Dreamwork and Transformation: Facilitating Therapeutic Change Using Embodied Imagination

Abstract

This article explores the value of expanding the imagination of the patient to create therapeutic change. It examines how and why Embodied Imagination, a technique of dreamwork developed by Robert Bosnak, is able to achieve such an expansion. Describing this structured practice in detail, the article explicates how Embodied Imagination helps the patient recontextualize early implicit memories and change repetitive, dysfunctional patterns, essentially affecting the repetition compulsion. Among many factors, the patient develops more flexible and fluid thinking and greater ability to learn from experience, fostering the development of new positive patterns. Confirming neuroscience research is offered, including the neurological underpinnings of the imagination and the capacity to change. Connections are also made among Embodied Imagination, implicit memories, and creativity. Dreams of both the author and her patients illustrate the technique and show how and why Embodied Imagination can create therapeutic change.

Keywords:

• dreaming
• imagination
• creativity
• implicit memories
• metaphor
• reverie

Acknowledgments

Special thanks to Robert Bosnak and Jill Fischer, co-directors of Embodied Imagination, Inc., whose teaching has so enriched me. I also thank Dr. Efrat Ginot, whose commentary has been invaluable.

Notes

1 For contrasting, and possibly complementary, approaches to dreamwork, see Blechner (1998, 2001, 2013) and Fosshage (1997, 2000, 2007).

2 Lakoff and Johnson view metaphor as a form of cognition, part of the conceptual system underlying English. These conceptual metaphors are so interwoven into our language that we are usually not aware of them. Lakoff (1993, p. 78) gives the example of “Love is a journey.” Many possible “spin-off” metaphors are possible. For example, “We've hit a dead end” suggests trouble, whereas “Look how far we've come” is more promising.

3 It is also possible that such patients could use a modified approach, such as Bromberg (2003a) describes. Bromberg uses Embodied Imagination in his ongoing analytic work, although not with every patient. He writes that he differs from Bosnak, however, because Bromberg does not use a “hard-nosed” hypnotic induction. I infer he does not use the relaxation and body scan techniques. This may reduce self-consciousness about the body in some patients. I would add that, at first, it may be helpful in some instances to work only with one image, that of habitual consciousness, to help the patient become comfortable with the technique.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Leanne Domash

Leanne Domash, Ph.D., is a psychologist/psychoanalyst and writer who has written and presented extensively about creativity and the creative process. She has written a play using dreams to address intergenerational transmission of trauma. She also recently coauthored with Evelyn Rappoport, Psy.D., another play, a dark comedy about two archetypal heroines: Alice of Alice in Wonderland and Eve of the Bible. Dr. Domash is clinical consultant in the New York University Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis; voluntary psychologist, Mt. Sinai Beth Israel Medical Center; and associate clinical professor of psychiatry, Icahn School of Medicine, Mt. Sinai Beth Israel Medical Center. She maintains a private practice in New York City.