DEPTH PSYCHOTHERAPY

From story to embodied life.

Feeling as a Portal to Imagination

Imagination often begins where feeling is allowed. When we reconnect with our feeling life—grief, joy, fear, desire—we begin to access the deeper layers of the psyche. Feeling opens the door to imagination, and with it, the ability to see our lives through a more meaningful and symbolic lens.

As children, we live close to the archetypal world. Fairy tales, dreams, and symbols are part of everyday life—woven into our play, our fears, our longings. There’s a natural intimacy with the mythic and the mysterious. But as life unfolds, trauma, neglect, or chronic stress can begin to dull that connection. The feeling life is often the first thing to go underground, and with it, the imagination.The medicine is reconnection.

When we turn back toward our feeling life—with presence and care—we begin to remember. Imagination stirs. The psyche begins to speak. Healing doesn’t mean returning to childhood, but reclaiming what was once whole and bringing it forward into the present.

Losing Touch with Imagination

These threatening processes can cause us to shut down our feelings, which simultaneously cause us to lose touch with our imagination. Archetypal psychologist James Hillman explained that the “heart is the seat of imagination,” which is to say that any great adventure begins in the heart!

When we do the work of psychotherapy that focuses on opening empathy for the people of this world, including ourselves, we recover our connection to dreams, the underworld, storytelling, and our living myth.

Healing and Connection

Opening the imagination works with the mind, the feelings, the body, and archetypal beauty to engage the inner child, the one who is connected to spontaneity, play, and joy, to help you to bring forth your authentic nature.

To get the help you need, call:
(503) 929-2916

Therapy works directly with the suffering of the soul.

Anxiety, depression, grief, loss, relationship conflict, body image issues, addiction, and/or trauma are the matrix of the transformational process. The gold, or valuable materials within, is buried in your suffering, pains, and hurts. Your life path is discovered in the middle of your greatest afflictions.

Depth Psychology

Depth psychology is an umbrella term for the study of unconscious processes. Carl Jung explained that it is the inner child of the adult in which the development of personality happens. In this sense, imagination is essential for grown-ups. For Jung, the development of personality is “nothing less than the optimum development of the whole individual human being…an act of high courage flung in the face of life.” Jung’s idea of the inner child as a place for deep psychic work provides a gateway into the healing world of the archetypes.

Therapy that explores the unconscious focuses on the organ of imagination: the heart and opening of the feeling channel. Embodiment practices spearheaded by innovators like Arnold Mindell, Mary Starks Whitehouse, and Marion Woodman expanded imagination practices to include the body. Somatic depth psychology integrates mind, body, spirit and soul.

An important idea used in depth psychology is numinous experience, or an experience of awe, something greater than us is at work. Jung noted that in psychotherapy, it is numinous experience that heals us. This means that when we are connected to the unconscious, imaginative elements arise, creating the conditions for healing from trauma and abuse. If we have lost touch with the imagination, transformational processes can get blocked, energy gets stuck in the body, and repression/denial turns pain into anxiety and depression. Opening the imagination creates the potential for unlimited possibilities.

How It Helps

The primary method is the cultivation of the imagination in movement connected to an open-heart channel. This signals the development of empathy and compassion for all people, including yourself. This process uses psychologist Diana Fosha’s accelerated therapy techniques to help people open core affect states.

The methods include creative and expressive arts, movement exercises, talk therapy, dream work, and/or active imagination in movement. These methods are employed to open body-based feelings and sensations while simultaneously initiating imaginal metaphorical elements and analytical process.