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Image and Imagination
Faranda, Frank. (2016). Image and imagination: deepening our experience of the mind.
Psychoanalytic Inquiry, Volume 36, Issue 8, 2016 (in Press)
Image and Imagination:
Deepening Our Experience of the Mind
Frank Faranda
Abstract
The perspective on images presented in this paper grows out of an understanding
of the brain and mind as “Image-based.” Building on the work of neurobiology,
linguistics and cognitive neuroscience, this paper explores the mind’s natural proclivity
for imagination and creativity. These capacities for creativity and imagination are applied
to the work of psychotherapy. Clinical material is provided to illustrate the approach.
What will emerge from this paper is a realization that patient and therapist can lean upon
the imaginative potentials of the mind to further the overall psychodynamic goals of
change and healing.
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INTRODUCTION
The goal of this paper is to offer theoretical support for the clinical relevance of
working with image-based experience in psychotherapy. Relevance, from a clinical
perspective, will rest upon the potential for image-based experience to further the broader
goals of change and healing implicit in psychodynamic treatment. The support I will
offer for this approach takes two interconnected forms. Image-based experience, I will
propose, is both ubiquitous and unique. Moving away from the view of the image as
dichotomous with the verbal, the approach presented here, will view images as on a
spectrum that includes the verbal. In this way, the use of images becomes more a matter
of focus and less a matter of either/or. Supporting this shift in focus toward a continuum
of imagistic process will come from neurobiology and cognitive neuroscience. As I hope
to demonstrate, images are fundamental to brain, mind and self. They emerge from a
mind that loves to play and a mind that loves to create. I refer to this aspect of mind as
imaginative. And as I hope to show in the case material, accessing this experience of
mind within psychotherapy offers natural inroads to change and healing.
Some measure of this potential for change, we will see, grows out of a recognition
that the flow of this imaginative mind is only partially within our conscious control. This
recognition requires a reorienting of patient and therapist to the creative dynamics at the
heart of the brain and the non-conscious mind. It is a way in which we begin to
appreciate the joint collaboration between conscious and non-conscious processes, a
distributed workflow of self-generative play and experiential healing.
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Image and Imagination
Recognition of the fact that the non-conscious mind has intellectual, emotional,
and creative potential that may indeed exceed the potential of any conscious mind
process, can help patient and therapist to risk a little more, to loosen the grip on “reality”
and trust the inherent imaginal emergence that comes when we learn to listen to what
exists in, and emerges from, the non-conscious mind. In many ways this is the realm of
improvisation, of mask and of wordless drama. It is the language of images found in the
folds of flesh around our metaphoric bellies.
And yet, before launching into the neurobiology and theory that illuminates an
understanding of the imaginative mind, it is necessary to acknowledge a central
assumption and limitation of this paper. The approach suggested here is not intended as a
stand-alone way of providing treatment. The workings of the imaginative mind that will
be explored in this paper are, in actuality, part of much broader systems of adaptation and
motivation that comprehensively manage our survival and our wellbeing (Lichtenberg,
2013; Panksepp & Biven, 2012). In particular, the systems of fear, security and
attachment join together with imagination to form an interdependent network of
expansion and contraction that keeps us safe while moving us toward the uncertainty of
an unformed future (Ainsworth, 1989; Bowlby, 1969). This said, it is necessary to make
clear that given the limits of this paper it is not possible to address both sides of this
interdependence. In a parallel work (Faranda, unpublished) the underlying dynamics of
fear, security and attachment, the side that moves us to caution and contraction, is
explored and understood in its partnership role with imagination. The case material
presented later in this paper, therefore, will simply look at the use of images and
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imagination and not at the implicit underlying fabric of attachment and relational
psychotherapeutics that is required for a comprehensive approach to healing.
THE IMAGINATIVE MIND
In the simplest of terms, imagination is thinking in images (Sarte, 2012).
Damasio (1999, 2012) supports this view in his conceptualization of images as the
“currency” of the mind. He finds strong evidence for the existence of a level of mental
functioning that is not based on verbal thought or verbal language. In its foundation,
according to Damasio, the brain is concerned with mapping the body for the purposes of
homeostasis. These basic maps of the body, according to Damasio and others such as
Panksepp (1998), are the rudiments of what we generally refer to as images.
