Emotion-Image Therapy. Analysis and Implementation

6. the struggle with one’s own dependence of various types [emotional, alcohol, narcotic and so on] In other words the second type problem may be based on the first type problem formed before;

7. the denial of oneself.

Other variants are also possible.

In a particular case the second type problem may lead to a vicious circle when the struggle with a symptom or persistent desire strengthens the symptom which gives rise to another round of struggle, etcetera. This circle model was described by L [68] before. This is how some phobias or obtrusiveness, panic attacks can be formed.

Scheme three [Fic. 2c] reflects the problem of ambivalence [that is the simultaneous attraction to the object and its rejection]:

1. love to the hated, despised and repulsive object;

2. the desire to get success, to reach the aim and the fear of success;

3. gratitude and humiliation, admiration and envy, joy and grief, pleasure and fear at the same time and so on;

4. the desire to do and not to do something, to say and not to say, to express feelings and to hide them etcetera;

5. the desire to win over the opponent and the fear of him;

6. the desire for some risk, for suicide, and at the same time unwillingness.

And others…

Scheme four [Fig. 2d] corresponds to the problem of choice:

1. the desire to have two incompatible variants at the same time not to lose either;

2. the choice between the two equally desirable variants;

3. the person’s immaturity his inability to make a choice and take the responsibility, the fear to make a mistake, indecisiveness;

4. a risky choice, determining the fate, winning or losing;

5. constant rushing from one variant to another, hesitation between hope and despair etcetera;

And others…

Scheme five [Fig. 2e] corresponds to the situation when there is no choice, when all variants are bad. For example, life situation is unbearable, so unbearable that you want to escape from it, but if you do it the situation will be still worse. This corresponds to Joe Biden’s model of double clamp [26]:

1. the subject lives with an unbearable person, for example, with a home tyrant, a psychopath, or a criminal but is dependent on him;

2. social disadaptation that leads to autism or a bum’s way of life;

3. moral choice between crime and death and so on;

4. the loss of prestige, bankruptcy, another event that has led to subjectively an unbearable situation, but any way out threatens even greater losses;

5. the choice between suicide and disgrace, giving way to violence and deathly risk and so on;

6. the choice between the husband who is not loved and a beloved person with whom it is impossible to live together for financial reasons etcetera.

And others…

In every case the task of psychotherapy is to help the client to change himself and not to help him change the surrounding reality, to solve the problem resorting to subjective, inner but not outer changes. Certainly, in every individual case it will be necessary to decide what kind of change will be most adequate, will mostly correspond to ecology of the person’s life, what emotional fixation must be removed. For example, if a person is suffering because he takes his loss too hard, then it is necessary to help him say “farewell”, to his loss however difficult it may be. But if he is suffering because he can’t get happiness because he is convinced in his alleged inferiority [and in this case, it is a barrier], then it is necessary to deliver him from the feeling of inferiority. Fear that prevents a young man to tell his girlfriend about his feelings or pass an exam may also be a barrier. In this case, it is obviously necessary to remove not love to the girl or the wish to study but fear that makes a person a psychological slave.

Let me underline one more time that a subjective barrier is also usually the result of an inadequate emotional fixation. So the aim, no doubt, is not to completely deliver from all desires but from suffering. As a result of correct work the person always gets the feeling of liberation and getting back to the open world of new opportunities, his ability to satisfy his reasonable demands increases.

Let us repeat, in any case the essence of psychological work is to deliver the individual from some dependence on an object or on an inadequate barrier that makes him suffer. In different schools and traditions of psychotherapy this aim is reached by different means. But in all cases a person must become more free than he was before, he must to a greater extent become the subject of his own life than before.

We’d like to emphasize that the above given schemes reflect only the primary [initial] problem structure. Further on, as we have said before, the problem is developing and growing, giving rise to numerous symptoms and new difficulties.

The subject of the inner structure of psychological problems has already been analyzed in different publications several times, so here we will dwell on it briefly.

