A Guide to Imagework

Imagination-Based Research Methods

Iain Edgar

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2004
• ISBN:
  9781134564163
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

A Guide to Imagework is a pioneering guide to a new trend in ethnographic research: the use of imaginative, experiential methods such as dreamwork, artwork, Gestalt theory and psychodrama. Originating in group counselling and psychiatric therapy, imagework techniques explore subjects' imaginative resources to reveal unconscious knowledge about identity, belief and society. They are ideal for accessing rich qualitative data about how individuals and cultures function. Iain Edgar, a leading specialist on ethnographic method, has condensed top-level research theory on imagework into this handy practical manual. Complete with case studies and examples, hands-on tips and guidance on methods and ethics, it is an ideal starting point for any imagework project.

Chapter 1
Defining the imagework method

What is imagework and how does it work?

My dearest friend, how much longer must I watch you shrinking, diminishing before my eyes. How long will it be before you can accept that you are well again, that the operation was a success and that which you most fear has gone, has been excised. Your body is whole again, you are well – but you are not healed. You stay in this house, day after day, living with the physical scars which should be a symbol of new life, but for you they are the mark of death. You must come out of the dark and the cold, you must feel again the warmth and joy of living, you must come with me, for I am going to take you on a journey to a place of healing. It will be easy, you have only to take a few steps, out of this place, and be free.²

This chapter introduces the concept of imagework by defining its use in psychological and historical terms. Particularly the Sufi concept of the imaginal and shamanic visualisation practices are presented as forerunners of current imagework practice. Jung’s concept of the active imagination is also crucial. A taxonomy of the differing fields of image-work is then introduced.

Imagework has variously been called ‘active imagination’, ‘visualisation’ and ‘guided fantasy’. Imagework is also a powerful therapeutic method, as described by Glouberman (1989) and Achterberg (1985). Imagework has developed from the active imagination technique of Jung and the theory and practice of psychosynthesis developed by Assagioli (1965). Jung’s (1959a: 42) concept of the ‘collective unconscious’ underpins imagework. The concept of the ‘collective unconscious’ represented Jung’s perception that the human psyche contained impersonal and archaic contents that manifested themselves in the myths, dreams and images of humans. Jung’s idea that all humans contained a common and universal storehouse of psychic contents, which he called ‘archetypes’, is the core model of the unconscious that enables imagework practitioners (see Glouberman 1989: 25) to consider the spontaneous image as being potentially a creative and emergent aspect of the self. More recently, transpersonal psychotherapy has integrated the work of Assagioli and Jung to form an imaginatively based approach to therapy. Rowan’s definition of active imagination suggests that:

in active imagination we fix upon a particular point, mood, picture or event, and then allow a fantasy to develop in which certain images become concrete or even personified. Thereafter the images have a life of their own and develop according to their own logic.

(Rowan 1993: 51)

The imagework method is an active process in which the person ‘actively imagining’ lets go of the mind’s normal train of thoughts and images and goes with a sequence of imagery that arises spontaneously from the unconscious. It is the quality of spontaneity and unexpectedness that are the hallmarks of this process. Imagework has creative potential because as Clandinin writes,

In this view, images are seen as the mediator between the unconscious and conscious levels of being. What is known at the unconscious level finds expression in a person’s thought and actions through a person’s images. Images are thus seen as the source of inspiration, ideas, insight and meaning.

(Clandinin 1986: 17)

Indeed Jung famously wrote, ‘the crucial insight that there are things in the psyche which I do not produce, but which produce themselves and have their own life’ (1963: 207).

The imaginal world (or the websites of our mind)

The practice of imagework, in its visionary, contemplative and medi-tational forms is integral to the mystical paths of all the main religions (Happold 1963; Smith 1976). Imaginative contemplation has been central to mystical and monastic practice in Christianity through the ages (e.g. de Mello 1984) and visualisation has been a core component of religious practice, for example, in Tantric (Yeshe 1987) and Tibetan Buddhism (Tulku 1999).

