-IBIS-1.5.0-
rx
imagery
birth: exploratory visualization
psychospiritual approaches

definition

sequence of presentation:
introductory visualization
exploratory visualization
birth visualization

Birth imagery: Exploratory Visualization

Using truisms about the process (sounds on the inside; having been on the inside of a womb herself) and embedded commands to see, hear, and feel the internal environment of the womb, Celine is guided towards exploring the nature of the experience inside of her own womb. "Exploratory" visualization is the part of the visualization in which the practitioner may receive verbal feedback from the client to further ascertain the direction to pursue. Sometimes the exploratory part constitutes most of the session, although this is not the case with Celine.

Celine: It looks...shiny, glistening...red...kind of bumps and bulges...cushiony.

Gayle: Mmmhhh...and does it have a kind of smoothness over the bumps....???

Celine: Shiny, smooth...

Gayle: Shiny, smooth...even slick, huh...on the inside...

Celine: Glistens.

Celine begins to represent her experience visually (shiny, glistening, red) and switches into a somesthetic (sensation) representation which mirrors her fears of the baby getting "stuck" on the bones of the pelvis, expressed earlier in the initial interview. Her fears are revealed in her internal representation of the womb. The "bumps" and "bulges" are cushioned, but are parts of the womb which represent her concern for the baby getting stuck.

I begin an interdimensional shift - meaning that I want to create a reframing of the bones (bumps and bulges) as something that will facilitate rather than hinder labor. I proceed to describe the "bumps" and "bulges" as "smooth," the opposite end of the rough-smooth scale of her somesthetic description. "Bumps" and "bulges" have been defined by Celine as making it "rough." (She described the labors of her friends in this manner, saying their babies became "stuck" on the pelvic bones. By switching to the opposite end of the somesthetic dimension (rough-smooth) within the same sensory modality (somesthetic), an interdimensional shift occurs ensuring that the internal experience of the bumps and bulges is facilitative of the labor process.

Celine accepts the suggestion, taking in the description of the smoothness in her repetition of it. The process of reframing is completed in Celine's acceptance of the "slick" quality of smoothness on the inside of the womb. She nods and embellishes the suggestion visually (glistens).

Gayle: MMHHMMM...and can you see your baby right now, it's got little foot prints, little hand prints, all its own, already made, and little hair that grows all over its body now that will very soon fall off...as it gets ready ... to dive out...and as you look at that baby, just give yourself the right to now...hear any message that it might want to communicate to you, right now, about ...anything in particular... (Long pause, Celine's face flushes, eyes water at the corners) and just Feeeel your love...as your most Powerful, Powerful, resource....always, always...there... Anything it needs to communicate with you, needs not even be said, out loud, but will happen, on the inside just like labor...the hormones flow...and the process begins...as it comes out, as it comes out, to the outside...Any reorganization, any adaptation can take place, as you hear the baby now speak to you...to that part of you that would want to know...or need to know...how ...to do it...so that throughout the visualization, now as you go forward in reorganization, the fine, fine tuning...can occur, without you even needing to think about it, it just happens...on the inside...

Comments
During our initial interview I had asked Celine what she thought she needed for labor. She replied that she needed to trust in her love for her baby and to feel a sense of inner peace. I can embed these resources that Celine has identified as needing into the visualization. "Peace" has already appeared several times, beginning with the stomach and the lake metaphor. I incorporate her flush as the sense of the love connection between her and the baby. Because of the deepness of her trance state I can continue giving suggestions for adaptation and adjustment to labor, as if coming from the baby, creating an experience she has already defined a need for - trust in her love for this child.

A trance state represents the combined experience of relaxation and a concentrated internal focus. Celine is now guided towards the cervix and into the labor and birth part of the visualization.
(Peterson and Mehl, p. 234-236)

next see:
imagery: birth: birth visualization

see also:
imagery: Taueret journey
hypnotherapy: techniques of trance
imagery: birth: introductory visualization
imagery: birth: birth visualization
imagery: birth: exploring phobias
imagery: birth: complication - breech
imagery: birth: complication - past complications
imagery: birth: complication - fibroids


footnotes