classical thinking by looking through and beyond the phenomena and modern scientific thinking by subjectively creating its picture of the world through conceptual prisms.

Openness and receptivity as a fundamental human characteristic places the emphasis on the event of disclosure and the coming forth of phenomena of concealment. In Being and Time, Heidegger explains that human existence constitutes the openness and receptivity where phenomena can be revealed.

For Heidegger, for something to “be� means for it to be revealed, uncovered, and made manifest and human existence is the region where this appearing happens. Human existence is the embodied openness and receptivity to what is presencing itself, while classical and modern scientific thinking are only derivative of this original characteristic of human beings.

Without this fundamental openness and receptivity where phenomena first becomes revealed, human existence could not think either classically or scientifically.

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Modern psychology is derivative of classical and modern scientific thinking. Psychology is the study of the emotional and behavioral characteristics of human beings (Morris, 1981). Psychology endeavors to find causes for behavior and emotions while also imprinting explanatory conceptions upon human existence which seek to account for the total psychological makeup of an individual.

Openness and receptivity, understood as an essential characteristic of being human, enables the phenomenological method to be applied to psychology’s region of concern. The emphasis on human existence as the clearing where things come into appearance moves away from causal speculations and allows phenomena to stand in their own meaningfulness as they come forth. A psychological phenomenology mandates that one keep strictly to the phenomena that are directly experienced. It has no purpose other than to articulate the meaningfulness of the phenomena to the life of the perception itself and requires no interpretations.

This is unlike the traditional sense of psychological meaningfulness which discovers meaning only through an interpretation which refers back to a preconceived theory.

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FROM PSYCHOLOGY TO A PSYCHOLOGICAL PHENOMENOLOGY A major distraction between modern psychology and psychological phenomenology is that the former fails to comprehend the essential difference between the realm of objects and the realm of human existence. Human existence presences itself in the world in a manner wholly different from the presence of so-called inanimate objects. The human world is both a spatial and a trans-spatial world.

There is a spatiality of being which is always connected to measured location; it is the “here-ness” of physicality.

Human existence in its trans-spatial mode of existence is the world of becoming which happens beyond the limits of measured spatiality. Human spatiality and trans-spatiality is different to the kind of modern scientific conception of the spatiality of, say, a rock, which would be said to have only measured spatiality.

Human existence as open and expansive has the ability to experience that it can be both spatial and trans-spatial simultaneously.2 At present, I am sitting at my desk in New York City, and I am writing. Suddenly I close my eyes and see my home in the mountains. In measured spatiality, I am here in the city and my mountain home is eighty-five miles away. In human trans-spatiality, my attention and concern, even if only momentarily, is more in the mountains.

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A night dream is an example of this simultaneous occurrence of “hereness” (spatiality) and “no-where-ness” (trans-spatiality). The dreamer can be physically in his/her bed while qualitatively existing on a tropical island of non-location.

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I am physically in the city and at the same time my senses have brought me qualitatively to the mountains of no location. Limiting the spatiality of human existence to measured location denies the open and expansive receptivity that constitutes the existence of humans. The ability to be here (spatiality) and expand to no-where (trans-spatiality) is the essence of human existence and one of the primary qualities of imagination. This expansive trans-spatiality of human existence will be further developed and concretized in the section on imagination used in the treatment of emotional pain and suffering.

Just as my home in the mountains becomes manifest to me, so may a feeling. Although a feeling is different from a house, or differs from, for example, a person, all are manifest insofar as there is some open and receptive human existence in which the manifesting occurs.

The coming forth of phenomena into the openness and receptivity of humans is always a temporal (time) event.

Human existence is forever a temporal experience, not only open and receptive to the disclosures of immediately present events but also open to the experiencing of events past as well as future possibilities. The human temporal experience is not a series of now-moments (as conceived by science) that run along an axis of past to future, rather the human temporal experience is lived time. It can be understood as more of a rhythmical, undulating cycle. The experience of the past or the future can become manifestly experienced as one’s present moment.

For instance, an individual experiencing severe and prolonged guilt feelings over a past event becomes more experientially attuned to the “already-happened” and is consequently closed to “what-could-be.” In some modes of existence a past experience can become manifest in the present and remain there, blocking the reception of future possibilities and preventing the full experience of living in the present.

Conversely, an individual’s openness and receptivity can also

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become blocked through the persistent thought presence of a possible catastrophic event, as seen in an agoraphobic mode of existence.

Another fundamental distinction between modern psychology and psychological phenomenology is a different understanding of the notion of truth. Martin Heidegger’s elucidation of truth will be used to develop this distinction.3 Heidegger sees a single notion of truth underlying the entire history of Western philosophy (M. Heidegger, 1977, pp. 119120). This single notion of truth is referred to as the “Correspondence Theory of Truth.”

Characteristic of this notion is the idea that truth is primarily located within the subject beholding the object. This truth consists of the correspondence between a subjective judgment with its object of perception. Eventually this correspondence becomes correctness of perception. Let us turn to a concrete example of how this notion of truth plays itself out in modern psychology.

A young man enters psychotherapy with feelings of hopelessness and despair about his job and his future. He is depressed. His psychotherapist has a preconceived judgment regarding clinical depression, conceiving it as a result of loss or resulting from turning anger against oneself. The psychotherapist with his prior judgment or theory will seek to achieve a correspondence of judgment with this depressed young man (object) by asking questions that have the intention of verifying the original judgment. Thus the prejudgment of the therapist guides his actions (questions and interpretations) towards the therapeutic encounter until both the therapist’s and the patient’s understanding of the depression are in 3

For a full development of the Heideggerian notion of truth, see the following essays in Martin Heidegger: Basic Writings, (New York: Harper and Row, 1977).

1. “Being and Time: Introduction” 2. “On the Essence of Truth” 3. “ Letter on Humanism”

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correspondence. It is obvious that this traditional notion of truth imprints the subject’s own picture of reality upon the appearing phenomena, in this example the depressed young man. The young man is totally objectified while his depression is viewed exclusively within the realm of causality. He and his depression are not allowed to appear in their own meaningfulness. The correspondence notion of truth, according to Heidegger, has its roots in Plato and Aristotle, and should be understood as one of the conditions which led to the development of modern scientific thinking which emphasizes the subjective framing of appearing phenomena.

This notion of truth has a two-thousand-year history, whereas the phenomenological notion of truth predates it, having being developed in pre-Socratic times and retrieved by Heidegger as “Aletheia.” Truth as “Aletheia,” according to Heidegger, is to be understood as “unhidden-ness,” “presencing,” or the coming out of concealment (M. Heidegger, 1977, pp. 132-134). In this understanding of truth, truth is seen as an event that happens within the openness and receptivity of human existence.

This event of un-concealment should also be understood as the ontological necessity for the possibility of a correspondence theory of truth. Without the eventful reception of a phenomena, no judgment could take place. Truth as “Aletheia” humbly places human existence as the receiver of the revealed and not the creator of the world picture. The essential freedom of the human existence becomes manifest in this notion of truth. Heidegger views freedom to be the essence of truth since openness and receptivity fundamentally constitute human existence (Heidegger, 1977, p.130). Truth and freedom can be understood as simultaneous events in the realm of human existence.

In another concrete example, illustrating the unity of truth and freedom, a particular individual has a life-long habitual response of anger and resentment to figures of authority. This habitual response exists outside his awareness.

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Then one day, his openness and receptivity becomes cleared to accepting this habitual pattern as the truth of what is (habitual angry responses to authority figures) and he is free to find other modes of relating to authority figures. Without the reception of the truth of his manner of relating to authority figures, he could not be free to change the pattern, or find rational excuses for this pattern, like: “My father beat me, so I hate all authority figures.”

Human existence as openness and receptivity is a fundamentally different notion of human beings and human being-ness, and it is the guiding light for psychological phenomenology. Flowing from this notion is a fundamentally different understanding of human spatiality and temporality than is conceptualized in modern science and psychology.

Truth experienced as un-concealment, as well as the event of freedom, enables one to leap out of the fixed categories of classical and modern scientific thinking by opening the prism of receptivity to all phenomena that enters into appearance. When truth becomes eventful, existence returns to the fluidity of becoming. Truth is no longer limited to quantified spatiality and linear time. The world of classical and modern scientific categories is based on measured space and time: it is a world, as Nietzsche stated, that imposes “being on becoming” (Will to Power, Sec.520). Human existence in this world of being is the fixed “I,” closed to the becoming essence of its existence. The trans-spatial world is the human world out of linear time and spatiality, it is the world of eventful existence, and it is the world of becoming.

How the practice of imagination, or the clinical use of it, enables a clearing of an individual’s openness and receptivity to happen, is the subject of the following sections.

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TOWARDS AN EPISTEMOLOGY OF THE SENSES Implicit in all emotional disturbances that become fixed patterns of existence is a lack of imaginative openness to the reception of new possibilities for living. An individual whose existence becomes dominated by profound and prolonged feelings of guilt dwells in his or her past through the constant reliving of the event or events for which he or she feels deserving of punishment. This individual’s temporal experience of the present is one in which his or her senses have become dull as a result of directing them to the past.

He/she sees, hears, smells, tastes, and touches the infractions of his/her past with his/her senses firmly affixed to the past. His/her openness and receptivity to the disclosure of future possibilities is closed. Sensorially dulled to the disclosure of the future as well as the present through the continual re-experiencing of the past, an individual’s overall awareness is greatly diminished.

Awareness can be understood in the same manner that truth as Aletheia was previously explicated. Awareness is the event of becoming aware of “what is” and simultaneously this is the event of human freedom, for without an awareness of “what is,” we could not enact a “what can be.” The freedom of human existence is forever dependant on living one’s fundamental essence, which is openness and receptivity to the appearance of things.

To be fully open and receptive to the appearance of phenomena, human senses must be alive, attuned, and sharp. A human being’s senses must be as a sentinel, forever vigilant to the disclosure of awareness, whether it is an awareness of a future possibility or the event of becoming aware of the truth of

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one’s past or present existence. The senses make sense out of worldly existence and it is through the senses that the most primary, original and direct experiencing of one’s existence takes place. If an experience, perception or thought “makes sense” to one, there is an accompanying feeling of certainty that happens in regard to the rightness of our understanding as well as for the appropriateness of one’s “called-for” actions.

Some traditions have called this response to the event of disclosure “Right Action,” and in the practice of imagination it is the “call to life” that the senses sense.

In the twentieth century, models and pictures of the world have gained priority over the direct sensorial experiencing of life and consequently the human senses have been dulled by the constraint of scientific objectification.

Paradoxically, the more the world has been objectified, the more the subject becomes emphasized, resulting in the current epidemic of narcissism. The narcissistic individual is lost to himself for the want of objects to control, his/her ability to dwell with nature has been forgotten and his/her openness and receptivity is blocked by a cloud of self-concern.

To dwell with nature is to be open and receptive to the event of disclosure regarding one’s existence in the world.