Consciousness, according to Damasio (2012), “allows us to experience maps as images,
to manipulate those images, and to apply reasoning to them.” (P. 67). This will figure
prominently in our later discussion of reflective thinking.
The roots of image experience, following the work of Damasio and Panksepp,
begins not in the cortical areas, but in the deeper areas of the midbrain, specifically the
Superior Colliculi (SC) and the Periacquiductal gray (PAG). The importance of this to
the work of this paper lies in the centrality of the midbrain in motoric activation and the
experience of emotion. As Damasio (2012) states, “These important brain stem nuclei do
not produce mere virtual maps of the body; they produce felt body states” (p. 81). Out of
this imaging of felt-body state, according to Damasio and Panksepp, the nuclei of the
midbrain, in their dense interconnectivity with the motor and emotion centers of the
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Image and Imagination
brain, have the potential to contribute to the emergence of self in its most basic form. As
Panksepp (1998) cautiously states
“We cannot be confident of the predominant anatomical source of the
primal SELF in the brain, but two areas recommend themselves—the deep
cerebellar nuclei, which receive a great deal of primitive sensory and
emotional information and control body movements, especially those
guided by sensory feedback, and the centromedial areas of the midbrain,
including the deep layers of the colliculi and the periventricular gray,
which do the same.” P. 311
In considering the formation of self, body, emotion and motoric activation are
beginning to be understood as essential to self-experience (Colzato et al 2007). This, I
suggest, plays a key role in the valuation of image experience in the work of
psychotherapy.
Damasio (2012) and Llinas (2002) hold that emotion has inherent motoric
functioning and that this informs not only self-experience but consciousness as well. Our
desires, inclinations, and “readiness to move” all seem to inform “who we are.” Some
theorists refer to this as action tendencies (Frijda, 1986; Frijda et al 1989; Lazarus, 1991;
Fredrickson & Levenson, 1998). A simple example of this is the impulse to run when a
danger is extreme. Fredrickson (2001) holds that these action tendencies are not thoughts
telling someone to run, but instead, embodied thoughts that are felt more as urges,
primarily unconscious, within the whole person.
Important for us here, is Damasio’s (2012) finding that the parts of the
brain linked to engaging emotion, for instance the PAG and amygdala with fear,
“activate regions that normally map the state of the body and, in turn, move it to
action.” (p. 110). In other words, there appears to be a neural inter-relationship,
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both in architecture and wiring, between self, image, emotion and motoric
activation. John Suler (1996) discusses this interrelationship when he states
Because the imagery system extends into bodily activities and regenerates
the former sensory, perceptual, and somatovisceral patterns associated
with actual experience, it serves an important function in the
structuralization of experience and the integration of self. (p. 659.)
For Suler, in a similar manner to Damasio and Panksepp, the inter-relationship of image,
motoric potential and emotion reveals a functional connection centering on self
experience. Images, from this perspective, have a neural preeminence that centers on
body, emotion and self.
A further element of importance in the relationship of image to neural functioning
rests upon an appreciation for the self-organizing nature of brain and mind. Images, are
not simply products of conscious thought, but instead, part of an ongoing symphony of
homeostasis, adaptation and actualization.
In order to understand this aspect of what I am referring to as the imaginative
mind, I will turn to the work of Nancy C. Andreasen, M.D., Ph.D. and her book “The
Creating Brain: the Neuroscience of Genius (2005).” Andreasen is a psychiatrist and
neuroscientist who holds a Ph.D. in English literature. Her book documents her research
and ideas on creativity, exceptional genius, and how this relates to normative brain
processes.
The results of her research indicate the existence of a particular pattern of brain
activity present when we let the mind wander. This pattern is distinctly different from the
activity patterns in the brain when, for example, we tell what we did today or,
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Image and Imagination
alternatively, when we name the fifty states. The areas that light on a PET scan when we
let the mind wander, she states
… are known to gather information from the senses and from elsewhere in
the brain and link it all together in potentially novel ways… presumably,
the organization is used to permit the brain's owner to integrate the
information he or she receives or possesses and to produce much of the
activity that we refer to as 'the unconscious mind'. (p. 73)
This level of mental activity, she believes, is happening non-stop and completely out of
awareness
For Andreasen, these results form the basis for her conceptualization of creativity
as a primarily unconscious process. She finds support for this understanding in the
accounts by creative geniuses on their creative processes. I will quote her excerpt from
Coleridge on the process of his writing Kubla Khan.
