1st Edition

The Power of Inner Pictures How Imagination Can Maintain Physical and Mental Health

    172 Pages
    by Routledge

    172 Pages
    by Routledge

    This book is about inner pictures and how we can access and change these pictures through our imagination. It is written not only for specialists in the field of psychotherapy and coaching, but also for the general public. Thomas Kretschmar, a specialist in the field, and Martin Tzschaschel, a journalist, have together created a book that is both comprehensive and understandable for everybody. The authors start by exploring inner pictures in general and how they influence us in everyday life, in memories, and in dreams, using examples from sports, business and other fields. The book then examines how inner pictures and the imagination can be used for therapy. The applications are drawn from both medical and non-medical treatments, including biofeedback, sleep, hypnosis, autogenic training, and the healing of physical diseases. The authors then examine the methods of imaginative psychotherapy. Additional contemporary methods are also utilised, to make this a completely up-to-date interventional approach. The book concludes with examples of cases from the authors’ own therapy practice. Parts of therapy sessions have been transcribed so that the reader is transported into the therapy room. The cases present clients with anxiety attacks, insomnia and burn out, eating disorders, phobias, and OCD.

    Introduction: to whom is this book addressed? -- The surprising power of representations -- How internal images heal us -- Catathym imaginative psychotherapy -- Examples from therapy and practice: how catathym imaginative psychotherapy helps -- Outlook: imagination can do even more

    Biography

    Thomas Kretschmar is the managing director of Mind Institute SE Berlin, where he uses inner pictures and the imagination to treat patients and coaching clients. He is also a researcher and trainer in the field of imaginative interventions. Prior to this, Thomas worked as a founder and CEO of the SDAX company Hypoport, a professor for organisational studies, and as business consultant with a psychological focus. He has training in several psychological intervention methods and is licensed for psychotherapy in Germany. Thomas studied business administration in Gottingen and psychology with a psychoanalytic focus in Berlin. Martin Tzschaschel is a journalist and has been the editor of 'P.M.', a popular German scientific journal, since 1981. In addition, he has written three books, and his book about a new version of knowledge we learn in school is now in its fifth run. Martin is devoted to making complicated scientific findings understandable for the public. Prior to this, he studied social pedagogy in Munich and worked as a journalist for several journals. Martin lives in Hamburg, Germany.