Die Katathym-imaginative Psychotherapie

The article presents fundamental aspects of Guided Affective Imagery and illustrates this therapeutic approach by the detailed description of a concrete treatment cycle. Thereby, some of the characteristic potentials of the method are exhibited: The possibility for the patient to work on central relational conflicts on the symbolic level of guided imagination, to discover new dimensions of experience, and to draw new psychic energy from positive imaginations. The concluding section discusses some of the method's implications for the therapeutic relation, focussing on the therapeutist's taks of keeping up a productice equilibrium between stimulation and relaxation.