EC Psychology and Psychiatry

During psychotherapy, it is common for people to experience image perception, also known as imagery. Image perception during therapy is mentioned by several authors: Freud himself, but also other psychologists and psychiatrists wrote about it. Image perception can also occur during hypnosis, especially during regression. It seems sensible for a future psychologist, certainly for a psychotherapist, to experience for themselves what that actually is: image perception. This last argument is also mentioned in the literature: As for the work of the analyst, this would be quite impossible if he could not know and experience his own images. Clearly, his skill and efficacy must in part depend on how extensive and how differentiated is his range of imagery. Where his capacity to image is limited, there he fails to comprehend with ease the experience of his patient; in fact, he may be tempted to disregard, disbelieve or dismiss those experiences of his patient which his own imaginal disposition does not allow him to share (Gordon, p. 73 in Sheehan, 1972 [1]).

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6. Gordon R. “Stereotypy of imagery and believe as an ego defense”. British Journal of Psychology 34 (1962): 1-96.
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