The author continued for about three hours in a profound sleep, at least of
the external senses, during which time he has the most vivid confidence,
that he could not have composed less than 200-300 lines; if that indeed
can be called composition in which all of the images rose up before him as
things, with a parallel production of the correspondent expressions,
without any sensation or consciousness of effort. (p. 76)
Applying this to her view of the mind, she states
These introspective accounts (such as Coleridge above) are describing a
process during which thought is not only non-sequential or nonlinear, but
during which non-rational unconscious processes play a role. It is as if the
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multiple association cortices are communicating back and forth, not in
order to integrate associations with sensory or motor input, as is often the
case, but simply in response to one another. The associations are
occurring freely. They are running unchecked, not subject to any of the
reality principles that normally govern them. Initially these associations
may seem meaningless or unconnected. I would hypothesize that during
the creative process the brain begins by disorganizing… out of this
disorganization, self organization eventually emerges and takes over in the
brain. The result is a completely new and original thing: a mathematical
function, a symphony, or a poem. (p. 77-78)
For Andreasen, this level of ongoing creative problem solving is inherent in all of us. She
sees within us a mind that is continually generating novel solutions to our environmental
and relational needs as well as generating de novo artistic creations. It is a system that
governs itself - a Self Organizing System (SOS). A SOS is a system in which the parts
of the organism collectively contribute to the formation of an action. In other words,
there is no one decision maker. Weather systems, flocking behaviors, and crystallization
are three simple examples. As Andreasen states
"The human brain is perhaps the most superb example of a self-organizing
system that one can find. It is constantly and spontaneously generating
new thoughts, often without any apparent external control." (p. 62-63)
Damasio (1999) offers his understanding of this phenomenon more specifically in terms
of images. He believes the mind as being in a continual process of producing images.
He states
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Image and Imagination
Images may be conscious or unconscious. It should be noted, however,
that not all images the brain constructs are made conscious. There are
simply too many images being generated and too much competition for
the relatively small window of mind in which images can be made
conscious, that is, in which images are accompanied by a sense that we are
apprehending them and that, as a consequence, are properly attended.
(p. 319)
He conceives of this functioning as our natural "wordless storytelling" (p. 188)
contributing directly to the experience of creating consciousness.
Building on the idea of storytelling is the mind’s natural propensity for metaphor.
In metaphor, the mind is able to move from what is known to what is unknown (Gordon,
1961). In this leap of understanding our brain uses our concrete somatic experience to
point to what “feels” similar. This is particularly useful in conceptualizing emotion.
Meier & Robinson (2005) highlight this movement when they state, “Love is a rose, but a
rose is a rose (not love)” (p. 251). The above authors identify that metaphor is highly
useful in conceptualizing abstract experience, particularly affect-based concepts. This
recognition leads us to an awareness of how important the body - concrete experience - is
in constructing meaning, metaphor, and ultimately cognition. Terms like “embodied
cognition” (Meier and Robinson, 2005; Johnson, 2007) and “grounded cognition
(Barsalou et al, 2003; Barsalou, 2008) are now strongly anchored in cognitive theory and
linguistics. Gregory Bateson (1979) expresses it as follows
It becomes evident that metaphor is not just pretty poetry, it is not either
good or bad logic, but is in fact the logic upon which the biological world
has been built, the main characteristic and organizing glue of this world of
mental processes. (italics mine, p. 166)
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In 1980 Lakoff and Johnson wrote a seminal study on metaphor that provided the
basis for contemporary linguistic understandings of the relationship between metaphor
and body. Their basic idea was that metaphor provides the underpinnings for much of
our daily life experience. Our conceptual systems, according to them, are metaphoric and
our metaphors are conceptual. For example, how we describe time, ideas or argument are
all through concrete experience.
