ImageWork

Dr Dina Glouberman has made many contributions to Humanistic psychology with papers, books, and even the creation of Skyros Holidays. Her work has profoundly influenced many lives for the better- including my own- through courses run on the Greek island of the same name in the Aegean. She is also a psychotherapist and has facilitated groups teaching her own approach to visualisation and creative imagination in a craft she calls ImageWork.

Glouberman prefers the term ImageWork over visualisation because her take on the matter involves working with images from the psyche. She has written two books previously on the subject and another about burnout in which she showed ways ImageWork can be used. She has also written a fascinating memoir: Into the Woods and Back Again The current offering is a manual for therapists and facilitators. It is beautifully written drawing together aspects from her previous books and new material.

One of the things that impressed me early about ImageWork, was that Glouberman emphasises, as well as imagination, the importance of grounding. I see it as a tribute of another kind to her work that John Rowan in his book on the transpersonal specifically directed his readers to Glouberman’s work for ideas about grounding. After processing things from their imagination and the transpersonal, clients need to leave the session able to leave sessions and return onto the streets where they can come to ground with a bump.

The current book is more academic in structure than her previous volumes and designed as a reference work. But there is no loss of warmth of tone. Glouberman cites as sources things learned from neuroscience, Jungian Active Imagination, Gestalt, and Psychosynthesis. She also draws on existential and philosophical literature including Seneca, Merleau-Ponty well as spiritual writers such as Thích Nhất Hạnh and Martin Buber. ImageWork is also very compatible with imaginal techniques that have come into my acquaintance since my training such as Richard Schwarz’s Internal Family Systems the waking dream technique I learned at CCPE under Nigel Hamilton. All of these have huge value in the treatment of psychological issues and trauma. I happily commend them. But equally, I find it difficult to find anywhere anything with more practical and scholarly precision than in this new work covering every aspect every aspect from relaxation and grounding exercises to working with the imaginal.

The exercises are crafted with a precision that allows for proper focus on Image material together with an adaptability to meet difference contexts. People who meet Glouberman, in my experience, quickly notice her intuitive qualities. But another quality on show here is her skill as a technician in devising exercises. The exercises are artfully crafted, starting with relaxations to allow images to emerge, then with procedures to ensure a grounded return to consensus reality. The purpose of ImageWork is not to control and interpret the images. It is about creating an alchemical flask so an imaginer can work with them in safety and bring back whatever they learned.

The book is a tool kit for this with scripts of exercises to help practitioners prepare themselves for their use. With these there are suggestions over which contexts to use them. There is a glossary to explain the terms she uses. There is a very handy table of the exercises with a brief description an exercise’s use with cross references to her previous books where additional discussion on them is available. She also discusses how to work with the images produced using case studies from clients.

This is an extraordinarily rich range of exercises of very wide scope. Glouberman groups them into the following categories: Healing Imagination, Creative Imagination and Transcendent Imagination. For me these have rough parallels with what in my transpersonal psychology training is referred to as pre-personal, personal, and transpersonal though Glouberman’s terms strike me as more process orientated. They are devised for specific purposes including to help with physical illnesses, relationships, and creative issues. Over the physical illnesses, she makes the pragmatic point that even if there are physical aspects to them, they often come with psychological aspects that also need processing. There are also exercises aimed at looking at body, dreams and setting intentions to the future, as well as spiritual matters. She also discusses how ImageWork can work together with Mindfulness.

There are also short exercises to counterbalance and supplement longer ones. A favourite of mine is the Mind, Heart, and Soul exercise. Its stated purpose in the book is as an aid for decision making. Glouberman cites a case where she used it to help a client focus on a decision after experiencing an image. It of course has other uses. My own experience with clients is that this can also help align parts of themselves as well. Often after going through process, I have found clients usually feel more aligned. The beauty of the exercise is in both its simplicity and I draw upon it frequently in my practice.

Just inside the front cover there is a similar endorsement, from Martin Rossman (2000) who has more than earned his own right to own right to speak in this area:

“In my 50 years in the field, this is the best book I have read about working with imagery for healing, creativity and personal transformation. What a wonderful contribution! …This is a landmark book that will help many people learn to use their imaginations to heal and grow. I shall be studying it!”

I can only echo amen. I have found huge value in Dina Glouberman’s work. ImageWork - The Complete Guide to Working with Transformational Imagery builds on her original work. It is a distillation of many years’ experience and research. An ideal reference work for the ImageWorker be they therapist, psychonaut, or someone working on themself. There is no better guide in this area.