However, without a sensorial acuity to the other or to nature, one’s openness and receptivity is minimal. The senses give us a direct experience of what presences itself to us, whereas modern scientific thinking at best gives us a second-hand reception of life in that the senses become abandoned for the theoretical reception of presenting phenomena. Viewing the appearance of phenomena through pictures of the world dulls the senses. Basically, when appearing phenomena are frozen in theoretical constructs, the senses become dull out of a lack of exercise much like a muscle atrophies from non-use.

Ontologically, human existence is sensorial. Even abstract thought must begin with a concrete sensory experience. The technological achievements of modern scientific thinking cannot be denied, but these achievements

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have been in the mechanical realm of objects, much to the detriment of the wonderment of human existence. In his Confessions, St. Augustine stated, “life is not a puzzle to be solved but a mystery to be lived.” Living the mystery of life appears to have been forgotten in the hubristic effort of modern scientific thinking to turn all of life into solvable puzzles.

Writing in the post-modern epoch, it is hardly a novel diagnosis to state that the hyper-development of human rational processes has contributed to present day ills, but it is my position that in order to reach a balance of the “puzzlesolving” with “dwelling in mystery” modes of existence, the acuity of our senses must be retrieved from the constraints of scientific thinking.

The sensorial faculty of human existence is the faculty of mystery, it is the faculty of humans, which when sharp and alive, is open and receptive to the event of truth as Aletheia, where happenings happen and appearances appear. Modern scientific thinking is the rational puzzle-solving faculty of humans; it is uneventful in that it is framed by the correspondence theory of truth where the appearing object becomes subsumed by subjective preconceptions.

Studies of the brain by David Galin (1974) and others have described how each cerebral hemisphere appears to be functionally concerned with visual events, imagination, and emotion (Bogen, 1969). The two hemispheres operate independently from one another, although with some overlap, and each is linked to the other by the corpus callosum. The right cerebral hemisphere appears to be functionally concerned with visual events, imagination, and emotion (Bogen, 1969).

That hemisphere, therefore, mediates analogical “thinking” which receives the whole of experience rather than breaking the experience into sequential units and conceptual frames of reference—the sort of operations found mediated in left-brain functioning.

Furthermore, “from the perspective of a phenomenological psychology the brain is the translator of

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whatever mode of existence the human being is living at any given moment” (G. Epstein, 1981, p. 46). Human existence can dwell in the linear rational mode of thought (puzzle-solving, correspondence of truth, left brain) or the eventful realm (imagination, living-in-mystery, truth as Aletheia, right brain) at any given time, and the brain receives and mediates the events of each particular mode of being.

There is a split in how the right and left hemispheres receive and mediate the information of the appearing phenomena. The right brain apprehends wholes while the left brain tends to interpret into parts. Gerald Epstein (p. 49, 1981) relates an experiment developed by Gazzaniaga to demonstrate how the receptivity of the right and the left brain differs.

Gazzaniga (1977) devised an experiment to show this difference: the right and left hemispheres are independently shown the same picture, a man holding a gun to the head of another man. When the right brain alone sees the picture,4 the subject interprets, infers, and interpolates an explanation, such as a bank holdup with assistant robbers pointing machine guns at the tellers while herding them into another room, and so on.

This experiment clearly demonstrates how interpretation takes us away from the “what is” of the experience that is presenting itself.

A sensorial epistemology should not be understood as a negation of the logical, interpretive, puzzle-solving mode of existence, but as a call for the retrieval of the directness and immediacy of the senses to inform human existence about one’s existence. In psychological phenomenology, we have previously seen that the fundamental character of human existence is an openness and receptivity to the shining forth of phenomena. It can now be understood that it is the senses that root our existence in the world. Human existence is grounded 4

Gazzaniga has devised a special pair of glasses that allows alternately only the left (to right hemisphere) or right (to left hemisphere) visual field to be viewed by both eyes simultaneously.

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through a direct and immediate sensorial experience of the “what is” of one’s being-in-the-world. Without the priority of the senses, our awareness of both our inside and outside life is narrow and blurred.

A human being, who grounds his or her existence in an interpretation of the world, rarely has a direct experience of it.

He or she is much like a poorly-rooted tree which will not grow tall and strong for lack of deep contact with the earth.

Humans must be rooted in the earth, not in clouds of abstraction, for it is not our interpretations but our senses that root us to life in the world. Our senses put us into contact with the wonder and mystery of existence, with the experience that there is something (spatial) rather than nothing (trans-spatial).

This something is an awe-inspiring experience even with the mundane, if directly experienced. A statement from the novel, Zorba the Greek, speaks to such an awe that can be found in everyday life: I felt, as I listened to Zorba, that the world was recovering its pristine freshness. All the dulled daily things regained the brightness they had in the beginning, when we came out of the hands of God. Water, women, the stars, bread, returned to their mysterious, primitive origin, and the divine whirlwind burst once more upon the air. (N. Kazantzakis, 1952, p. 51) Paradoxical as it may seem, it is the senses that enable the openness and receptivity of humans to move beyond the mundane concrete level of reality to the levels of dream and imaginal realities. Our senses can transcend linear time and measured spatiality, for our senses are not meant to be shackled by the rules of logic. The senses can take us to where we want to go, where we should not go and to where we may fear to go.

Earlier, I mentioned how, in a prolonged and profound experience of guilt feelings, an individual’s attention is fixed on the past through a sensorial reliving of the events of his or her infraction. The senses can take human existence into the

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past, but when they remain there, they become dull to the present and closed to the future. If turned to the past in the experience of guilt feelings for too long, the acuity of the senses is only alert to the self-punishing of oneself.

Most of us, at one time or another, have said something to another person which we later regretted, and how often have we experienced the rehearing of ourselves making the statement and the seeing again of the sorrowful expression of the person’s face to whom we made the statement, only to cringe with regretful embarrassment. Fortunately, most of us can either apologize to the injured person with the feeling that amends have been made, or just forget it. For some, trapped in the grip of profound feelings of guilt, their release from these feelings is not forthcoming. These individuals constantly relive their infraction and the ensuing feeling of guilt in a vivid and intensely agonizing manner.

Here, their senses are being used to re-experience the past while presently punishing themselves with feelings of selfdisgust. In this mode of existence, their senses are pointed and fixed in a backward direction, which can only result in their becoming dull.

This closes off their openness and receptivity to present and future experiences and possibilities. This also appears to be the experience with all modes of emotional disturbance, from obsessions, compulsions, phobias, prolonged anxiety to hallucinations, in that they serve to block one’s openness and receptivity to life.

An existence characterized by modes of emotional disturbance is similar to the mode of existence which only experiences life through interpretative models but in these situations the model of life is replaced by a prism of selfdeprecation and fear. Here, the image of fear and selfdeprecation blocks one’s openness and receptivity and dulls the senses through a lack of the direct experience of the happenings of life. All efforts to buffer one’s life, from its unfolding in the eventfulness of existence, are based on an

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attempt to control and master life rather than live it. We will now turn to how the practice of imagination can enable an individual to face one’s fears, sharpen one’s senses, and clear one’s openness and receptivity.

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IMAGINATION AS THE SHARPENER OF THE SENSES It seems clear that the openness and receptivity of humanity does not extend only to the disclosures of the concrete measurable world of science, it also extends to the nonmaterial realms of imagination and dreams.

Traditional psychology, with its foundation in the philosophical materialism of modern scientific thinking, has for the most part relegated all non-concrete experiences of imagination and dreams to the realm of the unreal or aberrant.

Psychoanalytic thinking does pay attention to dreams and fantasies, but only from the perspective of treating these disclosures as manifestations of an inner mechanical dynamic that points to some conflict, wish, or desire buried in the past of an individual.

Generally, in western civilization today, disclosures of imagination are considered unreal and having no meaningful value to those experiencing them. This was not always the situation, as Gerald Epstein5 points out in his book on the uses of imagination, “for prior to the Cartesian revolution in western thought, the imagination was highly valued in the treatment of emotional and physical disorders and its reality was unquestioned” (G. Epstein, 1981, p. 38).

In this constant, Epstein cites the work of Carol McMahon as an illustration of how imagination served a very real function in life within western civilization and its medical practice (G. Epstein, 1981, p. 13). Carol McMahon, writing on 5

A detailed philosophical, psychological and historical explication of imagination and its uses in western civilization is found in Dr. Gerald Epstein’s book, Waking Dream Therapy (Human Sciences Press, 1981).

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the use of imagination prior to the Cartesian thinking of the 17th century, states: Among the faculties of the soul were sensations, reason, digestion, and imagination. The lattermost was a major theoretical variable in human physiopathology. The theory of imagination-produced disease reached its zenith in Renaissance medical treatises, where its implications for diagnosis, prognostication and therapy were fully elaborated. Although the conceptualization of imagination as causal in altering bodily functions antedated Aristotle, it was his formulations which became the received view of the Renaissance (p.179).

It is the soul which accounts for the historical greatness of psychological medicine. When Descartes (1596-1650) redefined soul as “immaterial substance” or “mind,” imagination’s role in the disease process was irrevocably taken from it. An era ensued in which the existence of “mental illness” was denied. How, it was asked, could an “immaterial substance” possibly be sick?

We have failed to profit from the accomplishments of our early predecessors because of a discontinuity in the history of medicine. In the pre-Cartesian era, medicine was invariably holistic or psychosomatic. In the post-Cartesian dualistic era, mechanistic physiological events were forbidden on logical grounds (pp. 183-184).

In a phenomenological psychology, the imaginal realm of human existence is restored to its pre-Cartesian sense of veracity, as in the dream realm, since all that is experienced is real and meaningful. Therefore, human existence is experienced and understood as having multiple levels of reality, all being accessible to the senses but generally overlooked. What is generally overlooked is the truth and revelatory nature of the imaginal and dream realm of existence.

This is not the case in many non-western cultures. Henry Corbin, a leading scholar of Islamic thought, speaking of the imaginal realm, writes:

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It must be stressed that the world into which those Oriental philosophers probed is perfectly real. Its reality is more irrefutable and more coherent than that empirical world, where reality is perceived by the senses. Upon returning, the beholders of this world are perfectly aware of having been “elsewhere;” they are not mere schizophrenics.

The world is hidden behind every act of sense perception and has to be sought underneath its apparent objective certainty. For this reason we definitely cannot qualify it as being imaginary in the current sense of the word, i.e., as unreal or nonexistent. (1972, p.15).

Here, the clear implication is that human existence happens within various dimensions of reality. I take exception, however, with his contention that seemingly implies that the senses do not have access to the imaginal realm. My personal and clinical experience with the use of imagination has led me to the opposite understanding, which sees the senses as humanity’s vehicle for entering the various levels of reality.

The senses are not just the receptors of the empirical world, but are the means in which human openness and receptivity enters all worlds.

The phenomenological perspective acknowledges the truth of all experience but understands human existence in these non-concrete realities (dreams, imaginal) to be an existence of form but not of substantial matter (G. Epstein, 1981, p.30). From a clinical standpoint, it has been found in the process of “Psychotherapy within Imagination” that the disclosures of the dream and imaginal realms of existence happen in the direct manner of sensorial experience.

