Guided Imagery
by Randi Botnick, CHT

The practice of Hypnotherapy utilizes many different techniques, but one of the easiest to use is guided imagery. Guided Imagery is akin to directed daydreaming, or guided meditation. It is a way of using the imagination and subconscious mind to create alternative scenarios, including those of physical healing, emotional calmness and clarity, future plans, symbolic messages from the mind, and more.

The term “imagery” is used broadly to define any perception, including those that are visual, sounds, smells, tastes, etc. Sensory imagery is the true language of the body — the only language it understands immediately and without question. The subconscious mind cannot tell the difference between reality and imagination. That is why you may wake up from a stressful dream breathing fast and feeling anxious. So, for instance, remembering the feel of the hot summer sun on your skin is an image. Remembering the smell of warm, bread baking in the oven on an autumn day, or the sound of the waves washing up on the shore are also images that evoke particular feelings.

Under hypnosis, in an altered state of consciousness, we are capable of more rapid and intense healing, growth, learning and change. An altered state is a place of relaxed focus, a kind of calm, but energized alertness. Meditation produces this same kind of altered state. It is sometimes called being in the flow or in the zone. In this state, the stress responses of the body are turned off, and all the systems of the body can function optimally.

Imagery is used primarily to reduce stress and make people more comfortable in situations that feel threatening. We feel better about ourselves when we feel we have some control over our lives. Guided imagery allows us to create our world, and our reactions to it, the way it feels most comfortable.

Guided imagery may be effective at helping to re-train the body to move back into balance, into health. Clinically, studies have shown the use of imagery to be very helpful in reducing the effects of chemotherapy, and in reducing shock and increasing blood flow in severely injured patients. Another study at the University of Texas Health Science Center in Dallas showed that seriously injured burn patients who used it experienced less pain and used less pain medication.

Emotionally, imagery is also a wonderful tool for overcoming fears and phobias, projecting positive outcomes, or “rehearsing” moves in performances and sports. One of the most powerful uses of imagery is that of meeting an Inner guide, a part of the subconscious mind that has access to a higher awareness. An inner guide can offer answers to life’s questions in a way that can’t be attained through the thinking, analytical mind.

August 2004