Images and Metaphors
“Whilst listening to you I get an inner image of a deep, waterless fountain, at the bottom of which is a tender figure full of longing, looking up to see if there is someone there.” The development of an inner non-selective perception for such intuitive images or metaphors and the maintenance of these during the conversation is an inexhaustible source and a characteristic of many excellent counsellors for the addressing of unconscious processes in the client. As long as such images meet an inner (re)cognition of truth in the client, they, almost always, trigger a perceived truth in him: he becomes conscious of something. He feels understood, he gains a verbal form of expression, he can own up to a feeling, he finds a basis for putting it into words himself. Although, for Freud, dreams were the doorway to the unconscious, it is actually all irrational, analogous and subliminal perceptions which can help one to ‘suddenly’ know something. There are no limits imposed on the creativity and inventiveness of the counsellor in this area.