Catathymic-Imaginative Psychotherapy: Historical Essay

Founded by Hanskarl Leuiner, catathymic-imaginative psychotherapy (СIP), called in some countries symbol drama, has found wide application all over the world, and not least in Ukraine.It is a method of intensive psychotherapy that can be used in conjunction with any theoretical view of personality dynamics that recognizes unconscious motivation, the meaning of symbols, resistance, and the therapeutic importance of the mobilization of affect.The ability to imagine arises from the presence of an internal source of strength.This source is used in many psychotherapeutic methods, but the most wellfounded and thought-out, including from the point of view of the theory of treatment, it occurs in catathymic-imaginative psychotherapy.The patient's imagination, which is always understood in connection with the transference, makes the therapeutic process more intense, creates the possibility of unexpected changes, contributes to the maturation of the personality and progressive development.In addition, with the help of certain imaginations, you can achieve stabilization of the patient, figuratively speaking, imaginations allow you to conduct work, relying on the foundation of a labile personality.Therapy that can produce stable positive results usually assumes that processes experienced at the symbolic level in the context of the therapeutic relationship lead to a deeper understanding of defense mechanisms and can be worked through psychodynamic therapeutic tools.During its existence, psychotherapy with the help of «waking dreams» received several names, which, as before, are used along with the above official name.What at first glance is puzzling, upon closer examination reflects various aspects of the multimodal approach, which can hardly be contained in one concept.Therefore, we decided not to strive for a single option, but to clarify the used and, obviously, not unreasonably valued synonymous terms and thus use the entire variety of metaphors embedded in them.