Psychotherapy Through Imagery (2nd Edition) Reviews

Reviewed by Jerome L. Singer
Professor of Psychology
Director of Clinical Training
Yale University

Waking imagery is analogous to dreams, as both are avenues into the unconscious. When the flow of waking imagery is reported, what is revealed is information about personality that is not consciously acknowledged by the individual. Waking imagery thus has a projective quality that bypasses most ordinary censorship. This function of the mind is often neglected in verbal linear interaction with a therapist. The "discovery" of waking imagery-of revealing profound meanings about personality in our unconscious images-may be one of the most important psychological findings in this century. And one of the most ignored.

The past two decades have witnessed an exciting upsurge of research and clinical applications of our basic capacity for forming images or related mental representations of external experience or internal memories and emotions. Joseph E. Shorr has pioneered in developing the human's potential for imagination as a basis for a diagnostic and psychotherapeutic intervention method. He was one of the first clinicians in America to expand the use of imagery beyond its limited employment in the early psychodynamic treatment approaches and to recognize its enormous power for evoking emotion and providing a sense of cognitive clarity for clients trapped in unexpressed or un-nameable conflicts.

There are now a variety of approaches to the use of imagery in psychotherapy. Some rely on continuous imagery "trips", following a stream, climbing a mountain, exploring a cave, which initiate a sequence of continuing fantasies through a therapeutic hour. Dr. Shorr, working more within a neoFreudian psychodynamic orientation, follows Sullivan in emphasizing the interactive communication between client and therapist. Thus, the image is used to help the client clarify his or her own self awareness and then, further, to communicate clearly with the therapist.

Few people I know are as ingenious and imaginative as Dr. Shorr in generating situations that can evoke from patients powerful and meaningful imagery. It is amazing how quickly clients become engaged and respond with elaborate, seemingly unplanned images to requests to imagine seeing themselves in a mirror, to look down a deep hole, to see their parents in various unexpected settings, to produce an image to a phrase like, "Never refer to me as ____________________." I have seen a remarkable response to such suggestions from presumably sophisticated professionals participating in some of his workshops.

It seems likely that most of us walk through life constantly producing little verbal glosses or visual imagery associations to the thousands of people we pass on the street or see on movie or TV screens. Our night dreams in their strangeness pick up some of these daytime metaphors but until recently only clever writers like Donald Barthelme or John Irving could represent these preconscious seemingly bizarre waking images that characterize the stream of thought. Dr. Shorr, recognizing this distinctive human pattern of fleeting and, then, with practice, crystallized metaphor, has developed in his vast armamentarium of suggested situations a remarkable key to unlocking the rich variety of moving pictures we carry around with us as representatives of interpersonal relationships.

Reviewed by: Eric Klinger
Professor of Psychology
University of Minnesota

Joseph E. Shorr is among the most fertile contemporary creators of psychotherapeutic technique. His approach to his clinical practice has been one of pushing back the boundaries, experimenting clinically, attempting particular techniques to optimize their impact, and carefully observing the effects. His clinical experience tells him - and the cases he reports strongly suggest -that he has brought together a powerful clinical method.

Reviewed by: Raymond Corsini
Innovative Psychotherapies

One of the most energetic and successful proponents of the use of imagination in therapy is Joseph E. Shorr ... who takes an existential/phenomenological point of view and who uses imagery as his main modality for personality change.

Psycho-Imagination Therapy is one of the purest of systems. It is essentially an autochthonous system unsurpassed in charm and elegance by any of the systems in this book. And in my judgment it provides a process that all therapists should understand and be able to use. Like role playing, the interview, and analysis of early recollections, Psycho-Imagination is a technique of general value.

Reviewed by: Evelyn Virshup, Ph.D.
October 1984, Art Therapy, pp 143-144

It is interesting to remember that less than 10 years ago imagery was just beginning to emerge as a respectable clinical tool and experimental science. One of a handful of pioneers, Joseph Shorr wrote two of the landmark books in this field, Psycho-Imagination Therapy and Psychotherapy Through Imagery, in 1972 and 1974. Now, in a more receptive environment, these two classics have been expanded, brought up to date, and combined in one book, Psychotherapy Through Imagery.

This is a biased review. I have been a fan and admirer of Joseph Shorr since I attended one of his seminars ten years ago, and was first exposed to his ingenious and powerful methods for evoking personal imagery. I have been using many of his techniques successfully since. I am in good company in my enthusiasm. Eric Klinger (University of Minnesota) says in the Introduction to the book, that Joseph Shorr is among the most fertile contemporary creators of psychotherapeutic techniques. Jerome Singer of Yale writes, "Few people I know are as ingenious and imaginative as Dr. Shorr in generating situations that can evoke from patients powerful and meaningful imagery."

Psychotherapy Through Imagery is an encyclopedia of various directed imagery methods that Shorr has developed in the course of direct patient care. They have been validated through his extensive clinical experience, and are organized and categorized to make them useful and available for every conceivable clinical situation. The book is bursting with suggestions which, as we know, have to be experienced to be fully understood. Individually, his imaginative questions are invaluable. When combined, they act synergistically, helping the client bring to awareness his conflicts, the traumas behind them, and his feelings about those experiences.