1Argument as war: ‘He defended his position by spouting a bunch of theory’; ‘His
position on this subject is indefensible’
2Ideas are cutting implements: ‘That cuts right to the heart of this discussion’; ‘He
has a sharp tongue’
3Significant is large: ‘That is a really big idea’; ‘He’s some kind of big banker’;
‘She is a really big deal in advertising’
In approaching the question of how these abstract to concrete relationships came to be so
consistent and ubiquitous they state
They emerged naturally in a culture like ours because what they highlight
corresponds so closely to what we experience collectively and what they
hide corresponds to so little. But not only are they grounded in our
physical and cultural experience; they also influence our experience and
our actions (italics mine). (p. 68)
Not only is metaphor a basis for understanding abstract concepts, but, in a parallel
manner to Theory of Mind, (discussed later) it appears to have been crucial to the
evolution of human intelligence. Stephen Pinker (2007, 2008) expresses this
evolutionary importance when he states
If all abstract thought is metaphorical, and all metaphors are assembled out
of biologically basic concepts, then we would have an explanation for the
evolution of human intelligence. Human intelligence would be a product
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Image and Imagination
of metaphor and combinatorics. Metaphor allows the mind to use a few
basic ideas—substance, location, force, goal—to understand more abstract
domains. Combinatorics allows a finite set of simple ideas to give rise to
an infinite set of complex ones. (pp. 242-243)
Metaphor, according to Pinker, is essentially linked to our evolutionary success. Using
one concept to understand another and the ability to blend and combine, provided us as
humans with a vastly superior potential for survival.
Equally important was the benefit metaphor offered in terms of neural storage and
organization. Metaphor, through its intrinsic “polymodal” nature provided an opportunity
to organize the contents of long term memory, not as “single-cell codes,” but through
softer, more flexible dynamic assemblies. Singer (2001) refers to these as “functionally
coherent assemblies” (p. 126) that stand for a particular content. He goes on to say that
This processing strategy is more economical with respect to neuron
numbers because a particular neuron can, at different times, participate in
different assemblies just as a particular features can be part of many
different perceptual objects. (P. 127)
This ability of metaphor to “participate” in different neural assemblies based on features
and qualities points to an important therapeutic aspect of metaphor. Engaging with
metaphor opens not only a “single-cell” content or idea, but a wider associational system
of similarity, approximation and personal meaning. The difference between a patient
saying, “I am grieving” and one who says “I feel like something is slowly being drained
out of me” is not mere semantics. The later offers something quite different. If offers a
metaphoric space. Metaphor is a space into which the images of texture, sensation, color
lead patient and therapist to recesses of memory, meaning and ultimately, self (Faranda,
2014).
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The existence of such a space within the mind is intimately tied to the course of
human evolution (Humphrey, 2008). Alan Leslie (1987) approaches this in his
understanding of Theory of Mind (ToM). ToM, sometimes called Mentalizing (Fonagy
et al 2003), refers to the capacity to attribute mental states to others and to the self. It has
been studied a great deal and applied quite meaningfully to autism where its deficit is
quite pronounced (Leslie & Frith, 1988; Baron-Cohen, S., et al, 1985, 1986 and Fonagy
et al, 2003).
In developing this model, the name of which was borrowed from Premack and
Woodruff (1978), Leslie asks an important question regarding the evolutionary necessity
of pretend play: Why would the human being, so dependent on a logical appraisal of
reality, spend so much time in childhood developing the capacity for pretend play? In
answering this question, Leslie presents an elegant view of the subtle cognitive shifts that
occur in the act of pretending. He called this shift a “decoupling” – the process of
maintaining connection with the metarepresention while loosening the primary
representation. An example of this is what happens when we hold a banana up to our ear
and pretend that it is an old-fashioned telephone. The primary representation of banana is
decoupled, separated from its primary meaning. From this, both literal meaning, banana
as fruit, and metaphoric meaning, banana as telephone are able to exist without doing
abuse to the mind’s understanding of banana as food.
Pretend play is the capacity to use one thing as another. This requires mental
mechanisms similar to those necessary for understanding the mind of another. In both,
there is a distance between the known and the unknown. Bridging this distance, filling
this space, forming some knowledge of what links the known and unknown, is the driving
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Image and Imagination
force in both pretend play and understanding the mind of another. And it is through this
force that feelings, sensations, ideas, creations and metaphors come to exist.
This is the movement Leslie traced from pretense to mind. And as Nicholas
Humphrey (2008) tells us in his version of such a mind mechanism, “the inner eye,” the
development of this capacity was pivotal to our evolution.
In evolutionary terms it must have been a major breakthrough. Imagine
the biological benefits to the first of our ancestors that developed the
ability to make realistic guesses about the inner life of his rivals: to be able
to picture what another was thinking about, and planning to do next, to be
able to read the minds of others by reading his own. The way was open to
a new deal in human social relationships: sympathy, compassion, trust,
treachery and double-crossing—the very things which make us human.
