What is your experience working with clients who can't imagine things?

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Richard Nongard - NLPBoard.com on January 8, 2010 at 10:34am

1.) Have them feel things
2.) Have them experience things
3.) Tell them that some people do not often visualize, but fortuntaly everyone has the capacity to visualize, and that you will teach them how as part of the process. Then begin with feelings or expeirences, and build up to visualization, leaving them abastract and up to the client to develop.
Visualization is a skill to be learned, just like any other meditative technique. If they don;t visualize they prbaly are very good at something else. Start there, but recognize growth comes from developing this potential, and so do not simply ignore it but work to develop it.

Permalink Reply by Jack Hirsh on January 8, 2010 at 10:43am

Hi Maria,

First I think it is important to make a distinction between imagining and picturing something. As you said they can “describe it: color, make etc, but do not see pictures”. That is what imagining is. Since the object is not right there in front of them they have to imagine it to describe it. This is in fact very common. Only 20 percent of people are visual but just about everyone can imagine.

People that are visual will understand when you say “imagine you are …” (fill in the blank) and they will create the pictures in the mind to go with the imagined situation.

I am not a visual person, especially with my eyes closed. I can begin to create pictures if I have my eyes open in light trance. I am much more kinesthetic, so if you tell me to imagine I am at the top of a long flight of stairs, I begin to create the stairs they way I think they should feel. For example I will feel the railing and I imagine that the stairs are marble. I may even be able to imagine a certain smell but I just can’t create an image. I have a very active imagination but I am just not wired to be visual.

When working with people I always say imagine… and if they choose to create an image in their head that is great, if not I still won’t lose them because they will imagine in a way that works for them.

~Jack

Permalink Reply by Jan Krüger on January 8, 2010 at 10:47am

It's still visualization, the pictures just don't make it through to consciousness. I don't habitually see pictures in my mind myself. Since it's visualization either way, pretending to visualize tends to work just as well as actually seeing something in your mind's eye. You might approach it like this: "and you know exactly what your car looks like, even if you don't see it in front of you right now. You know what colour it is, perhaps you know about some scratches it has... and as you remember all these things about your car, your car is right there in your mind, and that's what counts. You don't have to have a little image floating in your head to have it right there." Obviously this is not very exciting or useful with a car, but it avoids stressing someone out about having to really "see" some kind of visualization.

Apart from that you can, of course, work with the other senses.

Work with what's there and you will find that it will work. ;)

Permalink Reply by Dennis Atkinson on January 8, 2010 at 11:10am

Most of my thoughts have already been expressed here ... but as has been said, some people are not as visual as others. But those can sense, feel, and accept the suggestions. One of my favorite phrases for a person in hypnosis is "don’t try too hard to make things happen, and don’t try to stop things from happening"

Permalink Reply by Maria-Pilar Gonzalez on January 8, 2010 at 11:53am

Thanks Everyone for your input. It's all about keep an open mind...I usually try to see things from the client's perspective but I couldn't seem to get the angle on this one. But yes, you are all right... they have other senses to work with...The same would go with a blind person who has never seen in their life. They have "images" of their own of what I would describe, probably very different and abstract images from what "we" see, but non-the-less, they "see" in their own way.

Again, it's all about an open mind. Now it's obvious and yet I learn one more thing. Isn't this site awesome?
Have a great day ! I'll keep checking in for more ideas.

Maria-Pilar

Permalink Reply by Maria-Pilar Gonzalez on January 8, 2010 at 11:55am

Thanks Richard:
It seems obvious now to use all other senses...love this site!
Maria-Pilar

Richard Nongard - HypnosisGurus.com said:

1.) Have them feel things
2.) Have them experience things
3.) Tell them that some people do not often visualize, but fortuntaly everyone has the capacity to visualize, and that you will teach them how as part of the process. Then begin with feelings or expeirences, and build up to visualization, leaving them abastract and up to the client to develop.
Visualization is a skill to be learned, just like any other meditative technique. If they don;t visualize they prbaly are very good at something else. Start there, but recognize growth comes from developing this potential, and so do not simply ignore it but work to develop it.

Permalink Reply by Maria-Pilar Gonzalez on January 8, 2010 at 11:58am

HI Jack:
Thanks for the step by step on how this process works for you; it is important to understand that to be able to guide someone through that. I do imagine different people have different processes but it still gives me an "inside" look at it.
I had not realized the difference between imagining with "pictures" or imagining "smells, sounds etc." it is imaginng after all.

Great! Thanks again.

Maria-Pilar

Jack Hirsh said:

Hi Maria,

First I think it is important to make a distinction between imagining and picturing something. As you said they can “describe it: color, make etc, but do not see pictures”. That is what imagining is. Since the object is not right there in front of them they have to imagine it to describe it. This is in fact very common. Only 20 percent of people are visual but just about everyone can imagine.

