Healing Images: The Role of Imagination in Health

American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis,  Jan 2003  by Phillips, Maggie

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Healing Images: The Role of Imagination in Health Edited by Anees Sheikh Amityville, NY: Baywood Publishing Company (2003) xii & 530 pages $45. Philip R. Appel, Ph.D., Silver Spring, MD.

For those who have appreciated the work of Anees Sheikh (1983, 1984, 1986, 2002), his most recent edited book about the use of imagery in promoting health and wellness is a wonderful scholarly text that integrates a comprehensive review of the literature as well as providing practical examples of using imagery in clinical work. This work appears to be an updated version of his original 1984 work Imagination and Healing (also published by Baywood) and has many of the same chapters and a few of the same authors. Sheikh has a strong presence in the book and served as co-author in many chapters along with current or former students of his.

The book has 22 chapters that are broken down into two sections entitled "Theory and Research" and "Clinical Applications" and the majority of chapters are written academically with ample reviews of the literature. In many ways this work may be the definitive current text for providing a quick and comprehensive literature review for what is known about imagery and its clinical applications. Sheikh as Editor has ensured that his authors have done scholarly reviews, and when a writer was more artistic than scientific in portraying the use of imagery, that chapter was counterbalanced by another chapter where the author wrote the literature review and discussed the theoretical aspects. In this manner he preserved the unique vision of each author. Most authors, however, were able to balance both the art and science of imagery in their chapters. Some chapters were clearly written better than others. I was disappointed in the chapter by Gerald Edelstein on the generic uses of imagery and found that he was somewhat simplistic and did not integrate theory with practice as well as many of the other authors did. In contrast, I was pleased with the chapter on pain by Pincus et al. and the chapter on cancer by Hall, as both chapters did a fine job on discussing theory, existing research and clinical approaches.

The section dealing with "Theory and Research" will provide the reader with an appreciation of the historical use of imagery as well as presenting what is known about the psychophysiology of imagery and possible mechanisms for how images alter consciousness, and hence physiology. The chapter that attempts to provide a historical perspective is rather brief, however, and in an attempt to be all inclusive, mentions all traditions and schools of thought. The authors (Sheikh, Kuzendorf and Sheikh) fail to provide the detail that can be found in their wonderful and extensive list of references.

The chapter entitled "Physiological Consequences of Imagery and Related Approaches" (Sheikh et al.) briefly discusses what is known about imagery and the following physiological indices: Heart rate, blood pressure, blood flow, sexual response, body chemistry, ocular effects, electrodermal activity, and Electromyographs. Again the chapter is brief but provides the reader with an extensive reference list. Sheikh et al in this chapter even discuss hypnosis and physiology, and report briefly how hypnotic suggestions, in comparison with imagery, have been utilized to bring about changes in psychophysiological responses.

I found Max Velman's chapter entitled "How Could Images Heal Anything?" to be the most intellectually challenging and scholarly as he wrestles with the idea of mental causation and the interactions between consciousness and the brain. He states:

So who's in control? Who chooses, has thoughts, generates images and so on? We habitually think of ourselves as being our conscious selves. But it should be clear from the above that the different facets of our experienced, conscious selves are generated by and represent aspects of our own preconscious minds. That is we are both the preconscious generating processes and the conscious results (p.69).

For those who like to ponder weighty questions, this portion of the book will be an intellectually satisfying read.

The second section dealing with clinical applications addresses such diverse psychotherapy topics as accessing inner wisdom, sex therapy, depression, phobias and post-traumatic stress; such behavioral medicine topics as pain, cardiovascular disorders, cancer, eating disorders, nicotine cessation and weight management; and such transpersonal topics as intuition, spiritual development, wellness and death and dying. The chapters on cancer (chapter 17) and depression (chapter 14) are updated by the same authors (Howard Hall and K. David Schultz) who wrote the original chapters (chapters 6 and 5 respectively) on the same subjects in Sheik's 1984 edited text. Both authors do a good job in discussing the literature and what is presently known and not known. The main change from the 1984 text is the addition of several more chapters addressing the use of imagery with different clinical problems. Since the main thrust of this book is not about the presentation of various imagery procedures and protocols like Sheik's Handbook of Therapeutic Imagery Techniques (2002), readers looking for such may feel themselves wanting more. The main emphasis of the clinical applications section is to articulate what is known about the use of imagery with the different clinical problems and talk about its efficacy.