When pain patients claim they have "no emotional problems" and offer considerable resistance toward attempts to approach their conflicts, Creative-Dynamic Image Synthesis with its focus on patients' resources presents a valuable option.
In presenting Creative-Dynamic Image Synthesis, this book describes a method for psychotherapeutic treatment of somatoform pain disorders. It also provides empiric data on the effectiveness of the method and a manual detailing its practical implementation.
This is a design for short therapy, which can be realized in as few as four to twelve sessions, but in cases of severe trauma can and should be integrated as an element within a longer-term psychotherapy. The principle core of the method consists in the imaginative development of three special images which are sketched and used daily in a imaginative process of self-treatment. The basis for this daily exercise is an image of the future which portrays formerly unrealized potential of the patient and which has been developed in an imaginative fusion of two earlier images. This future image relates to the therapeutic goal and is capable of providing orientation and meaning. In a series of case studies, the process of treatment is illustrated.
Of interest to: psychologists, primary care physicians, pain therapist, art therapists; students of psychology and medicine; and interested persons who themselves suffer from somatoform pain disorders.