In this view, therapy is primarily an act of imagination. To the extent imaginative possibilities can be engaged, a new “will” or a way forward can emerge, one that can carry ideas and dreams into expression in the world. To this end imagination is very much valued and utilized within psychosynthesis: theoretically as a psychological faculty of equal importance to feeling, thinking, and sensation – as seen in the Star Diagram and the Psychological Laws; and in practice across a plethora of image-based experiential techniques and methods.
The principles and methods of image-based work originally presented by Assagioli continue to be applied broadly across the psychosynthesis community. Clearly, these have a lasting value and place. However, I imagine individuals and groups of psychosynthesis practitioners have built upon this foundation over the years. The forthcoming December edition of the AAP Psychosynthesis Quarterly is therefore an opportunity to share any such developments in the theory and practice of psychosynthesis image-based work. If you are interested in putting your new ideas and/or experiences on the how and why of image-based work into print, we’d like to hear from you. It might be a modification to a specific guided imagery or visualization exercise; a revisioning of the basis for image-based techniques in general; or a closer integration of image-based work with other aspects of psychosynthesis theory and practice. It might be a new theory of change that addresses the transformative and healing power of imaginative experience; or an integration of new influences into psychosynthesis from contemporary perspectives in ecological and indigenous paradigms or complexity and quantum theories. Whatever you’re thinking and practicing, large or small, we’ll be interested to include it as part of the wider-web of a living and evolving psychosynthesis.
*Roberto Assagioli, Psychosynthesis: A Manual of Principles and Techniques (London: Thorsons, 1993), p144
Allan Frater is an author, psychotherapist, supervisor, and teacher at The Psychosynthesis Trust in London, UK. He is interested in the role of imagination within normal everyday life, creative work, and healing/transformation.
His first book ‘Waking Dreams’ presented a critical development of standard approaches to ‘active imagination’ and ‘guided imagery’ incorporating paradigm-shifting ideas and methods from ecopsychology, complexity theory, fractal geometry, and transpersonal psychotherapy.
He runs a popular on-line ‘Waking Dreams’ course and is currently writing a second book, provisionally titled ‘Living Between Stories: Imagination in a Time of Crisis’.
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