Yet, interestingly, it is in the Sufi tradition within Islam (Corbin 1966: 406) that the concept of the ‘imaginal world’ is most developed to define a discernible world between that of sensibility and intelligibility. This ‘imaginal world’ is defined as a world of autonomous forms and images which is apprehended directly by the imaginative consciousness and was held to validate suprasensible perception. Suffice it here first to recognise the possible apparent genesis of the concept of the ‘imaginal world’ in the Islamic theory of the visionary dream; second, to recognise that the contemporary anthropology of dreaming is beginning to develop this concept of the ‘imaginal world’ to critically discern the culturally diverse relationships between the concepts of the dream and waking reality (Tedlock 1987: 3–4). Price-Williams (1987: 246–61) subsumes both the capacity to dream and ‘actively to imagine’ within the concept of the mythopoetic function in humans. The mythopoetic function, a term introduced by Ellenberger (1970: 314), is essentially a formulation of the creative capacity of the imagination to generate spontaneous imagery which is open to interpretation. Price-Williams speaks of how in a waking dream, ‘the imaginative world is experienced as autonomous … the imager does not have the sense that he is making up these productions, but feels that he is getting involved in an already created process’ (1987: 248). The conceptualisation of an ‘anthropology of the imagination’ is separately taken up in Duerr’s ‘dreamtime’ which argues coherently and philosophically for an integration of imaginative products within the concept of the ‘real’ (1985: 89–103). Price-Williams recommends that the task for anthropology is to elicit why some imaginary products gain social support and others do not. However, such a view denies the possibility of both a partial cultural structuring of the unconscious and a contextual study of the narrative account of the visual imagery.

Imagework and shamanism

Another theoretical formulation of the phenomenology and ontology of the ‘world of images’ derives from the study of both traditional and new age shamanism. There is of course a vast anthroological literature on specific shamanic traditions (see Eliade 1964) and deep-seated controversies as to the boundaries between traditional and new age shamanism, and shamanism and other forms of ecstatic technique such as trance, possession and mediumship. Detailed examination of theseage controversies is well beyond the scope of this book on qualitative research methodology. However, shamanic world-views do present another way of viewing, along with the Sufi concept of the ‘imaginal’, what the Westerner would generally describe as the ‘unconscious’, whether that be the ‘personal unconscious’ of Freud or the ‘collective unconscious’ of Jung. Smith (1997) has tried to integrate the theory and practice of Jungian psychoanalysis with the traditions of shamanic practice. The shamanic world-view is that of the unconscious being a ‘world of spirits’ within which the shaman consciously, albeit in ecstatic form, interacts with his/her tutelary ‘power animals’ and guiding spirits. Typically, the shaman seeks wisdom for the community/people through guidance from these autonomous imaginative forms. Clearly, whether talking of shamanism or the imaginal, most Westerners will locate these discources within the context of belief systems as the experience of the shaman is evidentially unprovable in terms of the positivistic scientific method. However, most Westerners will acknowledge that they do both daydream and dream at night, and further will acknowledge that scientific REM sleep studies show that all humans do dream and, moreover, appear to biologically need to dream. The night dream is evidence of an interior arena of ‘experience’ within each human subject. Indeed, the dream is the only personal and universal evidence there is that there is a non-phenomenal (noumenal) world as well as a phenomenal one; the dream is the counterpoint to all our realities, yet, paradoxically we have the same sense of ‘I’ in the dream as we do in reality! So, the dream provides free access to all to another reality, the Disneyworld of our daytime meanderings; the exotic within if you are an anthropologist without a travel grant to fund your search for a personal anthropological Shangri- La. Moreover, this potential ‘otherness’ of the dream, shown by its phantasmagoric and bizarre nature, is a fruitful place through which to think of the nature of being human as all main religions have attempted to do in their theorising of dreams. For if the egoistic self is not contained only within daytime reality as the dream shows, and if said humans live in spiritual, religious or political traditions which impute value and meaning, even potential prophecy to the dream image, then the way is open to a view of the self which is not entirely shaped by ego psychology, as Jung showed in his theory of the archetype of the Self (1959c: 182; 1963); the fullness of the self becomes not encompassed by the daytime ego and the dreamworld encountered by the dreaming self becomes potentially meaningful in culturally specific ways.