(p. 76)
From the perspective of this paper, I would suggest that the functional overlap of
pretend play and ToM, as well as the proposed evolutionary benefits of these two
functions, indicates that our brain has been able to form a space within, a mind
emerging out of matter (Deacon, 2013), a self-generative space, where new
potentials and possibilities can be tried on for size. Eisner (2002) states
Imagination also enables us to try things out—again in the mind’s eye—
without the consequences we might encounter if we had to act upon them
empirically. It provides a safety net for experiment and rehearsal. (p.5)
Stephen Kosslyn (2005) speaks to the spatial aspect of this with his understanding of
reflective thinking. Related to the capacity for working memory, reflective thinking is
what is required when the contents of long-term memory (LTM) aren’t enough to perform
a task or when something new is required. If, for instance, I ask you to consider which is
a darker shade of red, a ripe strawberry or a drop of fresh blood, reflective thinking is the
way in which such a determination is made. And, as you may have noticed, images were
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the means you used to accomplish this reflective act. As Kosslyn (2005) states
I argue that all reflective thinking is accomplished by mental imagery. I
am not restricting the term ‘mental imagery’ to refer only to visual images
(i.e., something like ‘mental pictures’). Rather, mental images can occur in
each sensory system: a mental image is the same sort of representation that
is produced during the first phases of perception, but is created from
stored representations in memory (not from on-line sensory input). (p.
852)
According to Kosslyn, mental images “are a way to find out what we have stored in
LTM” (p. 853). And further, that “during reflective thinking, the inferences or decisions
one has drawn on the basis of imagery are then ‘reflected back’ to LTM, changing it”
(ibid, p. 855).
Kosslyn is identifying a potential for change that shares much with psychodynamic
models of conscious and unconscious experience. And yet, he states
…imagery is not a spin-off of the unconscious, acting as a symbol that
signals deeper mysteries, as Freud believed. Rather, imagery is a two-way
street between the conscious and unconscious: it not only taps into
unconscious information stored in LTM, and thereby allows us to know
more than we initially were aware of knowing, but it also allows us to
modify LTM itself. (p. 855)
Daniel Siegel (2007) supports this when he states
Studies of mental imagery have now clearly revealed that the act of
perceptual imagining not only activates those regions of the brain
involved in the carrying out of the imagined action, but also produces
long-term structural growth in those very areas. (italics mine, p. 201)
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Image and Imagination
In the language of this paper, the workings of this act of “perceptual imagining,”
and this “two-way street” are the province of the imaginative mind.
TWO IMAGES FROM MY WORK WITH STEVE
“My heart is in your hands”
I am working with a married man, Steve, who has fallen in love with another
woman Cynthia who also happens to be a long time friend of his and his wife’s. He
revealed his love of Cynthia to his wife, Marilyn, and initially told her that her hoped to
maintain both relationships polyamorously. His wife was understandably shocked, hurt
and angry. Their relationship up to that point had been ideal in her eyes and she thought
in his as well. Theirs was a marriage that most couples dream of. No infidelity, a deep
romance, emotional sensitivity and care, combined with a sex life that never grew tired
even after 15 years. They prided themselves in how deeply nurturing and supportive they
were for each other. Needless to say, this new love was a profound disruption.
The session I would like to describe took place early in our work to understand
the situation. Steve had come in without his usual vigor. He told me he wanted to relate
to me what happened that morning with his wife. His head lowered as he began to relate
the story. It was clearly difficult to talk about.
He told me that he and his wife loved to shower together, an activity that
continued, along with other sexual activities, even after news of Steve’s love of Cynthia.
During the shower that morning, they began to kiss. Steve smiled at his wife and said
jokingly, “I’m doing this because I like kissing you. Don’t worry, it doesn’t mean
anything.” His wife froze and slowly turned away.
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My patient saw what his words had done. He felt deeply ashamed. After telling
me the story he said, “I don’t know why I would do that. So callous, to make a joke like
that. I pushed her away. She’s trying to understand what I’m wanting … was this whole
construct with Cynthia just a way for me to do that – Is that what I want, to say, ‘this is
over.’ And so I’m torturing her. Why? It is shocking to me because I thought I was
aware, I pride myself in being aware of emotional nuance and feeling. Is it possible that
even though I wasn’t aware of feeling like I wanted to get out of the marriage, maybe I
did.”
