ABSTRACT
In Chapter 5, the emphasis is on the dynamic functions of visualisation in the clinical encounter. On the one hand, it may be neutral, a spontaneous response, association or sequence of associations to the context of the session. However, more dynamically, image formation may serve as a retreat from something uncomfortable, providing a temporary refuge while the difficulty, hopefully, is processed. Even so, the imagery arising at such times, on reflection may nonetheless, inform the therapist’s eventual understanding. By contrast, a further and converse dynamic of visualisation is that the image itself can become uncomfortable, and the tendency then may be to find refuge in words. This oscillation, I suggest, is a common, usually unconscious, dynamic of the countertransference. In discussing imagery as a form of both resistance and communication, I draw on the research and writing of several psychoanalytic practitioners who discuss the mainly defensive processes that occur in the hypnagogic state such as regression, resistance, avoidance, oscillation and visual gratification. These include Kris, Kanzer, Warren, Horowitz, Lewin, Ross and Kapp as well as material from contemporary clinical practice.