Indeed, the notion of image itself is perhaps a way to connect these different traditions and perspectives. Jung, for instance, describes the psyche as image (Jung 1966) and Achterberg defines shamanic spirits as being ‘seen as images’ (1985). The notion of the imaginal is clearly image-based as is Assagioli’s theory of psychosynthesis. The inner image, how it is perceived and what, if anything, it appears to mean for humans is a crucial aspect of being human and in the more local setting of this book’s theme, is a precious but hitherto almost unregarded data-rich, if problematic, source. An example of the power of dreams (Edgar 2002, 2004) is that it is likely that both the Taliban and Al-Qaeda leadership may believe themselves inspired and guided through dreams. Likewise, in these chapters I argue that the genesis dreams are part of the charter myth of Zionism and even that the dream of Prince Lazar, leader of the Serbian army fighting the Ottomans, on the night before the battle of Kosove Polje in 1389 became foundational to the nineteenth-century Serbian nationalistic identity. Dreams and their interpretations matter!

Imaginary fields

There are several different kinds or fields of imagework. Imagework can be as simple as asking respondents individually or in a group to imagine an image in response to a question, such as ‘how do you picture a certain situation?’. I shall call this first field introductory imagework. Another, second field of imagework, involves guiding respondents into their memory of earlier events, such as their childhood socialisation. I call this second field memory imagework. A third field of imagework, such as the ‘healing places’ exercise, involves the use of the Jungian active imagination technique, which facilitates a spontaneous journey into the imagination. I define this field as spontaneous imagework.

Imagework and dreamwork are very closely related and in certain ways they overlap in that both refer to the mind’s spontaneous production of imagery that people may consider is ‘good to think with’. This fourth field of imagework I shall refer to as dream imagework. The historical, cross-cultural and contemporary use of dreams for diagnosis and healing constitutes a vast arena going back to at least Assyrian and ancient Egyptian dreamwork practices, and particularly the ancient Greek temple healing dream incubation methods described by Artimedorus (Mackenzie 1965).

The analytic processing of imagework into data can have up to four stages: first, the descriptive level wherein respondents ‘tell their story’; second, analysis by participants of the personal meaning of their experience of symbols used; third, analysis of the models used to inform their imagery; fourth, the comparative stage when respondents compare their imagework with that of others in the group. Each of these stages needs facilitation and can be promoted through the amplification of the imagework into art and drama etc. Meaning and insight can develop through these practices.

In using an experiential method such as imagework, it is also important to realise that while in itself imagework is a largely non-verbal activity it produces a verbal communication that incorporates the respondents’ interpretations. Therefore, a respondent explaining the results of their imagework will typically relate a verbal account of their experience to the group, including the researcher. The results of image-work become a verbal communication capable of transcription and so become a ‘field text’ (Clandinin and Connelly 1994) for the researcher. The anthropologist/social science researcher can then analyse the culturally bound rules and social patterns discerned in the development and understanding of day and night imagery.

All the kinds of imagework that I am introducing are suitable to use with either individuals or groups. As my experience has primarily been with groups, my examples relate to groups. I realise many researchers will feel more comfortable incorporating a piece of imagework into an interview with an individual rather than using this method with a group.

Chapter 2
‘Imaginary fields’ and the qualitative research domain

You see, it wasn’t too hard. It is beautiful, the sun is gathering strength and soon it will be hot, with blue skies – a perfect day. Now that you are outside we can begin our journey. It will be no ordinary journey, you must think of it as a ‘magic carpet ride’.

Now we are on our way, we must look for a wall, a high wall, built of large stones, draped with ivy and moss. It looks forbidding but there is a breach in the wall, and we shall find it. It is a narrow gap, we must go through one at a time, keep close, do not be afraid.²

This chapter considers the position of imagework within the context of the qualitative research domain. Specifically I compare the use of image-work with the history of projective tests. Further, I explore imagework as a research methodology with developments within the field of visual anthropology, arts-based research methodologies and transpersonal research methods. In the second part of the chapter I introduce the first three fields of imagework: introductory, memory and spontaneous.

