About Healing Visualisation

Healing visualisation is the use of guided imagery to accelerate healing. The basic premise is that vivid visualisation of the affected body part/system as it should be - ie healthy and full of life - prompts the placebo effect to go into action, optimising our innate capacity for self-healing.

The placebo effect

The placebo effect is often described as the body's ability to heal itself. But whilst our bodies obviously do have an ability to self-heal, that's not really what the placebo effect is about. The placebo effect is something more than that; something beyond the normal and natural healing we would expect to take place anyway.

Although we know next to nothing about how or why it works - just that it does - medicine is nevertheless forced to take the placebo effect into account in the testing of any new drug or treatment. This is because in all medical trials, many people will experience benefits regardless of whether they are given the real thing or a dummy - simply because they believe it may be beneficial. For this reason pharmaceutical companies are compelled to conduct 'double blind' drug trials, in which the guinea-pig patients are divided into three groups:

• Those who receive the actual drug
• Those who receive a pill that looks like the real thing, but is actually inert
• Those who receive no treatment at all.

Of the two groups given the drug, nobody knows who is getting the dummy pill and who is getting the real one - not even the doctor. If it's an effective drug then lots of the people who got the real thing will show a significant improvement, while those given nothing at all will lag behind, as you would expect. However, what is surprising is that its entirely normal for 30-40% of the people on the dummy pill to show AT LEAST THE SAME IMPROVEMENT as those who had the real pill. Remember - these people were given a fake pill/treatment that actully does nothing!

It is this amazing ability to self-heal ABOVE ND BEYOND our normal capacity that the placebo effect is all about. That special extra something that seems to accentuate and accelerate our basic, everyday healing ability, and which - quite incredibly - seems to rely on nothing more substantial than belief.

Physiological response to imagery

Every image you see or vividly imagine involves a physiological response, and whether the image is real or imagined, this response is almost identical. A classic example of this is when you imagine sucking a lemon and your mouth waters. According to the science of PNI (Psychoneuroimmunology) neurotransmitters (messenger molecules) triggered by the image are sent from brain to be picked up by special receptors in the immune system (the immune system has to do with much more than just immunity), and delivered to various parts of the body. This 'information' may be the prompt for any number of things to happen, including release of saliva, or indeed hormones or other messenger molecules.

Whilst we are all now familiar with the concept of stress hormones and the accompanying physicality that goes with them (increased heart rate, shallow breathing, sweating etc) most people are less aware that there is also such a thing as growth hormones. Growth hormones are a key part of any healing and in just the same way as stress hormones can be released by vivid recall of a stressful event, so growth and healing hormones can be released by imagery too.

This is very likely what is behind the placebo response - certain thoughts and feelings trigger release of growth and healing hormones, enough to accelerate healing by perhaps 30-40% or more, although the actual limits of what is achievable are not known.

What kind of imagery works best for healing?

This is difficult to say with any real certainty as research is scant, but since we know that belief plays a key role in the placebo response (ie believing that you are taking a potent drug can be as effective as actually taking the drug) then it makes sense to start from here.

Imagery as 'belief'

The body makes surprisingly little distinction between reality and imagination. As far as the body is concerned vivid imagination of a scenario is as good as the real thing, in that it produces nearly all the same physiological responses. Therefore, whilst the body obviously has no concept of 'belief' as a word, it nevertheless has an immensely strong capacity for belief to the extent that the body believes what it feels - regardless of whether the feelings are caused by reality or imagination.

Putting the theory into practice

Image work is best done under relaxed, comfortable conditions, free from distraction, only because its easier to concentrate then, but there is no need to restrict it to such t imes. Your client should be encouraged to conjure up relevant positive images at any time, in any place if he can.

Finding images

I find it helps to begin by looking at some pictures. The idea of the pictures is not that the client should take them on board in their entirety, but rather to spark off his own imagery. To this end, the more positive images he has filed away in his head in connection with the subject matter, the more raw material he has to work with.

