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Marlene's Mental Image

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Marlene

MyPTSD Pro
WARNING: If you plan on submitting your own mental imagery interview for assessment, DO NOT read the proceeding first, instead fill out your own interview first, then read these, so your current mental image is not skewed, resulting in a possible inaccurate emotional state being returned to you.

This is an imaginery journey down a road. Take in the sights, sounds and colours, just like a video camera recording all that lies surrounding you. Survey the scene, noticing whatis far off in the distance, the background surrounds, the weather, the season and a total image of what you view. Feel the ground beneath your feet. Try to visualize it as a picture on a canvas, but with movement, sound, colour and emotion. You are the surveyor on this journey. Draw your journey on paper if you desire, as it often shows clearer results, then attach your drawing via snapshot or scan to your post.

Q1. What colour is the road? Black
Q2. What texture is the road? Hard, asphalt
Q3. How solid is the road? Very solid

You continue walking and come to a river that must be crossed. There before you is the river; the size and depth are up to you. You cannot go around it but must imagine a way to cross it. Whatever you need to cross the river is already within your mind, just imagine seeing yourself do it.

Q4. How do you cross the river? Walk through it
Q5. What does the water look like? Very clear
Q6. How fast is the water current? It looks placid on top, but underneath it's quite swift
Q7. Is there anything in the water? If so, what? Sandy bottom, rocks and plants

You have crossed the river and continue walking. You come to a house. Take a good look at the house. Notice the impression it makes on you.

Q8. What colour is the house? Stone and wood
Q9. What condition is the house in? Older, weathered, but built strong and to last
Q10. Does anyone live in the house? If so, who? No one. It's a place for temporary shelter open to whomever needs it

We continue forward in our minds journey and come to an open field. A cup is on the ground, and we stop to examine it. The cup can be of any size, shape, colour and description. Focus on it's look, condition and contents.

Q11. What colour is the cup? Pewter silver
Q12. What condition is the cup in? Good condition-older but not battered
Q13. Is there anything in the cup? If so, what? No

You continue walking down the road and come to something blocking your path. It stops you in your tracks and prevents you from going forward. This is an obstacle.

Q14. What is the obstacle, and please describe it in detail? It's a large wall, red brick with gray mortor
Q15. What do you see beyond the obstacle? I can't see beyond it, but I can see where chunks of the mortor have come out and sunlight is coming through.
 
Now you have had a break, go back to every question and look at your response. Try and find what you feel that your mind presented the image it did. Explain colours you chose, textures, water, cup, solids, liquids, space, objects, people, anything and everything that you wrote from your projected image, try and find what you feel to why you have that image. Don't look hard at things, instead try and look for the easy answers, as they are often the correct one's. Don't attempt to find something that isn't present, just look at each aspect for its absolute simplicity.

This is not an absolute, but something you must do in order to try and self analyse yourself. This is important. Please answer what you can, and simply define if you cannot find an emotion to a response you gave.

1. The road was an actual road (like you drive on). I've always been one that stayed on the 'straight and narrow'. Not because it was expected of me, but because when I strayed off the road is when I've gotten myself into trouble.

2. Again-texture of a regular road. Also smooth and mostly free of debris

3. It's solid because it's made to last through all sorts of weather and treatment.

4. I walked through the water because it's easier to to just do something than to stand around and try to figure out an easier way to do it.

5. The water is clear so that I can see anything that would trip me up as I walked through the river.

6. A lot of rivers look slow moving until you get into them and find out that the current's pretty strong. On the surface, my life (to outsiders) might look like some sort of ideal (strong marriage, two good kids, cars, nice home, good jobs, ect.), but underneath (where the outsiders don't see) there's been so much turmoil and churning in my family and my life in the last three years that sometimes I've felt in danger of being pulled under.

7. The bottom is sandy because it helps me to find traction to cross the river. The rocks are to be avoided because they can trip you up and make you fall. If you watch plants underwater in a river, you can tell how fast the current is moving and can judge where it's faster or slower.

8. This house is stone and wood because it's made from the materials found easily around it. I found after I left the river I began walking up a short hill towards this house. It's in the mountains and out west where I grew up. The mountains have always been someplace that I've found a lot of peace.

9. The house has weathered many storms, but it's one of those places that get stronger as it ages. It's simple, utilitarian, but beautiful in it's own way.

10. The house I picture more as a range shack or a hicker's cabin where you have everything you need for survival-but nothing fancy. It's not meant to be a permanent residence but someplace for people who need temporary shelter. It's also someplace where you can be alone if you want. A lot of times I want solitude more than anything. But since this house is open to anyone who needs to be there, people can come in and out, but eventually the solitude returns.

11. The cup is pewter because pewter lasts and is durable. It's also able to have it's shape changed if needed without destroying the metal.

12. The cup's patina shows that it's not new, but there's not dings, dents or scratches on it. It has a handle and has some scrollwork on the lip of the cup and the handle.

13. The cup is empty. I don't know if it's been emptied and left or is waiting to be filled.

14. The obsticle in front of me is a large brick wall. I can't go around it, over it, under it and I can't push it down. But I do see small cracks that if I work at them long enough I can break out small pieces of the mortor.

15. After breaking out enough chunks of mortor, I can loosen bricks and take them out one at a time. If I can get enough bricks out, I probably won't be able to knock the wall down, but I can make a hole big enough for me to get through and out the other side.
 
Life

You have felt sad for a long time, possibly hiding a secret. You feel your life is easy and pleasant, progressing well without much difficulty.

Sexual Relationships

You are trusting and aware of sexual problems, though you feel deceived or are now aware of past deception within intimacy.

