Magical Path - Psychosynthesis Notes 4

Psychosynthesis Notes 4

The following are various notes and chapter summaries of Roberto Assagioli's book:

Chapter 4 part 2

Imagination & Visualisation

I have no real problems with the stuff Assagioli talks about here. It is material I've covered a lot in the past 10 or so years, and in the main I both understand and agree with a lot of what he has to say. It also fits in with things I've been taught and worked with, and fits in with some of the Psychosynthesis course and "therapy" I've experienced. That said, I do wonder whether some is appropriate or necessary for working with the general public. A lot of what Assagioli talks about is great for someone who is interested in deeply working with their psyche, such as those of us who have chosen to do this course, or for others involved in spiritual practices or other therapies. I don't feel that the general public would be overly interested in spending many sessions practicing visualisation or imagination building skills, nor are they likely to want to do this in their own time. This does not invalidate the practices, only their relevance to therapy. Some of the ideas Assagioli suggests could be useful though to help a client learn to visualise or improve their imagination, but I'd suggest it is more appropriate if the client asks for more background information or feels they can't actually do these things easily or at all – and in which case this may be a sub-personality which can be explored rather than spend time re-inventing the wheel. In generalised terms we can all imagine and visualise, although I could understand that some people with brain injuries or something may indeed be incapable of this – however they are unlikely to be our clients.

I feel it is far more useful and appropriate to spend some time explaining that we can all imagine already, or at very least get a sense of something. I know from my own experience I was very hung up on being able to visualise things clearly as if they were before my open eyes. This is a mistake and misunderstanding that many people have, or at least a number of people I've met! Once I got past trying to see things and just allowed myself to feel and sense them I found that often I could see things anyway. In some of my early "trance work" sessions when studying magic my mentor was quite surprised I could go through an entire session productively without really seeing anything, only sensing things out.

I also like Jay's suggestion that if someone can't imagine things a certain way, ask them "if you could imagine it a certain way, how would it be."

In my early training, I was told that initially with trance work (which was seen as "astral work") it was fine initially to "make things up", basically to fill in the blanks, so the process of building a scene could be partly spontaneous and partly made-up. An example would be in an oasis scene, you're aware there is water, but if you can't see it, you could imagine it as being blue (because you know water is blue). However, it is important to not build up everything, even more so in therapy, because of the symbolic nature of things, and if water presents itself as red, orange or pink, then that is symbolic of something.

So, it is important to note (and explain to a client if necessary), that they should not try and force imagery to be 'correct', but that however something appears is fine. This fits in with the questioning techniques where sometimes it is explained to the client that what comes up may not be logical, but that is okay, and we'll work with it.

The only other comment I have for now on imagination and visualisation techniques is their usefulness for getting a 3D memory happening. We can relive experiences, or experience new things via imagination and visualisation to get feelings, emotions, visuals, sounds and kinaesthetic senses working (and taste and smell as well if necessary).

Some of the Psychosynthesis techniques we use visualisation heavily, such as getting an image or symbol for a sub-personality, or getting a sense of which part of the body feels different, or stands out, and what that feeling sounds like.

Plan of Psychosynthesis

Having a treatment plan is different than anything Jay has taught us this far, and I am unaware that it is to be taught. I have mixed feelings on the usefulness of a plan. For long term 'treatment' or training in a course situation it may work well. It is useful to have some form of a map as to where things should be leading.

However, in general, working with a client (having experienced it from a client's point of view) the main aim is to work with what is currently coming up, then go back to the earliest memories where beliefs formed, and work on changing the belief structures to allow for the desired change in belief / behaviour (ie. To make life 'easier' or at very least to allow it to flow).

In general, we know where we need to be heading with a client – leading them to be more aware and responsible of their Self (and higher Self) and their own feelings, emotions and needs, and away from external dependencies (especially with regards to relationships). Some of this can be covered with the client, as the need arises, but the way I see it, unless a client expresses interest in learning the background to things then there really isn't time in a session to cover teaching.

Working spontaneously with what presents itself in a session, and giving a little bit of teaching as appropriate to help them understand the process seems "best" to me. This makes the process very experiential, rather than long sessions of 'learning' and leaving the client to tie the experience with the concepts they learnt weeks ago.

Ideal Models

I find it thought provoking a lot of the concepts Assagioli gives here, particularly on the models we find ourselves faced with, both the models we hold of our Self, and the models we are confronted by of how others see us. The most important one I see is the one that we can become (which I think is where Ferrucci got the title for his book, What we may be.) Finding our potential, our place in life is what I consider to be one of the main things when studying the Self and the psyche. It is unfolding our Self, rather than trying to live up to an "ideal model" though. We are already our Ideal Model. I believe it is part of the process to discover what makes us unique and walk the path which is ours to walk.

Symbol Utilisation

This seems to fit right in with Jungian stuff, so quite timely now we are starting work with Jung. I don't have too much to say on this right now, but do consider it important in varying aspects and to varying degrees, as appropriate. The most important thing is the subjective feelings, emotions and sensations that someone has in relation to a symbol. It can, when appropriate, be useful to look at symbols in their greater context, such as archetypal attributions. Symbols can play an important part in techniques, as mentioned above, when getting an image for a sub-personality perhaps. Likewise, symbols can be 'analysed' in dreams (what feelings and emotions they represent, what things symbolically mean to the individual). As life is all highly symbolic and outer and inner world reflect each other then a knowledge of working with symbols in therapy would seem to me to be a highly valuable skill and tool set. And to me, the main thing for me is the subjectivity of the symbolism though, what it means to me, or what it means to a client, and not being hung up on what it means to other people.

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Psychosynthesis Notes 4