Honoring the Ecology Between Worlds: Depth Psychology and Relational Guided Imagery

Abstract

This dissertation employs interpretive phenomenological analysis (IPA) to study the lived experience of 6 individuals engaged in relational guided imagery (RGI). Countervailing the Industrial Revolution’s spiritual alienation, and loss of symbolic perspective, a romantic current arose in German Idealism that elevated human imagination to a superordinate, world-making power. In this context, Jung’s analytical psychology compensated the prevailing scientific rationalism of the day. Jung developed a rudimentary method called active imagination to engage the psyche’s spontaneous images and embrace the imagination as a valid means of producing knowledge. Robert Desoille seized upon Jung’s theorizing and developed a highly structured approach to mental imagery based on provider authority and directivity. Desoille’s Directed Waking Dream proliferated throughout Continental Europe and obscured Jung’s groundbreaking imaginal discoveries. To counterweigh these directive, intrusive methods, permissive forms of image work arose that culminated in relational guided imagery (RGI). Traceable to Jung, RGI enhances active imagination, providing it with a procedural structure that situates imaginal exploration in an intersubjective, empathic context. Comparing Jung’s interactions with imaginal wisdom figures and the research participants’ experiences of inner advisors, one significant tonal difference and five common superordinate themes were identified. The atonal distinction may be characterized as confrontation and conflict (i.e., Jung) vs. consonance and calm (i.e., study participants). Shared superordinate themes include (1) Positive Qualities of Advisors, (2) Personal Transformation, (3) Positive Effects of Imagery, (4) Parallel Methods, and (5) Transpersonal/Spiritual/Numinous imagery.