Support System

You are aware your support systems were not always ideal. Extreme possible alienation from your mother; therefore a low self esteem is present. You view your support system as temporary, where possibly someone within your past pulled the rug out from under your support system, hence now seeing them without knowing whether they will remain present or not.

Commitment

Highest regard for committed relationships, though you are aware that perhaps you did not always have this total commitment. You would like to think you haven't been hurt in these relationships, though you have been. You are in denial of being significantly hurt. You display co-dependent traits and possibly put up with being previously battered.

Most Significant Problem

You keep your feelings inside, demonstrating a feeling of confusion from another highly emotional issue. Despite this, you're becoming aware of your feelings and possibly feel the good in others may help you. You try and manoeuvre life solving part of your emotions, discarding the full impact. You are pessimistic about things getting better any time soon.

Marlene, what can you tell me about this and your real feelings?
 
Life-Not really sure about the sad for a long time, but most definitely a secret. I fear that if I'm not perfect or good enough, love will be withheld from me, I'll be abandoned and left alone. Life being easy, etc...well, until about three and a half years ago, I would have said that was true. But then again, I'm great with masks. In the last six months, I've found out just how great. I've had a good life with my husband and children with stretches here and there that could be called easy. But there have been many rough patches in the road. Maybe I saw the road that I wanted to be on rather than the one I'm on.

Sexual Relationships-I'm a little vauge on being 'aware of a sexual problem'. Please clarify that. There were two relationships I had before I met my husband. I did love both of these men and they told me they loved me. And I was 'decieved' by both. One because he was married and told me he wasn't (he told me he was divorced). The other was because he told me he loved me and wanted to marry me, but it was more about having a convenient sexual relationship for him and I was dropped pretty quick when a new girl came into our unit (Lots of males, very few single females). No wonder I ran (literally ran) from the room when my husband (then b/f) told me he loved me the first time.

Support System-Alienation was from father, not mother. But the low self esteem was right on the money. When I was 14, my father told me (and this must have been really important to me because I remember every detail around me when he was talking: the road, his pickup truck, the hot day, going under a railroad trestle, his voice) that there was nothing I could do that was so bad that he wouldn't stand by me. When I was 17 and got pregnant, I called home to talk to my family. In the back of my mind, I knew everything would be ok because of what he had told me when I was 14. I was playing his voice in the back of my mind. Then, when he told me he believed the person who knocked me up (who said I'd been sleeping around) and my father refused to talk to me...yeah, I guess you could call that having the rug pulled out from under me.

Commitment-When you say relationships, do you just mean sexual relationships or do family/friends relationships come in here, too? Co-dependent trait-again, a little more clarification on this, please. Previously battered-I was emotionally battered by a man who told me he loved me (second man from above). It took him becoming physically abusive the first (and only)time for me to see what was going on. It took years to undo a lot of damage done by this person in a relatively short period of time. As to high regard for committment-yes, this too is correct. If I'm in a relationship with someone, I tend to give all. Be they husband, friend or family. And if the relationship doesn't work, it's like I wasn't good enough again. And then the next time I hesitate more to trust. And this just repeats itself.

Most Significant Problem-I do keep my feelings inside, but I've started letting things out a little bit at a time. Maneuvering life/emotions-control, control, control. Emotions are scary, messy things that I've been taught to keep under control. And the 'full impact' of emotions scares the hell out of me since I have worked so hard to keep them under control. What happens when my defenses-my controls-are taken? Also, I don't think I'm so much pessimistic about getting better as unsure.
***************
Anthony,

I guess you could have put me into the skeptic's group when this first came up. But I decided to give it a try and I'm glad I did. Although a lot of what I've read is not something that's given me a warm fuzzy and an ego stroke-it's definately given me a lot to think about.
 
Marlene,

Awareness of sexual problems is exactly what you described above. It is a broad statement that your mental imagery projected, which only you the individual can clarify. Some people are aware, some are not. Some are ready to admit they where sexually abused, some are not, as examples.

What this is about is clarification. The use of majority factors are used to return results, ie. often emotional abuse is father to son, mother to daughter, though they certainly do cross paths, they are the minority, which is clarified by yourself once again. It is like sexual abuse, in that the majority is father to daughter, mother to son, though bi-sexualality exists, thus the minority of times it can be father to son, mother to daughter, hence why only the individual can clarify the actual event itself.

Mental imagery is about reflecting what is the majority, not minority. Like all sciences, the mind can only be clarified by the mind being interpreted, and is not an exact science, like science is not an exact event within itself. Close, but not perfect. Reflecting back even the majority though often provokes the individuals mind to respond with the real issue present within them, just as you have done.

Pessimistic: characterized by or displaying negation or denial or opposition or resistance.

Codependent: A "codependent" is loosely defined as someone who exhibits too much, and often inappropriate, caring for persons who depend on him or her.

Trait: A distinguishing feature, as of a person's character.

Marlene, relationships suit the entire range of relations, spouses, boyfriends, girlfriends, friends, family, etc. Whilst imagery is fairly precise with certain aspects of association, ie. family or intimate relationships, they often get defined if one or the other. Your mental image demonstrated about past relationships that where often of an intimate nature, which means the majority would be boyfriends / girlfriends, past marriages, etc.

This is the basic interview though only, and the full interview ranges out to 60 or so questions, and gets extremely precise in nature, to say the least. If I wanted to dig further for example, I certainly could do so. But this is about showing effectiveness of how people interact with a basic mental imagery interview, and what they can discover about themselves to a basic level in which to process recovery faster.

The further I dig for example, the more is revealed and accessed within your mind, thus the real deep problems can be brought up, thus healing increases exponentially. If people heal from the basic level faster, then what is really achievable from the full depth? When Dr. Roerich does the full interview, it is extremely powerful, to say the least. You can not hide a thing from him, trust me.
 
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