Arnold Lazarus RIP
I was saddened to hear of the death of Arnold Lazarus. Hardly a household name but known to all within the hypnotherapy field who have studied his work. He made some notable contributions to the field, elements of which form a key part of my approach to therapy. I’m going to devote three blogs to some of his major elements of his work; BASIC ID, Multi Modal Therapy and today – visualisation; based mainly on his lovely and excellent book ‘In the Mind’s Eye’ with some of my own ideas added.
Imagine…
We use our imagination all the time. We use it to plan, to design, to try and make sense of things. I can recall a key point from the great Steven R Covey in his book ‘The 7 Habits’ where he describes how everything created by man has to be created twice – firstly in the mind and then secondly in reality. Take a moment to look around you and appreciate the scale of imagination needed to the familiar objects in your vicinity.
Yet many people don’t appreciate or fully utilise the enormous power of their imagination, some even will say that they lack in imagination or can’t imagine things clearly. So before we start to explore that power, let us dispel an unhelpful myth.
Does your Imagination need Training?
Hypnotherapy uses a lot of guided imagination, typically having the client play out therapeutically beneficial scenarios. To be successful it is helpful if the client has the correct mind-set in place – a positive expectation, motivation and engagement. So it is less than helpful to have the believe that you are lacking in the imagination department. So let us test your imagination.
I’m guessing that the building you live in has some kind of front door with a lock on it, perhaps a couple of locks. A simple question - can you tell me what side of the door are the locks on?
To answer that question, most people have to mentally go inside and perhaps imagine the operation of opening their front door. Some people will just visualise a mental photo of the door, noting the location of the locks. Whatever way you used – you accessed your memory and then engaged your imagination.
If you are out walking in an area you are familiar with and someone stops you and asks you for directions – how do you answer them? Do you find yourself maintaining good eye contact with them or is your focus elsewhere – as you mentally imagine the location of their destination and perhaps even mentally rehearse the route. Do you do that thing where you are looking through them in an unfocussed way so that your current real visual experience doesn’t affect the inner, mental one?
When doing these things do you think it is essential to have a vivid, high-definition movie experience going on inside your head – or do you think it is sufficient just to kind of just have a feel for what is going on?
Imagination has a central role to play in so many of our mental processes – we simply could not function as human beings without it. So perhaps there is no such thing as a poor imagination and such a belief is down to our perceptions and an unrealistic expectation. Or perhaps this is a skill that we all possess and we can practice to both improve our skill and correct our perceptions and expectations?
That all being said, like many things in life, correct practice and rehearsal improves things.
Ways can we use our Imagination
Prompted by my introduction you will probably already be thinking about the obvious uses along the lines I have already mentioned – in memory recall, planning, perhaps creativity and design. So here are some less obvious ones from the field of hypnotherapy.
Mental Exposure – Where people have a particular fear or phobia we can have them engage their imagination and visit that fear provoking scenario in their mind.
Typically people will avoid that scenario in real life – that decision to avoid fuelled by real anticipatory anxiety and fear that the situation may be forced upon them. The spider that appears from behind a picture, the big dog that bounds over in the park, the country walk that turns into a cliff-top terror. The key is that people have been using their imagination to feel the anxiety and by being skilled in avoidance have not had the real life experiences which allows them to develop coping skills. Or have the opportunity simply desensitise themselves by being in that situation, feeling the fear and anxiety and being sufficiently aware that they have come to no harm at all.
As they have perpetuated that fear using their imagination, perhaps supported by some real world experiences – the imagination is a great place to learn a different response.
A word of reassurance; far from being some form of mental torture where a frightened client is made to experience the subject of their fear – the client does this as an imagination exercise in a relaxed state, under their complete control.
Mental Rehearsal – Your imagination can be a key part of developing new skills. You can mentally role-play facing fears, handling situations calmly, demonstrating assertiveness, imagine performing new habitual behaviours. The possibilities are only limited, well, by your imagination.
Gain Perspective – Many challenges in life involve other people – conflicts of opinion, values, beliefs and we can become entrenched in our part in the conflict. Say you have a problem colleague at work and have had some vocal dispute with them.
You could use your imagination to replay that conversation but imagine that you are them – you have their background, education, beliefs and values. Imagine arguing from their perspective. Get under their skin and understand as much as you can from their perspective.
Consider using your imagination to step out of the conversation completely and become the ‘fly on the wall’ – an impartial observer noticing and assessing both sides of the argument. What new insights do you gain from this? What new deeper understanding do you get? What more do you learn about yourself and your approach and reactions?
Exercising your Imagination
So let us tune up our imaginations. Remember we are not going for the full IMAX 3D high def movie with digital surround sound – we just want to get a feeling for and enough detail to serve our immediate purpose. Don’t make the effort error of trying too hard, allow your imagination to work by focussing on the exercise and not how well you are doing it.
The Candle – Sit comfortably in a chair with your feet flat on the ground and your hands resting apart on your lap. Close your eyes and imagine an unlit candle in front of you. Decide on the size, colour and shape of the candle and when you are happy – allow it to light. Gaze into the flame, use your imagination to make it burn brighter, then softer. Perhaps change the colours in the flame. You will naturally be interrupted by the occasional random thought – as you notice yourself thinking such a thought imagine that thought as a thing, perhaps written on a scrap of paper, and imaging placing it in the flame to burn safely away into nothing.
The Object – Pick a real world object in your vicinity. Observe it intensely noticing the smallest details. Close your eyes and create that object with those details in your imagination. Repeatedly open your eyes and re-check the real world object before closing your eyes to make any changes needed to your imaginary copy. Continue until you are happy your imagined design is good enough – perfection is not required as all objects reveal their flaws when observed too closely.
The Skill – Think of a skill you are wanting to master. Mentally review the key aspects of that skill required for mastery and create a check list. Close your eyes and imagine yourself performing that skill in a way that satisfies the first key aspect on your list. Repeat and add the second aspect on the list – observing and adjusting your imagined performance so that it satisfies both keys. Repeat this process adding any additional keys to mastery one at a time. Repeat until you are satisfied that your imagined performance can be considered mastery then repeat twice more.