Steve’s sense of things up to that point rested upon a simple idea that he happened
to fall in love with another woman, that it had nothing to do with his current relationship.
This moment in the shower shattered the comfort of that idea. Steve went on to say that
in actuality, he was never fully in the relationship with his wife. He said in a somewhat
disembodied voice, “It was always unsustainable”
It took me a few minutes to catch up. The experience he was describing was so
different from what he had described previously. As I enquired about what was
unsustainable, he faltered. He felt it, but had no words to say what or why. I asked him
to stay with the feeling and see if maybe there was an image for that feeling. He closed
his eyes and sat quietly. After a moment, he opened his eyes and they were tearful. He
said, “I just can’t let her love me as much as she does. It’s too much. It’s too much
love.” He began to cry and said, “How can that be? How can her love of me be too
much love? What does that mean?”
I then asked him to stay with the feeling of “its too much, it’s too much love”
“See what its like, see what image emerges from that feeling.” He said, “there’s an
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Image and Imagination
image. It’s of my heart … and there is a hand inside my chest that has a hold of my heart.
It is right in me and at my core. This hand. Holding my heart. It looks grasping …
needy … clingy … controlling. I don’t like that hand there.”
I asked what he felt inclined to do as he sees his heart in this way. He said, “NO!.
NO!” His hand came up in a metaphoric gesture of “stop.” I asked what the image of
that “NO” looked like. He said with great force, “This is core survival, core survival,
NO!” I communicated to him my understanding of how scary this appears to have
become. I said, “There is something very frightening about this hand coming in and
holding your heart and it seems as if within this image some part of you is fighting back
to protect yourself.” He cried as he said, “yes, yes. I’m fighting it.”
Following this image work, he and I stayed with the feelings and ideas for the
remainder of the session. We came to see that for some reason, his relationship with his
wife had become threatening in its suffocating and controlling nature. We explored
briefly the balance between how much of this feeling was due to “the way his wife loves
him” and how much of this feeling had to do with something that predates his wife -
some prior experience of being squeezed by love. As we talked, the word “dependence”
began to surface. Little by little, Steve revealed that feeling dependent was terrifying to
him. We pieced together an understanding of the ways in which dependence made him
choose attachment over personal fulfillment. We discovered that there was a part of
Steve that was so afraid of losing the love of his wife that he allowed his wife to control
him and his personal self-expression. The image clearly revealed that Steve had handed
his heart over to his wife and that she had the power to squeeze.
“My Pound of Flesh”
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In the weeks following the above session, Steve forged a new sense of where he
was headed. Although it seemed possible to me that Steve might attempt to work with
his wife to reduce the feeling of her “squeezing” his heart, he was adamant that he needed
to remain committed to his new relationship. My sense was that his fear of being
controlled offered him only one choice – get out.
Steve’s insistence on not letting go of his new love relationship, however, made it
impossible for his wife to remain in the marriage. She told him that she wanted a divorce
and they began to amicably separate. This, as the above sessions revealed, was both
frightening and freeing. Two parts of him with two very different needs. The need to get
away from the danger of his wife, however, won out.
In the session to follow, Steve began to get in touch with the complex feelings
around separation. In a quite unusual manner, Steve found himself unable to put his
feelings into words. There was a pressure in his chest, but no words for it. I asked him to
describe what that place in his chest was like.
He raised his fist. “It’s like my fist. It’s tight. What is that? (He paused) Anger.
Yes. If I close my eyes and look… I see something in my hand. It is as if I am holding
tightly onto something. What is that? And what happens if I try to pull away. Yes, some
part of me is holding onto to something with my wife.”
He winced. “Aughgh… I just pulled my fist away and I now see flesh in my grip.
It is some kind of flesh. I think it’s my wife’s flesh. Yes, I ripped it away when I tried to
pull out. I’m holding onto her flesh. Did I pull out because I’m angry?”
Steve became silent, but his face was contorted in pain. He said, “I was a breech
baby. I came out feet first. Like that. (fist in the air). I was holding on and not wanting
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Image and Imagination
to come out. Like I ripped a piece of womb away when they took me out. Like being
torn away. I don’t want to look at that flesh.”
I asked about the emotion. He said, “Disgust. Shame? Guilt, I don’t know. I’m
hurting her.”
I asked who he was hurting.
He said, “my mother … my wife? I don’t know which. It’s like my pound of flesh. And
now I can’t put it back.”
