Working with imagery in psychotherapy

Working with imagery in psychotherapy

My image

June 16, 2024

Therapist: Svyatoslav Anatolyevich 💬

Trembling in the body. Fear. Anxiety.

I would like to work with an image.

The image is this wolf: large black eyes, wet with pain and suffering. He is standing in a field. Night. A starry sky. A full moon. The field is enclosed by forest. The wolf is sad.

💬 Describe how the field is enclosed by forest.

I would like to get beyond those limits.

💬 Beyond which limits? Can you describe the field? The image is gone.

And now what?

I walk barefoot through dense fog across the field. The fog is so thick that droplets seem suspended in the air. When they touch my body, they run down toward the ground, and grass grows from beneath my feet. The grass coils around me like a vine and turns into a green tube made of stems. It squeezes me. I lift my head and see blue sky inside the circular opening of the tube. I want to climb out there.

I climb out and lean over the top of this green tube above the field. High up. Freedom. Wind. Then I fly toward the city. I have white wings. There is a Psychology Summit there. I sit and watch. I have the eyes of that same wolf. Someone is speaking on stage, but with these eyes I can see something else too. Three shadow-phantoms stand beside the person: one on the left, one on the right, one behind. They are connected to the person by some kind of tubes or channels, telling them what to do and prompting them. Nobody sees these phantoms, but I can see them with the black eyes.

Another image. A boomerang circles around and could hurt my hand. I catch it. I look at it and it turns into a butterfly. Then there are butterflies—black, with red circles on their wings. They fly toward the sun, and the sun melts them into ash. The ash falls to the ground and grass grows from it. Dozens, hundreds of black butterflies fly into the sun. The sky is blue, and ash falls over the field. I sink into the ground and I am in space again [as in the imagery work with Yulia]. Space is all around me. I am in my own body, alive, and I see the Milky Way. These are souls moving toward the other world. I do not belong here. I am still in a human body; there are stars around me. Jaws appear from nowhere and move toward me. I catch them, freeze there, and think about what to do with them. I stop them so they cannot bite me, then put them into my mouth. They fuse into place, as if I had never had teeth before and now I do.

💬 And what is it like now, with the teeth?

Pleasant sensations. I click my teeth together. The boomerang again. No, I do not like these teeth.

💬 What is wrong with them?

I shut myself off from other people. They destroy everything. It feels as if nobody can reach my soul through them. I squeeze the teeth with all my strength. They crumble. All the fragments fall out. Shards remain where the teeth used to be. (See the dream from April 25.) “I need to learn to live without teeth. I need to try living without teeth.”

💬 What do you see now?

A pen, blue ink. I am writing in a large old book. There are already inscriptions and writing in it, but I turn the page and on a clean sheet I write: “The Animus has always been inside me.” I understand what the phrase means, laugh, and I am “thrown out” of the image.

I see people sitting in front of me.

💬 What kind of people?

Kind people. I am glad I do not need to bite anyone. A barrel of black liquid stands in the middle of the room. I think I need to pour it out. I pour it out.

💬 Where?

Out the window, onto the street.

💬 And what is outside?

I see a puddle of this black oil, and I feel awkward because I have made a mess. I wanted the barrel to be clean, but it is dirty. I wash it first in the room, then take it to the bathroom. It might be useful to other people. It is large and does not fit in the sink. I am tired. I wipe sweat from my forehead.

I go outside. Sunlight. I think there are plenty of people who could finish the job.

💬 What job?

Finish washing the barrel.

I bite into an apple—juicy, delicious.

The bow of Tiva (thoughts about Nietzsche). I draw the arrow. It flies around the entire Earth and leaves the path of a circle behind it. The circle becomes a noose. Three nooses on a scaffold: one slightly higher, two lower on the left and right. Nooses for those “who do not belong here.” A medieval city—these nooses are for those three people, those three phantoms.

💬 What emotion?

Anger. They cannot be killed or hanged because they are not material. They laugh at me.

💬 What do the phantoms look like? If they are laughing, what are they laughing with?

Teeth. The same teeth. I throw them into the barrel and stir them.

💬 And how is that?

They are mixing around in the barrel. They are not bothering me. They smirk. They do not fit. They are not being born. They are not being born!

💬 What do you see now?

A womb. A woman is trying to give birth to a child. A small child in my arms looks at me with blue eyes.

And for this… [I am crying]… “For this alone, life is worth living!”

💬 What is your state now?

Painful and joyful at the same time.

💬 Can we stop here?

Yes.