The coming into appearance of phenomena in these realms is epiphany-like, identical to the eventfulness of truth as “Aletheia.” These events are revelatory declarations about the experiencer’s waking life, disclosing what possibilities for fulfillment are open and closed to him or her. It is vitally

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important to understand that in a psychological phenomenology these disclosures are not viewed as constructions of the individual, but rather, as something received through the openness and receptivity of the individual. To view them as of one’s own making further encourages the tendency of modern humans to deny mystery through prisms of explanation.

Awareness happens when we dwell in our openness and receptivity to the eventfulness of existence within the multiplicity of our worlds. A clouded openness and receptivity results in a diminished awareness of the “what is” of our life and it has been demonstrated that our senses are at the core of open receptivity. The experience of prolonged feelings of guilt has been put forward in order to display how any fixed pattern of emotional disturbance blocks one’s openness and receptivity and dims one’s senses. It has also been shown how the direct sensorial experience of life has been replaced by interpretive models of reality in the 20th century, and thus creates a secondhand experience of life. These occurrences, along with many others, such as: unreflective habitual modes of existence, laziness, lack of attention to life, as well as a lack of intention in life, all contribute to the veiling of openness and receptivity.

My attention will now turn to the practice of imagination, which I have found to be an exceedingly successful antidote to the veils that obscure one’s openness and receptivity. Through personal and clinical experience, I have been led to the contention that the human faculty of imagination enables one’s existence to enter a world of nonconcrete reality, unencumbered by the limits of linear time and measured spatiality, where one can experience the eventfulness of life and the truth of one’s existence. Existence in the dreaming realm of life is similar to the imaginal realm, since neither is limited by physicality, both are eventful in a nonlogical and sensorial manner, and are both revelatory. In the dream realm of existence, however, one’s volition is not as active as it in the imaginal realm. Dreams happen as eventful,

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unpredictable experiences and serve the revelatory function of informing us of the “what is” of our waking life. The imaginal realm of existence has the advantage of will, which enables one to move through its eventful world with the element of choice; it also enables one to choose to return to its space. To be able to re-enter imaginal space at will enables the imagination to become “a practice” which can also show us what we can become.

The faculty of imagination can serve as an arena, where humans can practice the art of eventful, non-conceptual living, whereby retrieving their “mystery to be lived” mode of existence. The practice of dwelling in imaginal space is an inner exercising of one’s senses leading to a greater sensorial receptivity in waking life. Each time one chooses to re-enter imaginal space, one’s senses take one there; while there, one’s senses directly experience events of appearance, one sees, hears, smells, touches and tastes, the happenings of this world.

As with any practice, whether it is practicing a musical instrument, a sport, or writing, the more one practices, the more proficient one becomes.

The same is true with the practice of imagination; the more one turns one’s senses inward with intentional volition, the more acute his senses become to the reception of life, whether waking or imaginal. It should also be reported that many people practicing the work of imagination have an increased vividness in their dreaming experiences.

Through the direct sensorial experiences of imagination, one’s senses become sharpened and one’s openness and receptivity becomes more cleared to the direct immediacy of disclosures. As one’s openness and receptivity is cleared to the appearance of things an increased awareness and an expanded freedom result. From a phenomenological perspective, it should be recalled that freedom and awareness happen simultaneously, since if an individual were not aware of a certain negative trait in his existence; he would not be free to choose a different mode of existence.

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Increasing one’s awareness is increasing one’s freedom, and this I believe to be humans’ ontological debt to their own existence. We must become what we are capable of becoming, and in order to do so we must be aware of the “what is” of our existence. Imagination is the practice of attentional awareness through an intentional exercising and sharpening of the senses in imaginal trans-spatiality.

Another awareness that can be attained in the practice of imagination is the understanding that human beings are not the center of the universe. Of all the clouds that darken human openness and receptivity to life, self-centeredness appears to be the darkest. Many explorers of the imaginal realm report a loss of the sense of self-centeredness, as they are able to discover value and meaningfulness in an existence where the happening of events are not under personal control. The practice of imagination can also be understood as an exercise of balancing the cerebral hemispheres of the brain by accentuating, for a specified time, the right hemisphere.

Finally, through the practice of imagination, one’s will can be said to be made stronger. The act of intentionally exercising the senses, the act of paying attention to the events of the experience, and the freedom to put a stop to a certain mode of existence, once one’s attention receives the awareness of the “what is” of this certain mode of life, all these activities lead to an exercising and strengthening of the will.

Up to this point, I have treated the imaginal realm as a pleasant fairy tale mode of existence, but it should be remembered that most fairytales have their terrifying dimensions. Demons, witches and monsters appear and intense fear can ensue. These are the very images that most often block one’s openness and receptivity to life. I therefore want to stress that one should not at first intentionally and persistently enter the imaginal realm without the assistance of a guide. In addition to the disclosure of terrifying images, one must remember that the apparent logical rules of waking life in the material world do not apply in the imaginal realm. One would

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not set out on an expedition into a deep and dense jungle without an experienced guide, and the same applies to the exploration of imaginal space.

The previous section dwelt with imagination as a personal practice that enables one to experience an acausal mode of existence while also exercising one’s senses, but we must now turn to the stated intention of the project, namely, the presentation of a clinical paradigm for the role of imagination in the treatment of emotional pain and suffering. Before doing so, let me once again stress that if the clinical use of imagination is viewed as just another psychological technique, its effectiveness will be minimal. The preceding sections were absolutely necessary to prepare a clinician for the proper reception of imagination as a clinical tool. It is my hope that the case description of an individual suffering from prolonged feelings of guilt and treated through the process of “Psychotherapy within Imagination” will further the reader’s understanding. I firmly believe, however, that only a first-hand experience of the imaginal realm by a clinician can fully demonstrate its benefits.

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A CLINICAL PARADIGM FOR THE USE OF IMAGINATION IN THE TREATMENT OF EMOTIONAL PAIN AND SUFFERING Prior to presenting a clinical paradigm for the use of imagination, I would like to gratefully acknowledge the assistance of two individuals: Dr. Gerald Epstein of New York City and Mme. Colette Aboulker-Muscat of Jerusalem, whose teaching and encouragement have guided me into the world of imagination and enabled me to experience and discover the following clinical insights.

The practitioner of “Psychotherapy within Imagination” must firstly cultivate and practice a phenomenological manner of seeing which is without theoretical perspective when viewing the appearance of emotional pain and suffering in those who seek his or her assistance. This practice of seeing without perspective is vitally important when viewing the appearances of the imaginal world of one’s patient. This practice lets the appearance be fully experienced rather than explained. How is the practitioner to cultivate this art of seeing without perspective? It is cultivated through the practice of imagination, for if one has not directly experienced the eventfulness of life, it is very unlikely that he or she will be able to see it.

Traditional psychotherapy, like technology, is based on the assumption that all practice (actions) must be guided by theory (knowledge). This principle makes sense, but only in the realm of objects and not in the multiple worlds of human existence. The process of “Psychotherapy within Imagination” reverses this assumption. In this process, a practice (action)

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brings about knowledge (awareness), as accentuating the right cerebral hemisphere brings it into balance with the left. A balanced existence is an aware existence, and for those suffering emotional disturbance, their existence is neither. The reversal of theory and practice is the guiding light of this retrieved form of psychotherapy.

“Psychotherapy within Imagination” is a practice which enables the patient to enter a unique state of non-concrete reality where one becomes simultaneously the observer and the observed. The individual is given permission to explore and dwell with the events of appearance and treat them as constituting a significant reality, which is revelatory, transformative, and sensorially renewing. The practice of dwelling in the imaginal realm leads to a clearing of one’s openness and receptivity which in turn results in a keener awareness and greater freedom in life.

This imaginal form of psychotherapy has three major components, at times happening simultaneously, at times occurring sequentially, but at all times sharpening the senses.

The clinical use of imagination enables a patient to: (1) contact the deepest levels of Self, (2) de-construct negative images of Self, and (3) discover future Possibilities of Becoming. These three components of imaginal treatment are usually the results of an individual’s work with imagination, but they can also serve as clinical guidelines that inform the practitioner of the happenings of this form of therapy.

Patients starting this work are instructed to keep a written record of their dreams and they are also instructed to write down a list of goals and intentions that they would like to have come about as a result of this work. Listing of intentions serves two important functions: firstly, it exercises the patients will through an act of choice, and secondly, it enables them to look beyond their present state of pain and suffering. Some individuals starting this work are unable to list intentions, and this is usually indicative of the state of their openness and receptivity, but after some preliminary imaginal exercises, their

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goals burst onto the scene. The only goal of the practitioner is to clear away the veils covering the openness and receptivity of the patient, and the means of accomplishing this is the patient’s own imagination.

How does the clinical use of imagination bring about a clearing of one’s openness and receptivity? To answer this, the three clinical components of imagination must now be presented.

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I. CONTACTING DEEPER LEVELS OF SELF THROUGH THE USE OF IMAGINATION It must be recalled that when referring to the deeper levels of self, the self is not meant as a fixed “I,” but rather as a cleared openness and receptivity, released to the multiplicities of possible becomings. Fixed and rigid patterns of existence, along with fixed and powerful images of oneself prevent this clearing from happening to the individual suffering emotional distress. These fixed images of oneself are buried in deep dark caves, family crypts, ocean floors or behind locked doors.

These hidden images, if not discovered, become guiding images which darken one’s awareness of life. These guiding images are protracted emotions and self perceptions which have become fixed as beings of self-identity within one’s existence. The being of these self-images veils the openness and receptivity of one’s becoming.

From this vantage point, the imaginal explorer is on an expedition of discovery, unknowingly seeking images of selfdarkening. Teilhard de Chardin, in The Divine Milieu, poetically describes the self-disclosing component of imagination: I took the lamp and leaving the zone of everyday occupation and relationships where everything seems clear, I went down into my inmost self, to the deep abyss whence I feel dimly that my power of action emanates (pp.76-77).

Surely, he is speaking of the turnings inward of his senses to the imaginal realm. He was a man of great courage and honesty and it is not surprising to read that his every-day life seems

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clear and that his imaginal life enabled him to sense his power of action. What is initially discovered in imaginal sojourning are images of self predicated on non-action, and then waking life is anything but clear. Given the guiding light of imaginal work which reverses the imperative of theory (awareness) leading to action, it should now be understood that little action in life leads to little awareness of life.

Each and every action, besides being revelatory, has a directionality of its own; this directionality can move one to a deeper and richer experience of life, or it can take one out of life. I have shown that the attention of an individual who is experiencing prolonged and profound feelings of guilt becomes fixed in the past and closed to the future. Images of guilt are feelings of guilt, and therefore have the same life-negating power described earlier. Robert Assagioli writes, in Psychosysnthesis: that every image had in itself a motor-drive; images and mental pictures tend to produce the physical conditions and the external acts corresponding to them” (p. 144).