Dr. Shorr is a clinical psychologist, not an art therapist; his book is directed to talking psychologists, and does not mention art or art therapy. But not to worry: as an art therapist, I have tested his theories and used his techniques. Not only do they translate to our language, but art gives them a dimension of which even Shorr may not be aware. Drawing provides his images with a range and variety of information hardly possible with linear verbal discourse.

What is Dr. Shorr's conceptual framework? Go directly to the chapter called "Imagination and Psychotherapy." After a fascinating historical overview of imagery in psychology, you will find that he has been influenced by Freud, Sullivan, Horney, Laing, Jung, May, Desoille, Leuner, Rogers, symbolic interactionism, various existential therapists, and the empirical tradition of general psychology. Shorr brings all of these elements into relationship with one another within his orientation to imagery and his well developed techniques.

Shorr quotes R.D. Laing frequently … "One is in the first instance the person that other people say one is. As one grows older one either endorses or tries to discard ways in which others have defined one." Shorr uses imagery to help strip away false identities. The psycho-imagination approach used in this framework is specifically geared to help people become strong enough to define themselves accurately. He believes that one of the principle functions of imagination is the resolution of conflicts between outer reality and inner fantasy. Imagination is the "modus operandi" which harmonizes these opposing components. The active and conscious use of imagination helps to distinguish the difference between one's world and that of others.

He defines the therapeutic relationship as one of basic equality between two people whose roles are different. He found that as patients became "accustomed to this kind of therapy, it was less and less necessary to make any interpretations for them ... It would be possible to help focus the patients to greater awareness, where they would be forced to face the truth for themselves." Shorr advises that we interpret sparingly; that instead, by using imagery appropriately, we lead the patients to understand their phenomenological ways of seeing the world for themselves. He abhors formulas and recommends that these specific approaches not be used in any set order, but flexibly and responsively to reflect the individual client's needs. He encourages the therapist to adapt and to improvise. The following examples will help give the flavor of his approach.

In "The Imaginary Situation," to assess how a person feels about his situation, he says to the client, "Imagine you are on top of a mountain and on a ledge below, you are also there. Now the top you lowers a line to the bottom you. What will happen?" The response allows him to get a picture of the client's attitudes about help, self help, and resistance to therapy. He also describes variations, such as "Imagine one you in a boat and the other you in the ocean. The you in the boat throws the you in the ocean a line." He suggests using variations in later sessions to assess change.

In "Self-and-Other" questions, clients will disclose how they view themselves, and how they feel others have defined them. One such question is "How would you drive someone crazy?" You will probably hear the dark side of the patient's memory of his/her childhood. Or, "Look into a mirror and see another person. Whom do you see? What would you say?" People are generally quite surprised by their responses to this powerful question. Used as the last of a series of completion sentences, the "Finish-the-Sentence" item "Never refer to me as…" quickly evokes the patient's despised image.

One of my favorites elicits information about specific internal conflicts: "Imagine two fantasy animals. Describe them. Imagine them walking down a road together. How would they behave? What would they say to each other?" When I ask patients to draw these two animals, I have them write three adjectives for each animal, and then their conversation. For evoking an image of the trauma behind a conflict, he asks, "What was the day of shame in your life? What was the guiltiest feeling in your life?" For sexual imagery, Shorr has varying degrees of evocative instructions, depending upon the tolerance of the client. "Look into a hole in the floor. What do you see?" There are more explicit imaginary situations, as the client becomes willing to deal with such conflicts. And, for the exploration of self-esteem: "Imagine yourself sitting on a throne." Or, for exploring relationships with a parent: "Imagine you are holding your father's face in your hands. What do you see? Say something to him. What does he say to you?"

Two of the chapters are transcripts of audio-taped interviews, and are helpful for those who would learn by following Dr. Shorr's thinking as he interacts verbally with his patients. Shorr suggests that clients listen to their audio-tapes after a period of time for a "picture" of where they have been, where they are now, and where they want to go. This is undoubtedly useful. Personally, I find that reviewing a patient's actual drawings is even more effective and, of course, more succinct.

Where the manuscripts of the two original books join together, the book becomes a little repetitious. Some skillful editing might have made the transition more graceful. However, repetition does help ideas stick. These are minor cavils. Taken as a whole, the book is a classic; it is a landmark in our understanding of the uses of imagery and psychotherapy. I highly recommend Psychotherapy Through Imagery not only as a source book for stimulating imagery, but for its conceptual framework. If you take the time to digest and experience these "Psycho-Imagination" techniques for yourself and adapt them to your own art therapy practice, I predict that you and your clients will be richly rewarded.

Reviewer Evelyn Virshup, PhD, ATR is an author, an art therapist in private practice, and an active member of the American Association for the Study of Mental Imagery.

PSYCHOTHERAPY THROUGH IMAGERY
New York: Thiem-Stratton Inc., 1983, 476 pp.
(ISBN 0-86577-083-2)
$35.00 (California residents add sales tax)
plus $3.00 shipping & handling

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