This chapter will consider the growing interest in non-traditional research methods such as the ‘personal experience’ methods (Clandinin and Connelly 1994) which use diaries, journals, letters etc. The use of imagework and the other experiential methods I am introducing potentially offers a significant criticism of the nature of personal and social data offered by the more orthodox research methods involved in the various forms of interviewing and questionnaires. The limitations of such methods are well documented but usually the critique is limited to the truthfulness of the respondent and issues of procedural reactivity and the implicit biases that can enter the interview process by way of race, gender, age and class dimensions. What an experiential research method such as imagework offers, is the opportunity to reach levels and forms of knowledge not immediately apprehensible by the respondent in interview or through their participation in a focus group. The researcher then, of course, is involved in the production of experience as well as its recording and analysis. We can see that such a powerful technique from humanistic psychology can evoke neglected and avoided aspects, experiences and emotions contained within the embodied self.

This chapter focuses on presenting a description and classification of imagework as a novel research opportunity, and locating it within the qualitative research domain. Imagework and its related methods are tools through which the researcher co-creates the object of study with the respondents. The researcher influences the data produced, particularly through the facilitation of the reflective process. Yet the subtle co-creation of the research data and interpretive outcome reflect a contemporary concern of the qualitative research community (Denzin 1994; Geertz 1983, 1988). Goulet and Young define the experiential method in social anthropology as being, ‘the inclusion of the experience of the ethnographer in his or her ethnography … whereby anthropologists make themselves “experimental subjects” and treat their experiences as primary data’ (1994: 305). I extend this definition to include the construction of imaginative and action tasks. Experiential methods reframe the continuing concerns involved in the inherent subjectivities of qualitative research and proclaim the possibility of producing valid and even profound data through the researcher’s involvement in the co-production of felt, imagined, portrayed and articulated perceptions by respondents. Moreover, the analytic issues produced resonate with contemporary debates in qualitative research concerning, for example, the limits of ‘objectivity’, the role and value of reflexivity, and the validity of feminist ‘standpoint’ epistemologies and research perspectives (Denzin 1994). Some of these issues I consider in Chapter 4, i.e. I consider ‘the limits of objectivity and reflexivity’. If, as Hastrup writes, there are only ‘positioned standpoints’ (Hastrup 1992: 119) then experiential approaches need to build their methodological practice and analysis upon such contested epistemological premises.

Imagework and projective tests

The method of imagework will be compared to projective testing which has a long history in anthropology (e.g. DeVos and Wagatsuma 1961; Edgerton 1971). Imagework and projective testing both certainly share a common concern with articulating ‘aspects of the personality … not susceptible to direct verbalisation by the informant’ (Johnson 1985: 127). The problematic use of the various kinds of projective tests, particularly TAT and Rorschach tests, will be considered, and the use of imagework, whilst related to projective testing, will be affirmed as being significantly different with respects to inbuilt cultural bias and levels of prestructuring.

There are significant differences between the various kinds of projective tests, such as Thematic Apperception Tests (TAT) and the Rorschach Inkblot Test, widely used by anthropologists in the 1950s and 1960s. TAT tests offer the respondent an ambiguous image of a social situation, such as an incomplete picture of a family group, for the respondent to imagine and define as an actual scene or story. The ambiguity of the portrayed scene allows the respondent a range of possible interpretations of what is pictured. Rorschach Inkblot Tests offer an abstract image, as in an inkblot, from which the respondent can describe ‘what they see’ and in so doing usually create images and patterns that reflect their own ‘idiosyncratic way of interpreting themselves and their relationship to the world around them’ (Mead and Wolfenstein 1955).

TAT tests suffer from being highly prestructured in comparison to imagework; while the Rorschach Inkblot Tests are too open and unspecific. Rorschach tests are very difficult to interpret in a culturally unbiased way and are now hardly used (Johnson 1...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Association of Social Anthropologists ASA Research Methods in Social Anthropology
• Foreword
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: Defining the imagework method
• Chapter 2: ‘Imaginary fields’ and the qualitative research domain
• Chapter 3: Dreaming as ethnographic research
• Chapter 4: Methodological issues in dreamwork and imagework groups
• Chapter 5: Amplifying the data through groupwork methods or making ‘sense’ out of ‘nonsense’
• Chapter 6: Charting ethnographic dreaming
• Chapter 7: Ethical and practice issues
• Chapter 8: Conclusion
• Notes
• References