“Motor drive” is a mechanical concept which is clearly outside the realm of phenomenology; it should be understood that it is used here only as a metaphor for the power of directionality a fixed image can possess.

If the images are bleak, negative, and backward, one’s waking life will be moved toward that direction. A patient must not despair at the appearance of these images, for these are events of revelation that inform him or her of the “what is” of one’s present life, and without this awareness, the “what can be” could not happen. It must always be remembered that in the practice of psychotherapy within the imaginal, interpretation of images or events is forbidden. Interpretation takes the experience out of the event. Carl Jung writes that: that image and meaning are identical; and as the first takes shape, the latter becomes clear.

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Actually, the pattern needs no interpretation: it portrays its own meaning” (1953, vol. 8, p. 402) In “Psychotherapy within Imagination,” these events of revelation take place in night dreams and guided imaginal exercises. Through the dreams and exercises, protracted selfimages become manifest, bringing about an awareness of the “what is” of one’s life. Awareness happens quickly and sometimes painfully in the dream and imaginal realms, but this awareness is the condition for the possibility of freedom and change.

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II. NIGHT DREAMS AS THE PRESENCING OF “WHAT IS” Night dreams are eventful happenings in which dreamers finds themselves existing in a certain manner and in relationship to certain appearing phenomena. From the perspective of a psychological phenomenology, what the dreamer experiences in a dream is a real level of existence where concrete sensory events take place, but unlike waking life, the experience happens outside of linear time and in a trans-spatial realm. The dream is not to be understood as an individual creation of the dreamer, but rather as an appearing truth in the sense of truth as “Aletheia” that informs the dreamer of the truth of his current existence. The dream is the guiding light for understanding the “what is” of one’s present life, and in order to accomplish this, the dreamer must look at the dream from the vantage point of waking life and let the dream disclose what possibilities for fulfillment are open and closed to him (Boss, 1977).

The following dreams were reported to me by individuals participating with me in this form of psychotherapy. The dreams are straightforward disclosures of various aspects of their waking lives and are put forward to demonstrate the revelatory nature of dreams when perceived in a phenomenological manner. For a detailed explication of the phenomenological method applied to dreaming, see Medard Boss’s I dreamt last night.6

6

Boss, M. I Dreamt Last Night. New York: John Wiley, 1977.

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Example #1: A thirty year old married woman experiences herself in a dream about to make love with her husband only to look up from their bed and observe her parents standing to the left of her bed; at this point she senses her body stiffening.

What does this dreaming reveal about her sexuality, her relationship to her husband and her parents in waking life?

Example #2: A young man in his twenties experiences himself in a dream running and leaping on a beach. It is a bright sunny day; he experiences a sense of energy and freedom as the salt air caresses his skin. Suddenly he approaches a group of students from his old high school and finds he is no longer able to leap into the air.

What does this dreaming reveal about his present mode of relating to others and how it affects his freedom of movement in waking life?

Example #3: A young man in his teens experiences intense fear in his dreaming while watching a caged black panther endeavoring to escape.

What does this dreaming reveal about this young man’s relationship to the animal dimension of his waking life?

Example #4: A twenty-eight year old man experiences himself in a dream as being sunk up to his knees in a dark marshy swamp. Unable to move, he looks up and the light of the moon reveals his parents and four brothers looking down at him from atop a mountain.

What does this dreaming reveal about his freedom of movement in waking life, and what does it reveal about the manner in which he relates to his family in waking life?

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III. IMAGINATION AS THE PRESENCING OF “WHAT IS” The imaginal realm of human existence offers the same mysterious and eventful experiences as does the dreaming level of existence. Existence in the imaginal realm happens outside of measured time and space, like dreaming, but with the added advantage that an individual may choose to enter or re-enter the imaginal realm at will. The willful inward directing of one’s senses is the passage to the imaginal, and while one is in this realm, the senses must be constantly engaged by the inward events of appearance. These trans-spatial events of appearance are sensorially contacted forms of self-revelation.

These revelations happen through observing and simultaneously living certain modes of existence, such as running from a dark unknown figure, or treading water, unable to move in any direction. Self-revelations also happen through the discovering of certain discrete symbols. In the imaginal as well as the dreaming realm of existence, symbols are understood as concrete appearances always referring to some abstract or immaterial quality beyond their concrete form.

Traditional psychology usually translates the symbol as a concrete object which stands for another concrete object which stands for another concrete object (G. Epstein, 1981, p.

160). For example, snakes, cigars, or rifles are usually viewed as being symbols of the penis. Here the symbol is reduced to a substitution for another disguised material object. If we turn to the example of the teenager who in a dreaming state discovers a black panther endeavoring to escape, we can see how a psychological phenomenology would view the symbol of the

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black panther. A black panther appears, the boy is frightened by the possibility of its escaping and he awakes.

Phenomenologically, the black panther symbolically speaks to qualitative possibilities for his existence (instinctiveness, strength, reactivity, etc.) that this young man has not as yet become comfortable about accepting into his life.

When the symbol is treated in a phenomenological manner, it enters the world of becoming, as these symbolic qualities become possibilities for concrete fulfillment in waking life. In the course of “Psychotherapy within Imagination,� this young man learned to accept his black panther qualities as continuing assets in his life that are within his control. A traditional psychological view may ascertain that the black panther endeavoring to escape is a symbol denoting an impulse disorder, thereby designating the being of this young man to be the being of a disorder, thus closing the door on becoming.

Traditional psychology is a psychology of being, always endeavoring to classify, identify, or fix a mode of existence into the being of a diagnostic entity. Another example of the traditional psychological treatment of the symbol will further illustrate this point. In an imaginal exercise, an individual discovers a snake. Traditional psychology would most likely, and psychoanalytic psychology would most definitely, understand the snake as a symbolic representation of a penis, another concrete object, thereby closing off the symbol from the becoming qualities of a snake.

The snake in concrete waking life is that creature which sheds its skin yearly in a dance of renewal. Could not the snake be the eventful disclosure of the possibility of renewal? Truly, this is a more open and receptive relationship to the appearance of a snake than viewing it as a sign of penis envy, latent homosexuality, or as a desire for phallic display.

The imagination is man’s faculty of becoming, for within its realm, disclosures happen without logical necessity.

Clinically, an individual can be instructed in the use of imagination through directed imaginal exercises. A clinician

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can have an individual close his or her eyes and imagine him or herself swimming to the ocean’s floor, or entering hidden doors, descending hidden staircases, and in all these scripts disclosures happen. It is these disclosures which reveal various modes of existence that may be closing off an individual’s openness and receptivity and thus blocking his or her becoming.

Certain modes of existence may have become fixed patterns of living that an individual habitually relies on, given a certain set of relationships. Take, for example, the individual described earlier as habitually reacting with anger and resentment when in a relationship to figures of authority. This was described as the “what is” of his relationships with authority, but how was this “what is” discovered? He discovered his habitual response to authority through observing his reactions to authority in dreams and through participating in imaginal exercises in which he repeatedly and unexpectedly encountered authority figures. With the “what is” of his relationship with authority figures revealed, the condition for the possibility of finding other modes of relating to authority figures happened.

Often the negative self-images found in the disclosures of dreams and imaginal exercises persistently reappear, even after they are experienced as a “what is” aspect of an individual’s present existence. This is usually a clear indication that these negative self-images have become fixed identities or fixed modes of existence which continue to cloud that individual’s openness and receptivity. What is clinically viable at this stage of the process of “Psychotherapy within Imagination” is more directed imaginal exercises for the purpose of cleaning out the obscuring presence of negative images. We will now turn to the use of imagination for the deconstruction of negative self-images.

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DECONSTRUCTION OF NEGATIVE SELF-IMAGES The directed clinical use of imagination within the context of deconstruction is to be understood as the imaginal cleaning out of the negative self-images that cloud an individual’s openness and receptivity. These negative self images which manifest themselves in dreams and in the imagination are constellations of emotional forces which appear to have become fixed identifying images of self. The deconstruction of the being of these self-identifying images through imagination is the practice of erasing being in order to make room for becoming.

To attach to any constellation of emotions as constituting an identity is to remain attached to a moment past and blocked to what the future may become.

Take, for example, a young woman who while in treatment with me had recurring images in her dreams and in imagination of self-flagellation. The scene always took place in the lobby of an elegant hotel, but the means of self-punishment differed. One time she would be whipping herself with a black whip and at other times she would be cutting herself with knives or razor blades. This young woman was being treated with antidepressant medication prior to entering treatment with me, but the medication did not prevent her from becoming more and more withdrawn. (This is not a condemnation of antidepressant medication, for during the course of my clinical experience, I have seen it assist many individuals, while in this young woman’s situation it proved ineffective.) After three months of taking the medication had failed to improve her condition, her physician referred her for “Psychotherapy within Imagination.”

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Prior to entering psychotherapy, her spatiality had become reduced to her apartment, and the only human contact she had was with her husband, a busy surgical resident. She quickly responded to the human contact of therapy and was able to enter into imaginal exercises almost from the beginning of treatment. It was through these imaginal exercises that the self-punishing images began to appear, and eventually they began to appear also in her night dreams.

Why of all the possible places she could exist in her dreaming and imaginal realms, was she appearing at this particular hotel? Why was she physically continuing to beat herself at this specific place and what significance did these events have for her in relation to her waking life? This young woman had no difficulty answering these questions. Several months before becoming depressed she had met an old college boyfriend and, feeling ignored and unappreciated by her husband, she arranged a liaison with this man at this particular hotel. She arrived at the hotel at the arranged time, and while her old boyfriend was securing the room, she became overwhelmed with anxiety and quickly left the hotel without even saying goodbye to him. She claimed that she felt it was wrong to have contemplated this act, but never realized how guilty she had been feeling. The intensity of her guilt was certainly verified through her recurrent images of selfflagellation.

Her identity had become one of scarlet guilt, and her guilt over her intention of infidelity had practically veiled her openness and receptivity to life. The imaginal intervention at this point was to have her enter these scenes of self-punishment and have her see herself literally cleaning out the space of her contemplated indiscretion.

This entailed seeing herself scrubbing out the lobby of the hotel with soap and water, all with the intention of detaching from her feelings of guilt. The imaginal cleaning out of these spaces enabled her to become open and receptive to looking at her marriage and how her compliance as a wife had

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contributed to her husband’s lack of attention. She discovered new possibilities for becoming less dependent on her husband.

With enactment of these new ways of being with her husband, she found him more available.

Without the deconstruction of her identity of guilt, her openness and receptivity would not have become cleared enough to receive the awareness of the being of the way she was being a wife. Guilt is only one of many different affects and emotions which can take on a self-blanketing identity.

There are fearful images, angry images, ambivalent images, resentful images, and hopeless images, all of which, if attached to as self-identifying, darken one’s openness and receptivity to life. The imagination can reveal the “what is” of one’s selfidentifying images and can also be used to detach oneself from the fixed and clouding effects of these images. The more recurring the image in one’s dreams and imaginal exercises, the stronger the imposition on an individual’s possible becomings.

