Because there is no "right" way to answer these questions, i ask you this, "how do you know when you have gone too far with something, someone?" "What is your personal boundary? Professional?" Do you know what boundaries are?
Answers to so many of these questions lie in the unfolding of the psyche. One of the many techniques i use to dismantle the cognitive mind and allow the unconscious mind to come through is Guided Imagery.
"Many non-verbal techniques are still used today and even more than that, are becoming increasingly more popular with the rise of somatic psychologies."
How i can be of help to you:
I provide Guided Imagery and Medical Hypnotherapy to anyone for stress relief, pain management and mind/body psychosomatic issues (any emotion that occurs due to an imbalance in the mind/body connection).
http://www.alisonleigh.net/guided.html
What is GI?
GUIDED IMAGERY
Patients who feel uncomfortable "opening up" in a traditional therapist-patient session may feel more at ease with a self-directed therapy like guided imagery.
Guided Imagery is a therapeutic technique that is used to promote relaxation and healing. Imagery (thoughts or mental representations with sensory qualities) can help people to achieve a variety of health goals, such as alleviating anxiety or depression, overcoming phobias, trauma recovery, reducing health-endangering habits (overeating, smoking), healing from physical illness, and physical symptom reduction (i.e., headaches, high blood pressure, insomnia, G.I. problems, chronic pain).
Guided imagery is a two-part process. The first component involves reaching a state of deep relaxation through breathing and muscle relaxation techniques. During the relaxation phase, the person closes her eyes and focuses on the slow, in and out sensation of breathing. Or, she might focus on releasing the feelings of tension from her muscles, starting with the toes and working up to the top of the head. Once complete relaxation is achieved, the second component of the exercise is the imagery, or visualization, itself.
Guided imagery also gives individuals a sense of empowerment, or control. The technique is induced by a therapist who guides the patient but does not dictate where or how they go about their journey. It is up to the individual to chose their own destination, thus leaving the patient in total control and not at the mercy of the therapist. The resulting mental imagery used is solely a product of the individual's imagination.
The original founder of this technique, Martin Rossman, describes IGI like this, "
What is Guided Imagery?
A mental image can be defined as “a thought with sensory qualities.” It is something we mentally see, hear, taste, smell, touch, or feel.
The term “guided imagery” refers to a wide variety of techniques, including simple visualization and direct suggestion using imagery, metaphor and story-telling, fantasy exploration and game playing, dream interpretation, drawing, and active imagination where elements of the unconscious are invited to appear as images that can communicate with the conscious mind.
Once considered an “alternative” “or complementary” approach, guided imagery is now finding widespread scientific and public acceptance, and it is being used to teach psychophysiological relaxation, alleviate anxiety and depression, relieve physical and psychological symptoms, overcome health-endangering habits, resolve conflicts, and help patients prepare for surgery and tolerate procedures more comfortably.
Mental images, formed long before we learn to understand and use words, lie at the core of who we think we are, what we believe the world is like, what we feel we deserve, what we think will happen to us, and how motivated we are to take care of ourselves. These images strongly influence our beliefs and attitudes about how we fall ill, and what will help us to get better.
All healing rituals involve manipulation of these images, either overtly or covertly, and thus guided imagery can be considered one of the oldest and most ubiquitous forms of medicine. The healing rituals of various cultures that have persisted over time all have a certain level of clinical efficacy, and while we may attribute these therapeutic benefits to ‘placebo effects’, they have real and measurable effects with important implications for our understanding of the healing process.
In the early 1970s, inspired by the pioneering work of Irving Oyle, Carl and Stephanie Simonton, Robert Assagioli and others, Drs. David Bresler and Martin Rossman began to develop and research contemporary imagery approaches for patients coping with chronic pain, immune dysfunction, cancer, heart disease, and other catastrophic and life-threatening illnesses.
By integrating techniques originating from Jungian psychology, Gestalt therapy, Psychosynthesis, Ericksonian hypnotherapy, object relations theory, humanistic psychology, and advanced communications theory, these approaches were constantly redefined, expanded, tested, and codified, giving birth to Interactive Guided Imagerysm, an extremely powerful, yet remarkably safe and rapid therapeutic approach for mobilizing the untapped healing resources of the mind.
In 1989, the Academy for Guided Imagery was founded to provide in-depth training for clinicians and health educators, to raise public and professional awareness about the benefits of imagery, and to support research, professional communication, and the dissemination of imagery-related information.
Since then, the Academy has obtained professional accreditation, recruited an interdisciplinary faculty, sponsored and conducted clinical research, and set the highest contemporary standards for Professional Certification in Interactive Guided Imagerysm.
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