Imagination has a valued place in psychotherapy. The images found in memories, relationship entanglements and future fantasies are the raw material of therapeutic work. And yet, faced with a significant dream or transference projection it can be difficult to resist the temptation of a clever interpretation. In this way, imagining is often eclipsed by thinking and the transformative potential of imaginative experience itself is neglected.

This talk by Allan Frater will be of interest to therapists who want to work more holistically with images as images. Instead of treating images as symbols pointing to meaning elsewhere, the talk presents an image-centric approach, including:

— A broad understanding of imagination as present in all perceptions, actions and relationships (not just as pictures ‘inside the mind’).

— A ‘waking dream’ method applicable to generic work with memories, the transference and future fantasies as well as art-therapy and active-imagination approaches.

— Imaginal dialogues.

— A non-interpretative patterning which links image work in the consulting room to the on-going story of self and world in everyday life.

The result is an appreciation of imagination, not just as a means to rational insight but as an embodied imaginal sensibility at the heart of human potential and creativity.

If you enjoy this, you can learn more about Allan’s work by visiting: www.wildimagination.uk.

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Allan Frater is a psychotherapist and teacher with Psychosynthesis Trust. Inspired by Jack Kerouac and Herman Hesse, he spent his twenties living and working in Buddhist communities where he came across the east-meets-west fusion of transpersonal psychology, eventually training to become a psychotherapist. His psychotherapy practice and teaching career have intersected at the meeting place between transpersonal psychology and an image-based approach to ecotherapy, the results of which will be presented in this talk.

The introduction and first chapter of ‘Waking Dreams’ can be sampled here: https://wildimagination.uk/book/

Further information and background here: https://wildimagination.uk

3 Books Allan Recommends Every Therapist Should Read:

— Revisioning Psychology by James Hillman: https://amzn.to/3zgzeeh

— The Spell of the Sensuous by David Abram: https://amzn.to/3FmfkSS

— The Original Folk and Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm by Jacob

and Wilhelm Grimm: https://amzn.to/3TFAbFd