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Prologue: What is Fantasy?

The Freudian school of thought postulates that unconscious fantasy represents the conflicts, drives and wishes underlying human experiences, in particular, those related to sexuality, birth, intrauterine existence, primal scene, castration and seduction and that these may be transformed into works of art through any number of artistic means (Trosman, 1990). Insofar as fantasies are necessary for the formation of mental structures - recall (Hohage, 1993) above, for example -, they can be understood as providing the very source of psychic life. From this point of view, the work of art is the integration of unconscious derivatives which are given artistic form (Breuer, 1985) and, even in the case of psychiatric patients, is not necessarily regressive in nature (Zinggl & Chlubna, 1990). Indeed, ego psychology sees even the most chthonic, unconscious fantasies to be the consequence of active processing of experiences. Furthermore, insofar as "The ego is above all a body ego." (Freud, 1969, p. 255) "fantasy", that is, normal fantasy, can be understood to be the idealisation of the body (Kafka, 1992) - see also, e.g., (Senf, 1993).

Looking much further back into time, the Gnostic philosophers were perhaps the first universal scholars who tried to gain a differentiated understanding of fantasy. Loosely speaking, one can update and summarize their mythopoetical body of knowledge with a hierarchy of four levels which, from the standpoint of modern psychology, can be thought of as four interrelated, extraordinary states of consciousness. At the "lowest" level, we find the state of delusion or psychosis, which, according to Christian and Islamic dogma, are possession phenomena ruled by the devil. Modern psychiatry identifies here several different pathological phenomena such as the hearing of voices. At the next "higher" level, we find the usual day- or night-dreams including nightmares, all of which are born of human fears and wishes, the stuff of which our neuroses are made of. One step further up this hierarchical mythopoetical ladder, we find the level of imagination where images embody metaphysical ideas and envisage physical bodies. This is, for example, the spiritual realm of Christian and Islamic prayer and of Eastern meditation. This concept of imagination is the psychological realm of Active Imagination and of hypnosis, déjà-vu, "Ganzfeld", hypnogigic and hypnopompic imagery etc. Finally, at the fourth and "highest" mythopoetical level, we have the level of inspiration which, according to the Bible and the Koran, stems directly from the angels or from the godhead itself. This is the psychological realm of anticipation, divination, prophecy, vision etc..

In this chapter, I don’t want to adhere to any special school of depth psychology or mysticism to understand the concept of fantasy but, rather, choose to simply begin with an everyday idea about it, like the one you get from an ordinary lexicon: From this point of view, fantasy can be creativity, imagination, ingenuity, inventiveness, originality, playfulness, resourcefulness, vision etc., in the common sense of these words (cf., e.g., (Wellek, 1950, pp. 173-176), (Lersch, 1952), (Olbricht, 1993)).

The most important implication of these simple definitions to my work is the following thought: Optimistically speaking, a catharctic, reality-based fantasy could, indeed, lead at best to an inspiring EUREKA!- or AHA!-Effect on the part of the fantasizer. Now, being somewhat more modest in the actual expectations we might place upon any method employing fantasy to influence the mind-body, I can make the following statement:

I understand Fantasy as that Power of Imagination which

• can progressively lead a somatically ill person, above all, someone in a particularly labile state of health/illness to an enhancement of his or her immune system and other mind-body regenerative powers. Here I am thinking of «Imaginative Healing Methods» such as hypnosis.
• can progressively lead to the death of an otherwise healthy individual adhering to unshakable beliefs about his or her loss of binding to social relationships (Voodoo Death), to social values (Taboo Death), to social settings (Homesickness Death), or to one's own Self (Spiritual Death).
• can progressively lead a mentally disturbed person, above all, someone suffering from psychosis, to a more positive, coherent and reality-based, insightful relationship to the world in the sense of an "!AYA!-Effect", that is, to a coherent, self-enhancing, positivising mental effect via a spontaneously induced, context- and reality-related insight in the sense of: "Ah, yeah, now I get it!". Here I am thinking of «Phantasy Therapy» which directly aims at such an !AYA!-Effect.