I reflected this back, “You’ve taken your pound of flesh? Like Shylock?”
“Is that what that is?,” he asked, “Shakespeare?”
“Yes,” I said, “He wanted to take out the heart as payment of a debt.”
“I can’t put it back, he said, “If I now asked Marilyn (his wife) about this and what I have
taken, she would say it is her heart. “That’s my heart”, she would say. You have ripped
out my heart.” (tears)
“I like her heart. I want to take it with me.” He said.
“yes, yes.” I said, “I hear you.”
(He sobbed and then entered what appeared to be a deep silent place with eyes closed.
After a minute, he opened his eyes. No words.)
We were just a few minutes away from the end of our session, so I offered
something to hold and contain our experience. I said, “it seems as if there is a part of you
that is holding on to something in Marilyn and your marriage. It is going to be important
to understand what that part of you is that is so tightly grasping onto her even though
another part of you seems so desperate to get away.”
He slowly nodded.
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I continued, “It also isn’t clear what value and place that part of you has in the
overall movement of this time. Clearly that part that is holding on needs some kind of
care, but toward what end? There does seem to be something about your relationship
with your mom that is here as well. But this image of the pound of flesh, how do you
respond? It isn’t yet clear.
“No,” he said, “it isn’t so clear. Why would that part of me be holding on so
tightly? I want Cynthia, I want to leave my wife. I have decided that it is right for me to
end this marriage. So why am I holding on? I thought I wanted to leave her. Its hard for
me to hold all this in my mind.”
“I know,” I said, “Something very deep is getting worked here.”
DISCUSSION
Much like a dream, the images and experiences that come to fill the space of mind
I am referring to as the imaginative mind, need to be appreciated not for their objective
certainty, but for their subjective reality (Fosshage, 1997). Opening ourselves to the
experience of the imaginative mind seems to demand a form of surrender, a willingness
to accept mystery and to temporarily suspend what we think we know and where we
think we are going. Emanuel Ghent (1990) speaks to this shift when he tells us
The literature abounds with papers and discussions of resistance; yet how
little we study the vagaries of the force that is on the side of psychic
healing, the impulse to grow, to surrender, to let-go. (p. 120)
For Ghent, surrender is linked to a force that is aligned with psychic healing. In an
earlier work, I have described this force as the purposive self (Faranda, 2003, 2009).
This is the force that fuels our natural healing tendencies, what Diana Fosha (2008) later
called “transformance” and it is a force that we can access through imagination.
21
Image and Imagination
Jung referred to this force as vitalism in his early writings (Jung, 1896-1899) and
through his later work with schizophrenia and hysteria in the early 1900s, this idea
evolved into the more nuanced concept of individuation (Jung, 1916). As Ghent points
out, until very recently, psychoanalysis has had an ambivalent relationship to the notion
of “healing forces.” This ambivalence can be traced back to the split between Freud and
Jung, which, in my view, hinged upon their fundamental disagreement about the
existence of such a force within the mind (Faranda, 2009).
For Maxine Greene (2001), imagination supplies the creative process with an
“upsurge of the unexpected” (p. 116). Paul Valéry (1964) expresses something similar in
describing the author’s process. He states
But astonishment passes all bounds when one realizes that the author
himself, in the vast majority of cases, is unable to give any account of the
lines he has followed, that he is the wielder of a power the nature of which
he does not understand. (p.102)
And in Marion Milner’s book, On Not Being Able to Paint (1950), she refers to the ways
in which the creative process is like “the blanking out of ordinary consciousness when
one is able to break free from the familiar and allow a new unexpected entity to appear."
(in Ghent, 1990, p. 110). In all these quotes, there is an acknowledgment of the role
image and non-conscious processes have in manifesting creative potential. In much the
same way as Milner describes, psychotherapy often requires such a letting go. When
patient and therapist allow themselves to let go of the comfort and security found in the
more verbal end of the continuum, there opens a space into which something new can
emerge and form.
22
Steve and I have continued our journey. The divorce is on hold. The little boy
seems to relax his grip. The fist softens. The heart from which the flesh was torn begins
to beat again. Steve reads me a poem. It goes like this
There’s a thread you follow. It goes among
things that change. But it doesn’t change.
People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you can’t get lost.
Tragedies happen; people get hurt
or die; and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.
You don’t ever let go of the thread.
(Stafford, 1999, p. 42)
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