Experiencing the Body: Past, Present, and Future Brief Image Therapy: Ahsen's 10-Session Model By Leslie J. Dagnall
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ince publishing his first book, Eidetic psychotherapy: A brief introduction (1965), Akhter Ahsen has demonstrated that we store all important life events in the form of images. While memory records the “facts,” another part of the mind stores perceptual images, known as eidetics, or ISMs — (I) Images, (S) the Somatic relationships, body and emotional states, and their (M) Meanings. This ISM relationship is the preeminent cornerstone in his psychological and learning theories from the 1950s to current times. “Where’s the body?” is his clarion call to educators and therapists alike to go beyond the more limiting current cognitive/behavioral models to the more expansive realm of these multifaceted images that reveal the mind in a direct experiential manner. Ahsen’s Brief Treatment Model uses these eidetic images and techniques in a focused and effective manner to quickly target presenting symptoms. The method postures an activated consciousness for the client throughout. The client is asked to remain in an active state of attention. All material is taken down in the client’s own words; all images emanate from the client’s mind. The emphasis is on a systematic processing of the images by client/therapist that ultimately leads to renewal of deep strengths within the individual. Whether the symptoms come from developmental themes or isolated past traumatic episodes, the image is the ultimate guide. The role of the therapist is as educator in how images work in the mind and how they affect various emotional and physical states. The therapist teaches the client to experience how these images that emanate from the past now impact current life and are trajectories into the future. When the impasse of a stuck state is broken by seeing a single image, a neurophysiological response occurs resulting in physical, emotional, and cognitive change. In this Brief Image Therapy one walks into the theatre of the mind where one can see, feel, interact, play, dialogue and engage with a vast reservoir of imagery potentials that already exist within the individual. The therapist demonstrates how the ensuing painful images connect to the difficult and obstructive somatic states in the here and now and how the concomitant positive images allow for release of these states. By oscillating the negative and positive polarities within the first session, the person experientially attunes towards hope and an active state of consciousness. This process immediately breaks the status quo of negative soma and the rigidity of fixed thinking.
Each week the client is asked to do Akhter Ashen homework with a pertinent image utilizing the image process or technique learned during the previous session. When clients return the following week, they report on their revisiting the image from the previous session and are often amazed by the spontaneous movement of the image towards a positive life connection. This movement towards resolution, known as image progression, occurs by just seeing the image and allowing various “feelingful” states to emerge. That resource within becomes a total reality of presence, with or without the therapist, thus instilling again the notion of self-reliance, which is excellent in the realm of brief therapies. When the client contacts these innate resources, there is deep union with this robust consciousness that is available and most agreeable at all times. There is a flow of pleasure and play that enters into the engagement of client–image–therapist interactions. Learning about the mind and its natural operations that have been temporarily thwarted allows for a natural athleticism to occur which is gifted within each person. This can transform the presenting symptoms and the ongoing real world experience, thus reclaiming the self to its natural state of harmony before the disruptions of trauma and pain. Each session is structured towards new techniques and imagery processes that continue to build on the feeling of self-reliance. Each week the homework assignment deepens the gains made during the previous sessions and creates a deeper contact with one’s mind and its natural regenerative capacities. Activation of the mind, the honing of the client’s abilities to utilize the images effectively, and the resultant developing of strength and autonomy makes Ahsen’s 10-Session Brief Image Therapy a marvelous tool for therapy and for new ways of envisioning life.
Leslie J. Dagnall serves on the Board of the International Imagery Association as the Director of Training since 2001. She is a Member of the American Academy of Experts in Traumatic Stress since 1999; Board Certified Diplomate since 2003. Leslie uses her expertise in eidetic imagery models: trauma, brief treatment, and learning. For more information contact Leslie J. Dagnall at LJDag@aol.com; www.eidetictraining.com Reference Hochman, J. (2007). Brief image therapy: Ahsen's 10-session model. New York: Brandon House.
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