• Imagery is how your mind speaks to you
• Advertisers bank on the power of your images
• What Interactive Guided Imagery (IGI) is
• IGI practitioners are rigorously trained
• The difference between IGI and other imagery methods
• The many uses of IGI
• IGI gives you a direct route to your inner wisdom
• How I can help you as an IGI specialist

Imagery is how your mind speaks to you

The power to access your issues and the capacity to resolve them lies within you. Information you have that is related to your issues is continually being communicated to you by your mind in the form of images. In fact, imagery is the natural language of the conscious and subconscious mind. Your images hold the thoughts, beliefs, values, attitudes and feelings that you have about something.

Before you ever understood words you created images, and you haven’t stopped imaging since. You have images about what a man and a woman should be, what the ideal mate is, what optimal health is, what success is and at the core of all your images, an image that holds your perception of who you are – your self-image. All thinking is imagery. If you have ever once been worried, you’ve experienced the power your images can have over you. In fact, if you’re like most people, you find your thoughts are powerful enough to lead you in circles. You may have become more knowledgeable about the issue while you were being led, but you didn't resolve it. You used your precious time and energy, worked hard, and just found yourself in the same place or even worse, acting against yourself.

Advertisers bank on the power of your images

The power of your images to influence you may not be great for you, but advertisers love it! They're capitalizing on the tremendous power of your subconscious mind. What has been long known by psychology, and more recently being realized by science, is that your subconscious mind is a goal-striving machine, programmed by your self-image to prove itself correct about ANY issue. The implications of this fact are awesome. Your subconscious mind can be your most powerful ally… or your most ferocious enemy. If the results you’re getting in your life are less than what you want, becoming aware of your unconscious imagery is essential. Instead of being run by your images, your images should be serving you.

What Interactive Guided Imagery (IGI) is

Interactive Guided Imagery (IGI) is a therapeutic tool used extensively by Italian psychiatrist and developer of Psychosynthesis, Roberto Assagioli, a contemporary of Freud and Jung’s, who used Interactive Guided Imagery to rapidly mobilize the untapped resources of his clients’ minds. Science now has evidence that the brain reacts to an imagined scene in much the same way it would to a genuine experience of that same scene, especially if the images are imbued with emotion. This means that images are, in essence, synthetic experiences. This has great implications for the field of health and success achievement.

IGI practitioners are rigorously trained

Dr. Andrew Weil endorses Interactive Guided Imagery: “My experience with Interactive Guided Imagery convinces me that no disease process is beyond its reach. I find Interactive Guided Imagery so useful, that I require training in it for fellows in the Integrative Medicine Program I created at the University of Arizona Medical Center.”

Because Interactive Guided Imagery is such a powerful transformational tool, practitioners require rigorous training and certification. IGI is often confused with creative visualization and conventional guided imagery. Although Interactive Guided Imagery accomplishes all that they do, what IGI can do for you leaves the other imagery techniques far behind.

The difference between IGI and other imagery methods

With creative visualization, the goal of your guide is to have you create images of what you want in your life. Typically you leave the session enthusiastic and ready to change your life, but as the days go by you notice yourself slipping back into unwanted behaviors. What you’re getting is the result of inner conflict and your results show you which part is winning.

At this point your creative visualization has hit a wall. To imagine what you want to create is wonderful, but it’s not enough. Interactive Guided Imagery offers you a way to “speak” with the conflicting parts of you, and enlist ALL the parts of you to support and assist you in achieving your goal.

Generally, the use of conventional guided imagery is limited to stress reduction or symptom management. There is value in learning how to de-stress, but if the core issue is not resolved, you will find your shoulders up by your ears again! Symptom management can bring relief, but at times your symptoms are trying to communicate something important to you about what you need to change to have a more comfortable existence. Interactive Guided Imagery offers you a way to “hear” what your symptoms are trying to tell you.

With conventional guided imagery your guide’s role is to give you images and specific instructions about what to do with them. The fact that the images are given to you rather than come from you, make the images impersonal, and therefore limits the method’s empowering potential. It’s the personal nature of your images that give your images their power.

With Interactive Guided Imagery the goal is to elicit the images that are important to you, and guide you into interacting with them. By “dialoging” with your images, you get to the truth about the issues that run you – not truth with a small t but truth with a capital T; not information that is just below your consciousness, but to the information that lies deep within you, so that you can bring that knowledge up to the surface and make choices -- because that is where freedom comes from: choice.

By intentionally interacting with the images that come up for you in the context of addressing issues, Interactive Guided Imagery uses your imagination to access the areas in which you are stuck and assists you in building a bridge to your internal resources to resolve those issues. During my many years as a psychotherapist and coach, I have consistently seen how amazingly quickly IGI has helped convert my clients’ “inner critics” into inner champions. Rather than feeling that life has “happened” to them, my clients have become conscious co-creators of their lives.

The many uses of IGI

Interactive Guided Imagery is a potent modality for any issue. When used to address physically-related problems such as pain management, chronic illness or preparation for medical procedures, utilizing IGI can result in pain reduction, a decreased need for medication, speedier healing, and symptom resolution.

When used for psychological issues such as anxiety, depression, addictive behaviors, relationship conflicts, self-esteem issues and dysfunctional stress, Interactive Guided Imagery can lead to a speedier access to your internal resources, and therefore to faster problem resolution.

When used in conjunction with any type of coaching related to career path concerns, creative blocks or performance anxiety, IGI can be used to liberate your creativity, strengthen your skills, increase your self-confidence and facilitate success.

IGI gives you a direct route to your inner wisdom

Our society acknowledges that illness and “dis-ease” can have mental and emotional causes, but at times they are a result of a spiritual disconnect with oneself. The word “dispirited” says it all: a state of being without spirit. The feelings that come from a lack of spiritual connection within oneself can produce all the symptoms of depression that are now common in our society such as lack of enthusiasm for the future, a nagging feeling that something is missing in your life, or a lack of inspiration and a sadness below the surface. Instead of being recognized as important signals to be explored, these symptoms are instead cavalierly treated with antidepressants and are suppressed. Suppression may make you feel better, but it will never heal your problem. It’s like cutting the alarm light in an overheated car – the car is still overheating, but you won’t know it until it’s too late. Instead of medicating the symptoms of mental, emotional, and even at times physical pain, these symptoms need to be listened to and understood and honored.

Interactive Guided Imagery gives you a direct route to your inner wisdom, which will strengthen your intuition, lead you to a deeper understanding of your life’s purpose and give you a greater sense of peace. You have the most powerful tool for joy, success and optimal health inside you: your imagination.

How I can help you as an IGI specialist

If you’re ready to start painting a canvass filled with all the colors available in life's palette, instead of accepting the grayness that comes from settling for a life that is less than what you desire, or if you are tired of living with the colors that others have foisted upon you, I can help you. Please call me for a complementary half-hour phone or office consultation to talk about how my integrated approach using Psychosynthesis, Interactive Guided Imagery, Emotional Freedom Techniques, Homeopathy, Energetic Healing and coaching can help you. Let’s get started working on your most precious creation… your life!