People that are visual will understand when you say “imagine you are …” (fill in the blank) and they will create the pictures in the mind to go with the imagined situation.

I am not a visual person, especially with my eyes closed. I can begin to create pictures if I have my eyes open in light trance. I am much more kinesthetic, so if you tell me to imagine I am at the top of a long flight of stairs, I begin to create the stairs they way I think they should feel. For example I will feel the railing and I imagine that the stairs are marble. I may even be able to imagine a certain smell but I just can’t create an image. I have a very active imagination but I am just not wired to be visual.

When working with people I always say imagine… and if they choose to create an image in their head that is great, if not I still won’t lose them because they will imagine in a way that works for them.

~Jack

Permalink Reply by Maria-Pilar Gonzalez on January 8, 2010 at 12:07pm

Hi Jan, your response is in line with Jack's... it's a different kind of imagining.
Very helpfull perspectives from everyone.
Thanks,

Maria-Pilar

Jan Krüger said:

It's still visualization, the pictures just don't make it through to consciousness. I don't habitually see pictures in my mind myself. Since it's visualization either way, pretending to visualize tends to work just as well as actually seeing something in your mind's eye. You might approach it like this: "and you know exactly what your car looks like, even if you don't see it in front of you right now. You know what colour it is, perhaps you know about some scratches it has... and as you remember all these things about your car, your car is right there in your mind, and that's what counts. You don't have to have a little image floating in your head to have it right there." Obviously this is not very exciting or useful with a car, but it avoids stressing someone out about having to really "see" some kind of visualization.

Apart from that you can, of course, work with the other senses.

Work with what's there and you will find that it will work. ;)

Permalink Reply by Maria-Pilar Gonzalez on January 8, 2010 at 12:10pm

Dennis I'd like to use your phrase from now on... it does make sense... and the "sight" sense is not predominant in everyone, but all senses are there for everyone.

Great! Maria-Pilar

Dennis Atkinson said:

Most of my thoughts have already been expressed here ... but as has been said, some people are not as visual as others. But those can sense, feel, and accept the suggestions. One of my favorite phrases for a person in hypnosis is "don’t try too hard to make things happen, and don’t try to stop things from happening"

Permalink Reply by Michael Ellner on January 8, 2010 at 12:37pm

Hi Maria,

The magic is in your pre-talk - I simply explain there is a difference between imagery and visualization and suggest that some people think, feel or imagine and others see something with the mind's eye... Most of my clients seem to be able to do both depending on what they are referencing --

Michael E.

Permalink Reply by Sunita Dhillon on January 8, 2010 at 1:53pm

Hi Maria,
i have come across people who do not find it so easy to give anything a concrete form per say yet they can give you each and every minute details,they just perceive it differently.I normally use 'see what u see, feel what u feel, taste what u taste or perhaps you might experience a bit of all'.During their intake and also during during responsive exercise i do get a better understanding as to what sense works for them predominantly, i just use that more in my sessions.All the best.

Permalink Reply by Kathleen Hanover on January 8, 2010 at 2:01pm

I can so relate to this. I can recall things I've already seen but sometimes it's just impossible for me to visualize (I'm really, really kinesthetic as well.)

So if someone asked me to visualize myself on a beach, and tell them what the sky looks like or the water, etc. I couldn't really do that very well, at least not in a way that makes me feel engaged, but I could recall what it felt like the last time I was at the beach, and then I could take that memory and edit it.

So my description of being at the beach has to do with feeling the heat of the sun as it soaks through my closed eyelids, feeling the tickle of hot, dry sand as my feet squish into it, and the the cold wet grittiness as the sand gets forced between my toes down by the waterline; that sinking/suctiony feeling as the wave retreats and pulls away some of the sand under your feet; feeling the hairs on my arms ruffled by the little bursts of wind; feeling the temperature difference between the hot breeze and the colder water as I stand in the shallow surf; and smelling the air that's flavored with equal parts salt, algae, seaweed, hot dogs from the snack bar and cocoabutter sunscreen. (Smell is really powerful for me too.)

That is enough to get me back to the beach. In this instance, I'm remembering the last time I was there, so I do have a lot of good visuals to go with it, but I don't really feel like I'm at the beach until I feel like I'm at the beach. :)

If that makes sense.

Kathleen Hanover
"The Pretty Goodest Public Relations, 
Copywriting & Marketing Lady on the Planet"

Jack Hirsh said:

Hi Maria,
I am not a visual person, especially with my eyes closed. I can begin to create pictures if I have my eyes open in light trance. I am much more kinesthetic, so if you tell me to imagine I am at the top of a long flight of stairs, I begin to create the stairs they way I think they should feel. For example I will feel the railing and I imagine that the stairs are marble. I may even be able to imagine a certain smell but I just can’t create an image. I have a very active imagination but I am just not wired to be visual.

~Jack

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