Guided imagery is the conscious use of the imagination to create positive images which is called as healing visualizations in order to bring about healthful changes in both the body and the mind. Creating mental images is nothing new for most people. Everyone has daydreams which are nothing but visualization only. Guided imagery takes this natural process a step further. By working with a trained therapist or using special audiotapes, one can learn to communicate more effectively with unconscious mind, requesting the body function in an optimal and healthy way.
The belief that the power of imagination can help people heal has ancient roots. Traditional folk healers known as shamans used guided imagery to treat ailments. In Eastern medicine, envisioning well-being has always been an important part of the therapeutic process. In Tibetan medicine in particular, creating a mental image of the healing god would improve the patient’s chances for recovery. The ancient Greeks, including Aristotle and Hippocrates who is called as father of modern medicine also had their patients use forms of imagery to help them heal.
It was not until the 1960s, that psychologists exploring the emerging field of biofeedback first began to appreciate the powers of the mind on the physical body. Through biofeedback, they could teach patients to slow heart rate, lower blood pressure or open incapacitated lungs with asthma. Then, in the 1970s, O. Carl Simonton, M.D., chief of Radiation Therapy at Travis Air Force base in Fairfield, California, and psychotherapist Stephanie Matthews-Simonson, devised a program which today known as the Simonton method; that utilized guided imagery to help his cancer patients. The patients pictured their white blood cells attacking their cancer cells. It should be noted that this sometimes resembled the popular video game Pac-Man. Simonton found that the more vivid the images his patients used, for example, ravenous sharks attacking feeble little fish, the better the process worked.
Since then, a good deal of research into mind-body connections has appeared in mainstream medical literature. While many conventional physicians remain skeptical that the mind has an actual physical effect on the reversal of an illness, guided imagery often conducted by psychiatrists or psychologists is now used in many medical inpatient and outpatient programs throughout the world. Many holistically oriented psychologists and other counselors routinely employ guided imagery for stress reduction, smoking cessation, weight reduction, immune stimulation and the relief of both physical and emotional illness.