Take, for example, another young woman in her early twenties, who presented a series of images in which she was surrounded by several encircling walls. These walled-in images related perfectly to her closed-off mode of existence in waking life. Eventually, in a night dream, the image of a wrecking ball on the end of a crane appeared. Imaginally, she was instructed to see herself driving the crane and directing the wrecking-ball against her walls. She broke through the first wall which she called the wall of hopelessness.

The second wall she broke down was the wall of resentment. The third wall was the wall of anger, and the fourth and last wall broken through was the wall of darkness. At this point she was instructed to imaginally see herself filling with light and she was instructed to do this part of the exercise each morning for twenty-one days. Needless to say, the darkness of her life reversed itself during this period, allowing her an openness and receptivity to living she had never before

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experienced. The imaginal work enabled her to move from a life of inactivity (darkness) to an active existence (light).

Experience, both clinically and personally, has taught me that once images are deconstructed, they rarely, if ever, return to one’s dreaming or imaginal realms. This is not to say that an individual who has a habitual tendency to hold on to feelings of guilt will never feel guilty again, but it is to say that the images of guilt originating from a particular emotional constellation will not return. Hopefully, in treatment this individual with a tendency to hold on to feelings of guilt will discover a new mode of existence predicated on personal responsibility for his or her actions and leave behind a life predicated on guilt-provoking imperatives.

It should be reiterated at this point that in the process of “Psychotherapy within Imagination,” the images that appear in one’s imagination and dreams are directly related to ones’ being and becomings in waking life. These images are never interpreted back to any theoretical structure but are related only to the “what is” and “what is possible” of waking life. The “what is possible” happens in the trans-spatial clearing brought about through the deconstruction of fixed images of self and through the constant sharpening of the senses that takes place in all directed use of imagination. Imagination reveals, sharpens, and cleans, and as a result one’s openness becomes receptive to the mystery of becoming while placing the puzzlesolving mode of existence in its proper relationship to the mechanical world. True becoming will always remain a mystery and a blessing.

Attention will now turn to the last part of the clinical paradigm, Waking Dream, where the emphasis is on discovering and living new possibilities. It should be recalled that the sequential ordering of the uses of imagination are for the convenience of presentation and that any and all of its functions can happen in any one of imagination’s three presented uses. All three functions of imagination are always

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already sharpening one’s senses, and in this manner are always functioning as a clearer of clouded openness and receptivity.

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WAKING DREAM: LIVING POSSIBILITIES “I say to you, one must have chaos in oneself to give birth to a dancing star.”

Nietzsche; Thus Spake Zarathustra Waking dreams are guided explorations of one’s night dreams within the realm of imagination. The intention of a waking dream is to willfully and sensorially attend to the events of appearance within the trans-spatial world of imagination and to concretize these discovered appearances as new modes of existence in one’s waking life. These discoveries are most often received as answers to questions posed at the outset of treatment.

Waking dreams as a psychotherapeutic use of imagination was originated by Madame Colette AboulkerMuscat of Jerusalem and further brought into form by Gerald Epstein of New York City. 7 As a manifestation of imagination, waking dreams are guided re-entries into a chosen segment of an individual’s night dreams. The chosen segment of the night dream is experienced both by the individual dreamer and the therapist as a point of departure which calls for further exploration of the night dream. Once the departure point is selected, the individual is instructed to close his or her eyes and to begin to breathe in an even and regular manner. Here the therapist, as the imaginal explorer’s guide, relates a verbal induction to the individual. This induction assists the explorer in turning his or her senses inward to the imaginal realm. This induction should 7

Gerald Epstein, M.D. Waking Dream Therapy: Dream Process as Imagination, Human Sciences Press, New York, NY 1981.

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not be confused with a hypnotic induction since its only purpose is to bring the individual via his/her senses into the imaginal realm, so he/she may begin his journey of discovery.

While in the imaginal sojourn, the explorer’s will is always intact and as a matter of fact, the will is always enhanced by the experience.

After the induction, the explorer is sensorially experiencing his or her departures from the pre-chosen segment of the night dream. There is no predetermined map; the explorer may leave from his/her house and travel to the moon or to a supermarket; the journey is without telos. The explorer does enter into a unique state of non-concrete reality and becomes simultaneously the observer and the observed.

From the very beginning of the journey, the therapist as guide, must elicit detailed descriptions from the sojourner as to the happenings and events of the experience. The descriptions are requested in sensory terms such as “what do you see/ hear/ smell/ taste/ touch?” The descriptions must also be given to the guide in present tense, such as, “I am climbing a steep mountain” or “I am swimming in deep dark waters.”

These descriptions serve several purposes; firstly, attention to sensorial detail sharpens one’s sensorial acuity; secondly, the present tense usage keeps the experience of the explorer in the now; and thirdly, the description keeps the dweller of imagination in constant connection to the guide.

This contact with the therapist prevents the explorer from becoming too frightened by the eventful world of imagination where transformations occur, predictability vanishes, linear time is suspended, and the law of non-contradiction does not apply.

Since existence in the imaginal realm is eventful, it is a practice which fosters openness and receptivity to the appearance of all phenomena. Resulting from this practice is a movement toward the loss of self-centeredness since one experiences oneself not at the center or in control of the events of imagination.

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A waking dream in linear time will last forty minutes to an hour and a half, and when the explorer has completed the journey, he or she is instructed to return along the same route, noticing whether or not things have changed. When reaching the point of departure again, he or she is gently returned to the here and now of waking reality and is instructed to write a detailed description of the adventure while also being requested to draw in color its significant images.

The discovery of a particular image points to a new mode of existence which can overcome an old habitual painprovoking mode of existence. The living of this new mode of existence in the imaginal realm enables this new emotional or behavioral possibility to be lived in waking life. Through deconstruction of old forms of existence in a waking dream or in an imaginal experience, the presence of this new possibility now has the clearing in which to appear and be lived.

Khaos in Greek mythology is the etymological ground of chaos, and the original meaning associated to Khaos was a formless primordial void or empty space. Therefore, when Nietzsche states that chaos is necessary within oneself in order to give birth to a dancing star, chaos can be understood as emptying or detaching from images of self that fill up one’s clearing, thus preventing presencing.

In order to give birth to a dancing star, chaos can be understood as an emptying or detaching from images of self that fill up one’s clearing, thus preventing presencing.

The individual of whom we spoke earlier who had a habitual response of anger and resentment to figures of authority can be said to have covered over his openness and receptivity to discovering a new mode of relating to authority, through a self-identifying image of anger and resentment in his responses to authority. When he became aware of this “what is” within his waking life, he became open to exercises of imaginal practices which enabled him to clean out these images of anger and resentment. The cleaning out of these images was a self-emptying of his automatic behavioral responses to

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authority, which could be said to be a letting of chaos (empty space) reign within his Self. At this point in his treatment, he experienced a waking dream in which the presencing of a new emotional and behavioral response to authority figures manifested itself, and he has since carried out this freer form of relating in his waking life.

Guided waking dreams are birthings, assisted by a midwife (therapist or guide), which take place in the emptied, at times terrifying, realm of becoming which is the imagination.

A guided waking dream can contain all three parts of this clinical paradigm for the use of imagination, as can imaginal exercises for self-revelation and deconstruction. Any imaginal journey can become an extended one, but clinical experience has taught me that when self-identifying images have become protracted or fixed, separate deconstruction exercises are usually necessary. Generally, the longer the identifying has been lived, the more fearful one is of letting go of it, although I have seen this happen on several occasions after only one waking dream. Phenomenologically, there can be no theory of resistance, but some individuals seem to be able to let go of images without as much trepidation as others, just like some people take to swimming much quicker than others.

What can universally assist individuals within the therapeutic environment to let go of negative images, is their relationship to the therapist. When the therapeutic relationship is mutually respectful of each other’s humanness and the individual being treated is trusting of the therapist, this individual becomes more willing to let chaos (empty space) into his life. This trusting relationship to the therapist is particularly important in the waking dream process because not only is the individual emptying himself or herself of selfidentifying images, the individual is also being guided into the uncharted sea of becoming. The nature of this uncharted sea

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will be described in detail in the next section when a complete description of an individual’s waking dream will be presented.

The overall project of the next section will be to develop completely the case description of an individual suffering from prolonged and intense feelings of guilt and how this situation blocks his openness and receptivity. How his openness and receptivity becomes cleared through participation in the process of “Psychotherapy within Imagination” will be demonstrated.

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A PROLONGED EXPERIENCE OF GUILT FEELINGS: A CLINICAL CASE EXAMPLE OF PSYCHOTHERAPY WITHIN IMAGINATION As has already been pointed out, the ontological ground of human existence in a psychological phenomenology is an openness and receptivity to the appearance of phenomena. It is through the reception of these phenomena with their perceived meanings that an individual is induced or motivated to action or non-action in life. Through this understanding, human existence is seen to be pulled by the call of the future and not pushed by past determinations. Individuals seeking treatment for their emotional pain and suffering can be said to have some clouding of their openness and receptivity which prevents appearances of new, freer forms or relating to painful circumstances so that they can be discovered and lived.

Therefore, the guiding question of “Psychotherapy within Imagination” is: “What blocks or clouds an individual’s full openness and receptivity to life?” To the degree that an individual’s openness and receptivity is veiled, this individual’s freedom to carry out the innate concrete possibilities of his life is impaired.

The following case description is of a young man whose openness and receptivity became so clouded by feelings of guilt that he was unable even to imagine the possibility of living without remorse or self-affliction.

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Case Illustration Peter, a young man, aged 27, came to me for treatment three months after being fired from his job as a computer programmer at a bank where he had worked for only six months. Prior to his stint at the bank he had been working successfully as a programmer for a corporation. Peter’s initial response to unemployment was to spend his days at the beach and drinking and partying with friends from his previous job at the corporation. Gradually, he began to lose interest in these activities, and by the time he started treatment he had withdrawn from all social contact and was very despondent and lethargic. His appetite had decreased and he experienced difficulty in falling asleep unless he drank. Peter was living at home with his retired parents and began to compare himself to his siblings, three older married and successful brothers who owned their own homes.

Peter was obsessed with guilt feelings about losing his job and began to ruminate about his diminishing savings because he claimed to be too embarrassed to apply for unemployment insurance. A tremendous sense of shame enveloped him over not working. He experienced shame in the face of his parents, neighbors, brothers and friends. This led to an almost total withdrawal to his own bedroom, where he could avoid human contact. His shame over not having a job and his guilt feelings over losing his job became extended to reliving the shame and guilt feelings related to every incident from his past that he experienced as not meeting some standard. Peter’s existence became a testament to the adage, “Seek and you shall find,” for he constantly sought evidence of his guilt from his past and was quite successful in finding it. He was existing as a failure and his identity was one of shame and guilt.

