ABSTRACT
The reader has an opportunity to participate directly in therapy sessions that would normally be closed to outsiders. Some dialogues are abridged or reproduced in excerpts, others are full length, so that the reader can be completely immersed into the personal story of the patient and fully experience the therapy session. Catathymic image experiences do this in a very gentle way. Symbolic representations circumvent a sudden confrontation with the stressful event, so that the client can approach it “through the back door”, so to speak. A harsh therapeutic unveiling of a trauma might, for example, make the appearance and voice of the fear-triggering offender a subject of direct discussion and could activate the oppressive fear. In catathymic imaginative therapy, perhaps a snake would take the offender’s place. The most common way to treat arachnophobia is through behavioural therapy, in which the client learns gradually to approach the object of fear.
