Wick Library at the Imagery Institute

Please call Dr. Bent for information on educational programs on mental imagery.
 

Psy685: Mental Imagery: Theory, Research, and Therapeutic Applications, Summer 2012

This course addresses the role of mental imagery in consciousness. The mental image is an extraordinary phenomenon. Among its many known qualities is its power to fuel our creativity, help us remember, aid us in learning and problem solving, contribute to our relaxation, enhance our performance, orient us toward positive experience, and enrich our spiritual life. At the same time, the mental image can appear in an intrusive, obstructive, or other negative or distracting form. This course is designed as an overview or broad sweep of mental imagery and provides a foundation in mental imagery history, research and theory, with an emphasis on how imagery is applied in psychotherapy, education, sports, health, and spirituality. Students will explore basic components and methodologies in imagery research as well as the various types of mental imagery (including sensory imagery, such as aduitory imagery and eidetic imagery). Readings and discussion will address imagery and memory, emotion, motor performance, cognition, and neuropsychology. Students will also learn about the major theoretical debates and the contemporary research on imagery as it relates to these areas.

Units of Instruction:

1. Historical Overview of Mental Imagery
2. The Imagery Debate and its “Resolution”
3. Images and the Brain
4. Methodological Issues in Imagery Research
5. Imagery, Learning, and Memory
6. Therapy Orientations to Imagery: Psychoanalytic, Hypnobehavioral, Behavioral, Cognitive-Behavioral, Humanistic/Psychodynamic, Humanistic/Transpersonal
7. Empirical Support for Imagery in Psychotherapy
8. Imagery as a Therapeutic System Eidetic Image Therapy
9. Imagery in Education, Health Psychology, Sport Psychology, and Spirituality