Eventually, he started to drink during the day and began to experience constant stomach pain. He hated himself, and his

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world for the most part had become diminished to the measured locality of his bedroom. Peter was forever bathing in the still pond of guilt feelings which threw his temporal and spatial existence into a backward direction, retrieving and reexperiencing incidence of guilt. He had difficulty traveling on the subway because he would become nauseous in a moving train. The fear of a possible mechanical breakdown prevented him from driving his family’s car. His only physical activity was an occasional walk to the corner liquor store, which he found exhausting.

Yes, Peter’s openness and receptivity to life at the start of treatment was very narrow. His only treatment goal was to be relieved of his painful existence, and before we turn to his course of treatment, a phenomenological understanding of what was blocking his openness and receptivity will be presented. Given the “what is” of Peter’s existence, as it presented itself to me at the start of his imaginal work, what could be said to be blocking his openness and receptivity?

First and foremost among the various clouds that darkened Peter’s receptivity to life was his persistent reliving of his being fired from his job. This sensory re-experiencing focused his attention on having failed to measure up to some standard in this situation, and eventually extended his attention back to long forgotten events of personal infractions. This in turn led him to a fixed identity of being guilty. Each and every identity, whether it be deemed good or bad, disrupts the flow of one’s becomings. In Peter’s case, the major covering of his openness and receptivity became his identity of guilt.

As a result of guilty self image, Peter experienced shame in the eyes of others and thus became a recluse in order to avoid this additional pain. Although his social isolation did avoid the painful experience of shame, it also perpetuated this shameful mode of relating to others, since he was denying himself the opportunity of discovering a new non-painful mode of being with others by not letting others into his world. His brothers and occasional co-workers did enter his attention, but

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only as a means of further verifying his guilt and shame through a persistent unfavorable comparison of his failed life to their successful lives.

Peter’s measured spatiality was the “here” of his bedroom, and the only “there” that he could let himself extend to were locations where he had experienced guilt feelings. He could not extend his spatiality into a place of non-suffering because the possibilities had not entered his life due to his present experience of temporality. Peter’s lived time was a constant reliving of these past events which blocked his living in the present moment. His experience of the future was only a projection of his past pain and suffering as an external return of that pain and suffering. His temporality allowed no hope.

Peter’s movement from place to place was blocked by his constant pain in the stomach, for to be overly aware of one’s body is to lose the spontaneity of its movements. His movement was also blocked through fear of possible future events, such as: a shameful encounter with another, becoming nauseated on a train, and the mechanical failure of his car.

Without movement there is a lack of physical exercise, and without exercise a decrease in energy happens. The lack of vitality prevented Peter from leaving the negative contents of his thoughts, for one must have sufficient energy to involve himself in other activities when obsessions happen. Peter’s existence had become a circle of pain and suffering. He lacked the vitality for movement which in turn kept him in the time and space of guilt and shame while blocking the appearance of new phenomena. The presencing of new phenomena is the motivating call of future possibilities, but in that mode of existence his senses were too dull to receive the call. His living within his ruminations of guilt had dulled his senses.

Fortunately, Peter possessed enough of an openness and receptivity to life to consent to entering treatment. Given the preceding description, we can only accept his coming into treatment as a mystery to be celebrated.

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Clinical Intervention The preceding information on the state of Peter’s life at the beginning of treatment unfolded over the course of several sessions, but from the very first session he was introduced to imaginal work. It was obvious from the start that his physical energy was quite diminished, and I directed him in several short imaginal exercises to lift his energy level. First, since he had informed me that he had been a jogger, I had him imagine himself jogging. The actual exercise was for him to see, sense and experience himself wearing a bright red sweat suit, and to experience himself running through his neighborhood. He was to pay attention to all of the appearances that occurred on his jog. He was instructed to do this imaginal exercise every morning for twenty-one days.

Second, I had him imaginally clean his room from top to bottom, discarding all dirt and unwanted articles. He described in detail each and every act he performed and article he discarded. This description is the actual exercising of the senses and the cleaning is a prelude to opening his near-closed openness and receptivity. He was also instructed to clean a part of his actual room each morning for twenty-one days with the intention of cleaning out despair, guilt, and shame.

The next several sessions focused on the imaginal deconstruction of his images of guilt. One such exercise was to have Peter see and experience himself sitting on the edge of a desert with a red ribbon on his lap; there he was instructed to write all feelings of guilt on the ribbon. Once he completed writing or drawing these feelings of guilt, he was instructed to walk into the desert with the red ribbon around his neck until he came upon a large table-like rock. He placed the ribbon on the rock and burned it, and he was instructed to bury its ashes with the intention of burying his guilt. Afterwards he traveled to a river where he washed and cleansed himself. This exercise

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is one of many imaginal exercises that I have found to be very helpful in enabling an individual to let off all guilt feelings. It is one of the many exercises taught to me by Madame Colette Aboulker-Muscat of Jerusalem.

Since Peter was consistently encountering images of guilt within his imaginal work, it was necessary to do many exercises of deconstruction. Even though Peter’s identity of guilt did not immediately give way, it should be understood that each imaginal exercise he performed acted on his veiled openness and receptivity through the sharpening of his senses.

It took one month of meeting once a week in the process of a “Psychotherapy within Imagination” before Peter was able to record a night dream. It should be recalled that in psychological phenomenology the dream is accepted as constituting an authentic level of reality, different from waking reality but a reality nonetheless. Peter was instructed to look at the dream from the vantage point of waking life and to disclose what possibilities and potentials for fulfillment were open or closed to him (Boss, 1977).

Peter’s dream was the following: he is existing sunk up to his knees in a dark marshy swamp. Unable to move, he looks up and the light of the moon reveals his parents and four older brothers looking down at him from atop a mountain.

What positive possibilities presenced themselves within his night dream? Peter was unable to see anything positive about the manner in which he was existing in the dream.

I pointed out to him that he was existing in such a manner as to be open to the receipt of moonlight. This appearance of light within an otherwise darkened world was an indication that the imaginal work was beginning to clear away some of the clouding.

Given Peter’s mode of existence within the dream, what possibilities for fulfillment were closed off from Peter’s existence? Through some phenomenological education, Peter, reached the conclusion that the following possibilities were closed off to him:

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1) Freedom of movement: for in the dreaming Peter existed as being stuck within a marshy ground.

2) Existence on a firm ground: in the dreaming Peter existed in such a manner that the ground could not hold his weight; he sank into it.

3) Equal sharing of existence with others without comparison, guilt or shame: for in the dreaming Peter existed in such a manner that his family appeared elevated above him, looking down on him.

After discussing the dream in relation to his waking life, it was agreed that he would re-enter the dream through a guided waking dream in the next session. The following text is the record of Peter’s actual waking dream, which used as the starting point the scene of his night dream in which he was stuck.

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A Guided Waking Dream: A case example After the induction the following unfolded: Guide: Describe where you are, what you see and sense, what you are feeling about what you are doing.

Peter:

I am in a very dark place; I cannot see everything and am frightened. I sense my feet to be stuck in a damp mushy substance and am struggling to free them but feel overwhelmed.

Guide: Reach and feel around on the ground in order to find a light of some kind.

Peter:

I am feeling around what appears to be mud; it is wet and I find a flashlight. I turn it on but its light is very dim, I guess the batteries are going dead.

Guide: Use the light that has been given to you.

Peter:

I shine the light on my feet and see that I am up to my knees in dark wet mud. I now begin to dig my left foot out, using my hands as a shovel. I free my left foot.

Now I am digging out my right; it is now free. I notice that as long as I move my legs they don’t sink into the mud. I sense that I must keep moving or I will become stuck in the mud again. I am now walking; it is still very dark and my light is dim.

Guide: Which direction are you walking in?

Peter:

I am moving to my left; walking is hard. I must pull each foot out of the mud in order to move. I see ahead of me gray smoke smoldering around something. I am feeling very cold and I rub my hands together and this makes me feel warmer. I continue to walk towards the gray smoky ground cover. The closer I get to the smoke; it appears to be rising out of the ground. I now

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see that it is coming out of a large black hole, the smoke originates from it. I stand beside it and feel very scared. Looking to my right, all I see is darkness. I am cold again, rubbing my hands does not help, I feel that I am becoming frozen; I do not know what to do.

Guide: You could explore the hole in the ground.

Peter:

That frightens me even more than becoming a frozen statue; now my stomach is aching.

Guide: At the bottom of the hole you may find relief for your pain.

Peter:

I am cold, my stomach hurts, its dark and darker down there. How do I get down?

Guide: Find a golden rope and tie it to something, then climb down.

Peter:

I find a thick golden rope and am tying it to an old petrified tree trunk. Now I throw the rope down the hole and begin to climb down.

Guide: Describe what you see on your descent.

Peter:

As I am lowering myself down, I see only darkness, except I now feel the darkness as a cylindrical cone, and what seems miles further down is a dull glimmering light. I am concentrating on this light as I go further and further down. The light seems to be getting brighter the nearer I come to it. Now I am getting very close to the light; it is bright. I am moving into it and am now dangling above a floor. I drop to the floor and discover I am wearing a three piece suit, a white shirt, striped tie, and black shoes. I look around me and I am at the bank from which I was fired. I feel great wearing these clothes. It is the bank, but it’s filled with friends from my old corporation job.

On the other side of the room, I see the boss who fired me; I start to freeze again. I can’t move.

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Guide: What color are your socks?

Peter:

They are blue, dark blue.

Guide: Do your dark blue socks match your suit?

Peter:

Yes they fit very well with my suit.

Guide: How does it feel to be wearing your three piece suit, and what do you need to become unfrozen?

Peter:

I don’t feel like I need anything, as long as I see myself wearing these clothes. I begin to move toward my ex-boss; he is standing on the other side of the room and is wearing a white shirt and tie without a jacket. Approaching him, he suddenly looks much smaller than I remembered. I am standing face to face with him and ask him why I was fired. He replies that “Somebody had to be, don’t take it personal.” I feel it as personal and I push my ex-boss to the ground. I feel rage and I go about the bank turning over chairs and tables. I pick up a typewriter and throw it into a file cabinet. I feel strong and realize it is time to leave this place, so I say goodbye to my friends and climb the golden rope upwards. As I am climbing, I notice that it is no longer dark in the hole and as I emerge from the hole it is daylight. I look around and see a city in the distance to my left and my right. I see a large mountain which touches the sky. I start to walk towards the mountain, and reaching the base of it I begin to climb upwards and upwards. It appears to require very little effort to climb, and as I continue to climb I feel stronger. The sky is a deep blue–I notice that as I reach the summit, I am no longer wearing a suit. I have on a blue flannel shirt and a pair of jeans. Also I am wearing hiking boots; they are very comfortable. I look out into the sky; the horizon is filled with rays of the sun in every direction.

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Guide: See, sense, and experience yourself filling with this same sunlight.

Peter:

I become filled with the rays of the sun and experience myself as an extension of the horizon.

At this point Peter had been in the imaginal realm for about 45 minutes, and this seemed to be an appropriate point for him to return to waking life, in that he climbed out of the depths to the summit of a mountain. This is a clear indication with the imaginal realm of the movement out of despair. Here the returning begins, with Peter quickly retracing all the steps he had taken, leading back to the starting point of the waking dream. He is instructed to describe on his returning whether or not persons, places or things appear different on his return.