The first two variants of psychological problems structure are mentioned as far back as in the Buddhist philosophy. As Buddha said there are two reasons for suffering: when a person can’t get what he wants and when he can’t get rid of what he doesn’t want. The general Buddhist recipe is also known: you will not suffer if you don’t have any attachment.

You can think that the EIT method is aimed at complete liberating of an individual from any desires, but that is not so. Every person has a lot of natural and quite normal desires and attachments, satisfying which is necessary for a healthy and happy life. The simplest example – the need to breathe. Most people satisfy this need easily and simply without any difficulties, so they even don’t notice it. However, when breathing becomes difficult because of a cold or asthma every person starts to understand how important this need is. The task certainly is not to make a person stop wishing to breathe freely but to deliver him from the barrier that prevents free breathing. This barrier may be based on some hidden or suppressed emotions, and if these emotions are freed or adequately transformed breathing will get free by itself, as often happened during our séances [see examples given further on]. We seek to free an individual only from such attachments which make him suffer, restrict his life activity and personal growth. Buddha offered the middle way:” If you don’t pull the string it will not sound, if you pull it too hard it will break”.

We gave the example with an alcoholic that shows how a big cluster of problems grows from only one initial cause. Here is another example illustrating how system problems appear on the basis of some initial conflict. A girl was dreaming of making a family of having a beloved man, she thought that life without this is not worth living. But she was convinced that no one will ever love her because she was ugly. That was not true but she thought so because when she was born he father said that:

“this fat-legged ugly creature can’t be given his favorite name Nastja”. The girl was given another quite nice name, but she was told the story for some strange reason. The father criticized her figure later and never embraced her… Unfortunate love added to this and she it was a final proof that she would never obtain happiness. Her father’s directive became an absolute prohibition for her, an obstacle to reach her desire.

The method of adaptation that she accepted was to struggle with herself. The meaning of life for her disappeared, sometimes she had suicidal thoughts. From the age or ten she deliberately suppressed her feelings. A powerful muscle shell held back her feelings, all her body was tense, the girl stooped, her neck got into her shoulders, the brow became immovable like the brow of a marble statue, the countenance became gloomy and hopeless. She isolated herself from people, had only one friend and thought that everybody hates her. She stopped taking care about her looking attractive, stopped looking after her hair, her clothes etcetera. She suffered from insomnia and attacks of hatred towards herself. Sometimes she made little cuts on her wrists with a blade in order to ease the strain… At the same time she successfully studied at a higher educational college and still considered herself a looser.

The client asked the doctor to completely deliver her from sexual desires so that she could live calmly. Naturally this demand was impossible to meet. She has already been in the state of deep depression, suppressing her natural feelings. So the doctor refused to sign such a contract and focused his efforts on discrediting her father’s claims which served a psychological barrier in her problem structure. It was difficult because she lived him. The work lasted about two years, little by little the girl was getting back to being natural and womanly, she started sleeping normally and stopped cutting her hands and so on. She began taking care about herself, it turned out that she had a long fine neck, big eyes, nice hair… But only after disappointment about her father’s criteria her depression practically passed. “I still have a lot of problems, – she said, – but I remember what I was two years ago. It was terrible, I don’t want to be like that anymore”. She met her boyfriend and got married.

Why are these models describing how problems appeared important for the EIT method? First, because they show how to look for the initial conflict properly, using for this purpose images, expressing problem emotional state. Second, because these models prompt how you can remove the initial conflict, when its origin is discovered, if you use an adequate mode of impact. Modes of impact are oriented at a particular origin of emotional fixation, and they always have the same aim which is to help liberate from some emotional fixation. The main methods of working with initial conflicts will be described further on.

Buddha long ago spoke about the role of attachment, and Sigmund Freud long ago spoke about the role of libido fixation on some object. But why does an attachment or a fixation on this particular object occur? Psychology actually doesn’t answer this question. However, a more detailed analysis of scheme one may clearly show how it happens at, so to speak, micropsychological level. Let us remember the metaphor about the monkey that grabbed the bait in in a hollowed up pumpkin and could not pull out its fist, see Fig. 3.