The images you use will of course depend entirely on the scenario you are using, but there are two golden rules:

• They should be positive, pleasant, beautiful etc. Avoid pictures with any negative associations
• Keep it simple. Ideally the pictures will be nothing more than a springboard for your client's own imagination.

Remember - It is up to you, the therapist, to make the images come alive in your client's imagination, weaving them into a rich sensory framework that cannot fail to get his juices going(!)

One of these pictures will probably be a fairly standard an anatomical one. For healing work a basic understanding of what's happening in the body is crucial, so I always start with some anatomical pictures (or better still 3D models) which are relevant to the intended healing. (NB: Anatomical pictures are often quite gruesome to look at so, remembering that all the images you work with need to be pleasant and positive, choose carefully).

You can be quite imaginative in your choice of picture. It doesn't have to look exactly like the image you want to visualise, but might simply represent an idea. For instance, the set of pictures I use for visualising a healthy womb includes an image of a pear, glowing like a light bulb. Neither a pear nor a light bulb actually feature in this script, but the image helps me (and hopefully my client) to imagine what a womb might look like if it was filled with a healing light - which is relevant to the script.

With the internet, It is now very easy to find excellent pictures on virtually any subject. However, if you have ever done a Google images search, you will know that along with some wonderful pictures, it also throws up lots of disturbing ones. I would recommend that you the therapist do any internet searching on your client's behalf as he will be particularly vulnerable to disturbing images at this time. (Having said that, he should be encouraged to include any and all the pictures he comes up with himself).

Intrusive thoughts

When the emphasis is so strongly on making the imagery positive and pleasant, it is inevitable that the problem of negative thoughts creeping in will need to be addressed.

The important thing to remember about dealing with intrusive thoughts is that they will not be bullied, they will not be forced aside and they will not be 'controlled'. You cannot specify what thoughts will or will not occur to you and you can be sure that the more you try to force the issue, the more resistance you will come up against.

Therefore, when you are practicing visualisation for healing, it is counterproductive to attempt to completely dispel all negative thought.

Your client needs to know that it is entirely normal and natural for unwanted thoughts to insinuate their way into every visualisation to some degree or another. The trick is to learn how to deal with them, rather than expect to banish them altogether. The best way I have found is to simply recognise a negative thought for what it is, ie a negative thought, and to recognise too that you don't have to pursue it right now. That much you DO have a choice about. Just acknowledge it and allow it to pass, then move on to your next thought. At the same time you might say to yourself something like, 'there goes a negative thought'.

Most times this will do the trick, but there are bound to be days when it just doesn't work and then its better to abandon the visualisation for the time being and return to it later. (If you are working one-to-one with a client this would be a good time to talk about the issues that are raising their head in this way).

Fear

Many people hold a certain amount of fear when working with intentional healing, reasoning that if you can heal by thought then the other side of the coin must also exist. Your client can be reassured that with this kind of work it is virtually impossible to do harm - this is a form of intentional healing which, as the name implies, is directed by your intent, and it requires a good deal of planning and effort. Therefore, unless you or your client actually intend to cause harm, healing visualisation won't make it happen.

Another problem arises when negative thoughts (such as the possibility of cancer) creep into the client's imaginings. He will try to push any such thoughts to one side, but this only leaves an unsettling feeling of something sinister lurking in the shadows. Its often difficult for the therapist to know how to address this since you don't want to plant a negative thought that may not already be there! However, its easy enough to get around:

In the following visualisation script (for healing of the womb) you will notice a reference to a strange-looking greyish berry that shrivels up and dies when the light hits it. This is obviously a metaphor for a malignant growth, and hopefully most clients subconsciously recognise it as such - without the therapist having to mention the dreaded 'C' word, which would doubtless trigger an unhelpful jolt of anxiety at a conscious level. This gets around the problem of addressing the fear without naming it. It is worth including some such metaphor in any healing work where you think the client may be remotely worried about cancer or similar.

Healing the womb