Once he has arrived at the beginning point of the waking dream, he is slowly brought back to the here and now of waking life and is instructed to draw and write out the experience as soon as possible.

Placing the imaginal experience on paper is the initial movement towards making what has been discovered concrete, and it also offers the explorer the opportunity to reflect upon his imaginal text during the following week. At the conclusion of the waking dream, little discussion takes place about the experience, for it has been found that the discussion between the explorer and therapist in relation to the waking dream is much more fruitful a week later, after the explorer has had time to reflect on and digest the experience.

Within the following session, Peter came to realize that movement is essential for his life, since non-movement for him produces stuckness. He also discovered the importance dressing well had for his life, as experienced in the waking dream when he wore his three piece work suit. The waking dream had many experiences but it is not necessary for the explorer to have cognitive awareness of each and every experience in order to make changes in his waking life, for movement in waking dreams is most often followed by actual

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movement in waking life. It is after the movement to a new mode of existence in waking life that cognitive awareness most often happens.

Within a month of his first waking dream, Peter went through a successful detoxification program and has not abused alcohol since. He returned to jogging each day and experienced an increase in his energy level. In the fifth week following the waking dream, Peter was no longer ruminating about his guilt.

This enabled him to take another job which was manual in nature; he felt he did not want to return to an office job at that time. Several months and two waking dreams later, it was discovered that Peter wanted to return to school to become a geologist. He claimed to have always wanted to work with nature but felt that business pursuits were expected of him by his family. We become aware of Peter’s guilt on its most ontological level: he had been turning his back for years on the possibilities of working for and within a natural environment.

The following section will develop more precisely ontological guilt as a structure of human existence, but for now it should be understood that Peter’s experience within “Psychotherapy within Imagination” enabled him to gain the light necessary to discover this veiled possibility and move towards making it lived. Naturally, before this could come about, Peter had to clean out many images of self disgust and shame, but once he was able to, he made rapid self-chosen movements within the cleared openness and receptivity of his life.

The concluding section of this text will explore Guilt, Imagination and Freedom. These three ontological characteristics of human existence will be examined in relation to the practice of psychotherapy in general, and in particular, to “Psychotherapy within Imagination.”

Guilt, Imagination and Freedom

Guilt Imagination and Freedom

Christened and birthed into the law Fearing infraction and did i crawl On to a plane where i was not i And yet, i was too much Lost my soul to the timetable of the bus Black snakes veiling my eyes Biting me viciously, for lies Endless backwardness became the glance Forward star glow lost in the presence Of the past Cleaning images impossible to grasp Imagination, my broom, came at last Sweeping clean existence of the past Into the morning of tomorrow’s star Out, out, out of what was into afar.

Now nearness has holiness as does the star F.X.C. Jerusalem 10/13/82

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Guilt Guilt feelings have thus far been defined as the feelings that ensue from a perceived transgression against an external authority, be it a person or a moral code of conduct. Clinically, it has been shown that when these feelings of guilt become protracted, a self-identity of guilt forms which blocks an individual’s openness and receptivity to the appearance of phenomena. Viewed from the perspective of psychological phenomenology, this appears to be the experienced consequence of prolonged feelings of guilt, but the attention and concern of this section will shift to making explicit the meaning implicit in the overall phenomenon of guilt.

To be human is to be guilty. Men and women are born into the world guilty, not guilty of transgression, but in debt to their own existence. In the English language, the origin of the word “guilt” is derived from an Old English word “guidan,” meaning to pay or to pay off (the Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, 1966). In the German language, “schuld” means guilt, “schulden” means to be indebted, and both words are derived from the Old High German word “schuld,” which signified merely whatever is lacking and missing and what one owes, be it materially or morally (Boss, M., 1962, p. 177). This etymological excavation leads to the ontological meaning of the guilt of man: as being indebted to one’s own existence.

This essential meaning of guilt is to be understood as an ontological structure of human existence that is prior to ethics and morality. The heart of the view about right and wrong actions presupposes that one is able to be in such a mode of existence that the question of what is right or wrong makes sense. This question is actually the condition for the possibility of morality, if human beings were unable to be concerned about their existence, moral and civil laws would not have been developed, nor could guilt feelings ever be inculcated.

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The phenomenon of guilt has two forms; the essential form being ontological guilt and the derivative form being guilt feelings. Each guilt also has two components: a debtor who is owing, and a creditor, to whom that something is owed (Boss, 1962, p. 179).

Within the experience of guilt feeling connected with one’s relationship to outside life, atonement or retribution is always the something that is owing, and the creditor is always an external authority: parent, moral code, the state, etc.8 Whereas, in the experience of ontological guilt connected to one’s relationship to one’s inner life within the world, saying yes to becoming is what is owing and the creditor is one’s own existence. Both of these forms of guilt need to be made more explicit and therefore each will be developed separately, starting with guilt feelings.

8

The designation of inner and outside life is used here to indicate two different dimensions of human existence, and should not be understood as a subject/object distinction. Both inner and outside life are always already part of a human being’s existence in the world.

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Guilt Feelings Guilt feelings can be understood as the feelings of indebtedness that ensue from a perceived transgression, since the etymological ground of guilt has been traced to “indebtedness.”

These feelings of indebtedness must become more meaningful, and in order to do so our attention will again turn to etymology, as well as to Sigmund Freud and the philosopher Walter Kaufman.

Remorse, a generally applied correlate of guilt feelings, is derived from the Latin, “remordere,” which means “to bite again” (The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, 1966).

This biting quality of prolonged guilt feelings has been seen in several of the clinical case examples within this text, in that these individuals appeared to be agonizingly and constantly reliving a perceived transgression. A self-punishing quality now begins to appear in these feelings of indebtedness. Even Sigmund Freud in his letter writing used “guilt feelings” and the “need for punishment” synonymously, and no experienced psychotherapist would refute this synonym (Freud, Vol. 2, p.

67).

Guilt feelings can now be understood as the feelings of indebtedness that ensue from a perceived transgression that calls forth a need for punishment. This view of guilt feelings can be further elucidated by looking at Walter Kaufman’s publication, Without Guilt and Justice. Within the book, he develops the understanding of guilt feelings to be intrinsically linked to the idea of justice and its deserts. Kaufman informs his reader: that it is the history of humanity and in infancy, that what is held to be deserved is what one is told is deserved or expected. If a command to do something is followed by a promise, then it is assumed that those who fulfill the command

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deserve what was promised (have it coming to them), and that justice is done when they receive it and injustice when they do not.” (Kaufman, W. 1973, p.102) Therefore, according to Kaufman, guilt feelings result from an unkept promise which is grounded in the longerstanding belief that man deserves some reward or punishment for his thoughts and behavior. Accordingly, if a child has learned what is expected of him and then transgresses these expectations without getting what is deserved (punishment), guilt feelings will ensue.

Franz Kafka’s Letter to the Father supplies us with an excellent illumination of the relationship between guilt feelings and “just deserts,” when he writes: It is perfectly true that you hardly ever actually beat me. But the shouting, the way your face turned red and you hurriedly loosened your suspenders, their lying ready over the back of the chair, were almost worse for me… When one has to live through all the preparation for one’s own hanging and learns of one’s pardon only when the noose hangs in front of one’s eyes, one may suffer from this for the rest of one’s life. Moreover, from the many times when, according to your clearly manifest opinion, I deserved a thrashing but, owing to your grace, barely escaped it, I accumulated a profound sense of guilt.” (Kafka, F. 1953, p. 182) Here Kafka not only provides the reader with a sense of the fear and trepidation which follows a perceived transgression, but also demonstrates how sensorially present these experiences are in his life. Now, with the added understanding of guilt feelings as a need for punishment based on the expectation of “just deserts,” we can better understand the obsessive re-living of the experience of transgression seen in the clinical case examples.

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Since, for justice to be done, punishment must be forthcoming, when punishment is not forthcoming for the individual who believes in “just deserts,” he continues to reexperience his infraction in a search for justice. It is through this constant re-experiencing of the transgression that an identity of guiltiness from which, as we have seen, blocks an individual’s openness and receptivity.

When guilt feelings are viewed in this light, it is no longer surprising that numerous psychotherapists have reported that many an emotional disturbance which had not been responding to treatment vanished from the patient when he became the victim of some misfortune, such as an automobile accident, loss of money, or the contracting of an organic disease. These seemingly liberating misfortunes can be understood as atonements, retributions, or as payments in full for the debts of a previous transgression. Although these misfortunes may release an individual from the indebtedness of a particular infraction, this individual still remains in a mode of existence which enables guilt feelings to be forever inculcated.

This mode of existence is based on the belief in the justice of “just deserts,” and as long as one has an expectation of what is deserving in life, he remains prey to frustration, disappointment and to the inculcation of guilt feelings.

Essentially, this mode of existence is a particular manner of relating to an authority (creditor), whether the external authority be parental, societal, or moral. In this mode of relating, the external authority supplies the individual with imperatives as to how one should conduct one’s life, and when this individual fails to live up to these expectations, he becomes indebted to the particular authority, deserving and in need of punishment. External authority has the right to mandate standards of behavior, but no one has the right to deem someone deserving of punishment for failure to carry out these standards.

External authority, though, does have the right to establish consequences for infractions against its code of

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conduct. Take, for example, a young boy who consistently fails to keep his room clean in the face of a clearly stated parental mandate to do so. The parents are entitled to set this expectation, and when the boy fails to fulfill it, the parents can mandate a consequence, for example, they forbid him from watching television for a week. This consequence is not a “just desert” but is a chosen consequence for the failure to perform what was expected of him. This is a system of education which does not lead to conditions for the possibility of guilt feelings, but points towards a mode of existence which is personally responsible for one’s actions.

This implied condemnation of “just desert” is not a call for social or moral anarchy, for civilization must have laws in order for individuals to live cohesively together in this shared world, but it is a call to replace the belief in observing punishment with a sense of personal responsibility for one’s actions. An individual chooses to rob a bank and is caught, tried, and sentenced to a prison term. This is not his “just deserts” but is the consequence of his behavior. To be personally responsible for one’s behavior is to not expect justice, for it is not in the domain of man to administer.

Justice is another indication of man’s hubristic attempt to control and master human existence in the world. Therefore to be without justice is to be without guilt feelings. An individual who is personally responsible for his actions will accept the consequences of his actions without obsessively reliving the deemed transgression. This mode of existence prevents an identity of guiltiness from forming by allowing an individual’s openness and receptivity to be aware of its ontological guilt.

To experience guilt feelings is to be subjugated to an external authority. It is a mode of existence which expects justice while becoming forgetful of its becoming nature; it lacks the courage to face its ontological guilt. Attention will now turn to what is meant by ontological guilt.