Figure 3a

Figure 3b

On Figure 3 [a, b] we analyze psychological problem of type one and its possible solution in greater detail. Besides the aim, the desire and the barrier it shows a “phantom paw” [an arrow above the barrier] by which a person is holding his aim or his barrier. A small heart shows the feelings that the person has for the desirable object. It is this “phantom paw” that a person cannot or does not want to unclench to let go the aim or the barrier determines his dependence and chronic negative emotions he feels. It determines further painful forms of adaptation to this unnatural situation. And he can’t unclench “the phantom paw” because he put into the object some very important feelings, hopes or even a part of his own personality. When the small heart returns the attraction disappears, which is symbolized be a light arrow directed from the former aim and barrier [pic. 3b]. To resolve other problems different techniques may be used, picture 3 is given as an example.

If a person wants somebody or something he already owns the desirable object in his imagination or is in contact with it. For example, while sitting at the table during some celebration guests look at various dishes put on the table by the hosts they taste these dishes in their mind. You can say that their “virtual mouths” are already eating different dishes, and if some guest likes the imagined taste of food he says: “Would you give me a little of this, please…” That’s why it is so important that food be not only tasty but look nice and appetizing. It means that a person radiates some psychological part of himself which establishes an imagined contact with the desirable object and if this imagined contact is pleasant then the person tries to establish a closer contact with the desirable object, to possess it in some form. It doesn’t always mean physical contact, nor does it always mean absorbing the object, but the subject seeks a desirable actual interaction.

Suppose that one of the guests failed to have the dish which he wanted to taste very much. He may leave disappointed and in his mind leave his “phantom mouth” in this dish, tasting the food when he could still have it. Until this process continues in his mind, he will suffer even if he suffers just a little, feeling sorry about the missed pleasure. After some time he will take his “mouth” out of the imagined dish, will let the dish go and his suffering will stop and he will recover his good health. If he doesn’t do so, he will remember his unrealized desire from time to time and feel disappointed again. He can forbid himself even to think about his loss push his feelings into the area of subconscious, but they will go on influencing his state even from there, and can become a chronic unconscious suffering.

The solution of the problem will be returning your feelings and parts of your personality connected with the desired object. During this process the subject integrates again with lost emotions abs parts of his personality and only then he really lets go the object of his desires. In other case a person may let go the barrier, if he put into it important feelings, but in fact it was an illusion though it prevented achieving normal goals. In the first case the person stops suffering as he doesn’t have conflicting feelings any longer he becomes indifferent to the object. In the second case the subject can achieve the desirable aim, the question is whether it is good.

In other kinds of psychological problems, the task of a psychologist may be, for example, to help the client accept this or that aim or barrier, return the rejected parts of his personality and recover his personal integrity. As a result, the pathogenic emotional state, that causes undesirable or neurotic behavior and/or negative psychosomatic state disappears. When a client complains about a domineering negative state, the image of this state will show the doctor the essence of the emotional fixation which makes the basis of his problems. The doctor’s task is to understand the reasons of the fixation, to help the client realize what these reasons are and get rid of the fixation by, for example, integrating with lost earlier positive feelings and/or parts of his personality. There may be other methods but I’d like to point out one more time that we choose the method which will deliver from ecologically wrong attachment or fixation. You can achieve this by mentally influencing images, but as images are the embodiment of the emotional state of the person, as a result, these states change and the fixation disappears.

Let’s repeat actions may be different. Sometimes it is necessary to let go some offence or forgive yourself some mistakes of the past, sometimes it is necessary “to unclench the paw” to stop holding the image of the sweetheart who was unfaithful, or to say farewell to the dead. Sometimes it is necessary to accept yourself as a loser, to forgive your father who abandoned you, to refuse some inadequate prohibitions imposed by your parents in your childhood, to stop identifying yourself with some pain that you experienced in the past, with shame or any other psychological trauma. The EIT helps the client fulfil these tasks. Chapter six describes various methods of overcoming emotional fixations.

Summary

1. The structure of a psychological problem is determined by fixed energy of desire which can’t be realized because there exists some barrier.