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Ontological Guilt If the prolonged experience of guilt feelings blocks one’s openness and receptivity, the converse can be said of the experience of ontological guilt. For to experience and acknowledge one’s ontological guilt is to become open to one’s own debt to become all that one is capable of becoming.

Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard informs us that the failure to live life allotted to oneself engenders a profound sense of guilt (Kierkegaard, 1953, p. 182). This sense of guilt is not the result of actions taken in life but of the refusal to take actions; it is a mode of existence that is forgetful of becoming.

As we have seen, “guilt,” has been etymologically traced to a “being-in-debt,” and in the experience of guilt feelings one is indebted to an external authority. In the experience of ontological guilt, however, one’s indebtedness is to one’s own existence. Ontological guilt is a “being-in-debt” to oneself to carry out all the possibilities that shine forth into the light of one’s existence. Since it is not likely that an individual can actualize all the possibilities that enter one’s life at any given moment, human existence is ontologically forever in debt to oneself, but it is a debt that brings forth life.

Ontological guilt, when acknowledged in the life of the experience, is a call forward into the life of becoming, beckoning one to actualize the possibilities for living that presence themselves into one’s openness and receptivity. When an individual in treatment begins to experience the disquieting stillness of turning one’s back on future possibilities, the therapist should never seek to quiet this discomfort. Instead, the therapist’s job is to educate the individual to the understanding that fulfilling these future possibilities is one’s debt to oneself. It is a therapeutic teaching which teaches the injustice of “just deserts” while enabling an individual to discover the justice of becoming. This discovery in the process

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of “Psychotherapy within Imagination” happens in the imaginal realm, for no amount of intellectual explanation can ever penetrate the mystery of becoming. For that matter, it can be assumed that the logical puzzle-solving mode of existence is responsible for creating the theory of “just deserts.” Therefore, if a therapist uses this puzzle-solving mode of reasoning to eradicate the feelings of guilt in his client, both he and the client remain locked into the conditions for the possibility of inculcating feelings of guilt, and therefore actually perpetuate their existence.

Guilt feelings are a causal phenomena which can only be eradicated outside the realm of causality. To experience prolonged feelings of guilt is to become closed to the reception of future possibilities by placing a past temporal experience into the forefront of one’s existence. The constant re-living of a past transgression only results in the dulling of ones senses.

Protracted feelings of guilt form a fixed identity within the life of the individual. This is an identity of guiltiness which needs punishment in order for justice to be done, because in this mode of existence, one’s relationship to external authority is based on the justice of “just deserts.” Lastly, and perhaps most seriously, the experience of guilt feelings prevents an individual from becoming aware of one’s ontological guilt. If one’s existence never became aware of its turning away from becoming, one could not be free to become receptive to the appearance of possibilities.

Ontological guilt, on the other hand, is a structure of human existence which can be ignored but never eradicated, for it is of the essence of man. Another essential characteristic of human existence is an openness and receptivity to the address of phenomena. However, this openness and receptivity can be lived in either an open or closed relationship to presencing of appearances (possibilities). A human existence caught in the grip of guilt feelings is a human being closed to the appearance of things but a human who experiences ontological guilt becomes aware of his or her existence as

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being closed to the address of phenomena. This is tantamount to the forgetfulness of becoming.

Ontological guilt when experienced and acknowledged confronts an individual with one’s “being-in-debt” to oneself to carry out the existential possibilities that enter one’s openness and receptivity. This awareness of “being-in-debt” to oneself happens at the juncture of human freedom, for with this experience of ontological guilt, one becomes free to become other than what one perceives oneself to be, or one is free to remain fixed in an identity of being which is closed to becoming.

My next focus of attention is how the practice of imagination, along with its therapeutic uses, enables an individual to experience ontological guilt.

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Imagination: Dwelling in the “no” of the “where” Fixed self-images are unwelcome guests in the house of imagination, since these identities, as has been shown, block or inhibit the deeper self’s lived experience of becoming. This deeper level of self is not a fixed “I,” substantive being, or a thing. Rather, it should be understood as an open and receptive clearing for the presencing of possible becomings. In that becoming is an individual’s ontological debt to oneself, how can the practice of imagination be understood to awaken one to one’s ontological self-obligation?

“Psychotherapy within Imagination” enables ontological guilt to be encountered in two ways: in practice and in place. In practice, imagination has been described as the practice of attentional awareness through an intentional exercising and sharpening of the senses (p. 32). An individual practicing imaginal existence is reclaiming direct sensorial contact with the appearing phenomena of life. At the same time; he or she is experiencing his or her own text of selfrevelation and self-exploration. In this practice, the fixed selfimages of one’s life become discernable and ultimately deconstructible, as seen in the case examples of identities of guilt feelings.

This is a movement of self-emptying through the imaginal de-construction of the being of identity-fixing images which has prevented becoming from happening. As one’s existence becomes cleared of these identities, one’s imaginal text opens up to greater exploration of possible becomings. It is essential to realize that this imaginal practice is not merely a reading of the text of becoming. It is the actual living of these becomings in imaginal trans-spatiality. It is through the living of one’s becomings, both in imaginal and in waking life, that one comes to embrace one’s own self-obligation to become.

The second way “Psychotherapy within Imagination” contributes to enabling an individual to recognize and live

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one’s ontological debt is that it provides a place to dwell. The dwelling in imagination takes place in the “no” of the “where,” for it is without measured location, it is the place of no-place.

The human world is both spatial and trans-spatial. The spatiality of being, understood as an enduring entity, is always connected to measured location; it is the “here-ness” of physicality. In this “here-ness” of measured physicality, human existence becomes a substantive thing and thing-ness is acceptable in the objective mechanical world of beings, but is unwelcome in the phenomenological world of becoming.

Imagination as the experience of dwelling in the “nowhere” enables the dweller to claim one’s “no-thing-ness.” The dweller cannot be physically measured in location, so the status of thing ness no longer applies. Modern science is grounded in materialism, as is modern psychology, and therefore that which exists is only that which can be measured, but that which can be measured is not able to be transformed within the instant.

In the house of the imagination, human existence dwells in the no-where and in so doing becomes a no-thing, open to the instant transformations of one’s self-obligation to become. Here, in the “no-where” of imagination, possibility de-constructs perceived actuality through the experience of becoming. “No-thing-ness” is the wave of becoming in the ocean of “no-where,” and it is these waves that an imaginal therapist must assist the dweller in riding. Some waves are smooth and some terrifying, but such is the life of becoming.

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Freedom as Awareness Awareness and freedom happen together in the openness and receptivity of human existence. Freedom can only be exercised when an individual becomes aware of one’s relationships to the given determinations of one’s life. These determinations are not causal agents which affect predictable responses, but are rather the given structures of our lives. For example, we are all born into a particular family in a given culture at a certain historical period; such is our destiny. How we respond to these destinies is our freedom.

Ontological guilt as a structure of human existence is another such determination. An individual may confront this ontological debt as a fact of one’s life or shut one’s eyes to its existence, but once it enters one’s awareness, this individual stands at the threshold of freedom. For it is only at this moment of awareness that an individual may assume responsibility for carrying out the existential possibilities that shine forth into one’s life. Or, one may refuse to honor this debt.

Either decision, if made in the awareness of one’s ontological obligation, is an exercise of freedom, whether or not one chooses the becoming of essential indebtedness or the being of the status quo. Human existence stands in the threshold of freedom, whether or not the awareness is of an ontological determination of one’s life or of the “what is” of a habitual mode of relating to another, such as an authority figure, as seen in the previous case example.

“Psychotherapy within Imagination” can now be understood to be a form of experience which not only practices openness and receptivity through the sharpening of one’s senses, but also as a practice in the exercise of freedom.

Existence in the eventful “no-where” of imagination is constantly confronting the various determinations of one’s waking life.

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When one chooses becoming, one chooses to discover new forms of relating to whatever obstacle, habit, or determination enters the awareness of one’s life. It is in the “no-where” of imagination that freedom is practiced. Through this practice enters the waking life of the imaginal dweller. It is in and with the imagination that the sojourner discovers that “happily ever afters” are not forever, but must be forever discovered, sometimes in terrifying darkness, sometimes in blinding light, but at all times through the exercise of awareness and freedom.

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The truths of and in imagination cannot be thought, but only experienced.

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Glossary Alethia: A pre-Socratic understanding of the nature of truth, retrieved by Martin Heidegger. It is to be understood as unhiddenness, the presencing forth out of concealment.

Awareness: The event of becoming cognizant of the “What is” of any phenomenon.

Becoming: The happening of change, flux, and movement, to not remain fixed in any state.

Being: Understood within the context of this text as any enduring entity perceived as existing, be it material or non-material.

De-construction: Understood in the context of “Psychotherapy within Imagination” as the self-emptying of fixed selfimages through the practice of imaginal exercises.

Epistemology: The division of philosophy that investigates the nature and origin of knowledge.

Eventfulness: Full of or abounding in events; understood in this text as the experience of a cleared openness and receptivity to the coming into appearance of phenomena. An eventful human existence is to be contrasted with the human existence that filters appearances with theory.

Fixed self-image: In the context of this text, they are persistent emotional reactions which become enduring selfidentities.

Freedom: Is the event of becoming cognizant of the “what is” of any phenomena.

Guilt feelings: The feelings of indebtedness that ensue from any perceived transgression

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Imagination: As a place, it is the region of human existence that happens in the immeasurable location of transspatiality, which is eventful and logically unpredictable while being revelatory and expanding.

As a practice, it is the practice of attentional awareness through an intentional exercising and sharpening the senses in imaginal trans-spatiality.

Ontological: The study of being, and in the context of this text implies the study of the fundamental most original characteristics of the being of human existence.

Ontological Guilt: To be understood as human existence’s fundamental being-in-debt to oneself to carry out all of the possibilities that enter into one’s openness and receptivity.

Openness and Receptivity: Articulated by Martin Heidegger and Medard Boss as the most fundamental characteristic of human existence. It is the comprehending clearing in which human existence enters into relationship with the phenomena addressing one at any given moment. Openness and reception is the human characteristic that the coming forth of phenomena needs in order to come forth into appearance.

Phenomenology: Derived from the Greek, “phainesthai,” meaning, “that which shines forth, which shows itself.”

It is therefore the study of that which enters into appearance. Phenomenology mandates that the study keep strictly to appearances as they are directly experienced, and it has no purpose other than to articulate the meaningfulness of the appearances to the life of the perceiver.

Psychological Phenomenology: Is the application of the phenomenological mandate to the concerns of psychology.

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Psychotherapy within Imagination: Is a process of psychotherapy which intervenes directly into the imaginal life of its clients.

Sensual Epistemology: Uses the origin and nature of awareness and knowledge to lay in the direct sensorial perception of that which presences itself.

Spatiality: Having the nature and space and in the context of this text, the pertaining to measured location.

Symbol: Is to be understood as a concrete appearance which points to an abstract quality or possibility.

Temporality: The condition of being temporal or temporary.

Trans-Spatiality: Understood within the realm of imagination as having the nature of space but without measured location. It is the “No” of the “Where.”

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