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Introduction

Entire treatise (Vetter, 1950), (Kunz, 1946a), (Kunz, 1946b) and scholarly essays (Freud, 1941), (Gehlen, 1950, pp. 341-353) have been devoted to the significance of fantasy in human experience. The distinction of normal fantasy from déjà-vu, day dreams, dreams, hypnotic, "Ganzfeld", hypnogogic or hypnopompic imagery, and reality is a matter of great interest to researchers (Rand & Torok, 1996), (Greenwald & Harder, 1995), (Zepf, Weidenhammer, & Baur-Morlock, 1986), (Sandler, 1976), (Loch & Jappe, 1974), (Langs, 1971), (Arlow, 1969), (Zutt, 1963). In addition, pathological fantasy (Akhtar, 1996), (Gur'eva, Vandysh, & Shilana, 1986) and proneness to fantasy (Rauschenberger & Lynn, 1995), (Giambra, 1995), (Rhue & Lynn, 1987) have also continued to interest the researcher community.

On the one hand, "too much" fantasy has since long been negatively associated with the confusion of reason, that is, with the workings of the psychotic (Nicolai, 1758), (Schmidt-Degenhard, 1992), (Schmidt-Degenhard, 1994), neurotic (Newmark & Adityanjee, 1999) or otherwise disturbed (Merritt & Waldo, 2000), (Person & Klar, 1997) mind. The delusions of persons suffering from psychosis seem to be directly related to the usual kinds of day-dream fantasies that these patients entertain in their normal, everyday lives (El Sendiony, 1976), (Starker & Singer, 1975). Indeed, it has been argued by some researchers that games of fantasy and role playing can even have a negative impact upon the milieu of a stationary psychiatric ward, at least with adolescents (Ascherman, 1993).

On the other hand, having "too little" fantasy is also apparently associated with mental problems (Bermond, Vorst, Vingerhoets, & Gerritsen, 1999), (Rubino, Grasso, Sonnino, & Pezzarossa, 1991), (Taylor, 1984) lending some support for an imagery deficit model for certain persons suffering from schizophrenia (Starker, 1979), (Starker & Jolin, 1982).

That the power of imagination can even lead to death (Schmid, 2000), but can just as well heal (Marks, Marset, Boulougouris, & Huson, 1971), (Simonton, Matthews Simonton, & Creighton, 1998) has also been well-established in the literature. Indeed, the knowledge that " Above all, fantasy binds our various senses together …" (Gehlen, 1950, p. 199) is important to the realisation of fantasy as a clinical therapeuticum. For example, from the standpoint of ego-psychology, fantasies are necessary for the construction of psychic structures (Hohage, 1993).

Recently, the idea of fantasy as a useful tool for improving mental health has gained increasing attention: Active Imagination (Schmid, 1997b), Catathymic Image Experience (Hennig, 1982), Guided Affective Imagery (Leuner, 1969), (Kulessa & Jung, 1979), hypnosis (Vas, 1993), (Zindel, 1992) or narrative imagery (Peseschkian, 1991), (Holmes, 2000), to mention just a few applications of fantasy in clinical practice.

In general, creativity and induced imagination are proven, valuable tools for assessing (Hanggi & Schedle, 1988), (Zelin et al., 1983) and modifying (Gehring, 1996), (Leuner, 1973) consciousness (see also (Niederland, 1969), (Stein, 1993)) and for clinically treating people with mental problems (Wendt, 1982), (Lazarus, 1977), (Wilmer, 1976), (Niederland, 1969). Here we might mention psychodrama, for example, as a well-known application of fantasy to the group therapy of psychiatric patients (De Neuter, 1977), (Cabral & Garcia, 1977). Nevertheless, the literature shows most proven applications of fantasy to take place in an individual setting and without simultaneous interplay between several different creative activities such as drawing/painting, movement/dance and playing music. Applications in group therapy involving several different creative disciplines at once are less widespread and, until now, seem to have been mostly represented by the school of GAETANO BENEDETTI and his coworker, MAURIZIO PECICCIA (Benedetti & Peciccia, 1992), (Peciccia & Benedetti, 1996).

«PhantasyTherapy» is a form of group therapy for psychotic patients which was independently developed but, nevertheless, shares the spirit of Prof. BENEDETTI’s and Dr. PECICCIA’s Progressive Mirror Drawing Therapy for individuals and groups (Benedetti & Peciccia, 1992), (Peciccia & Benedetti, 1992). Before I explain the details of Phantasy Therapy, I would like us to agree upon what we understand under the concept of «fantasy» for the purpose of this work.

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Summary: «Phantasy Therapy» is an interdisciplinary depthpsychologically-oriented group therapy form with focus on the treatment of psychosis in acute and remitting phases. A different theme is presented every week on two consecutive days (90-minutes per session), coherently, via various sensory channels. On the first day, the theme is concretely and operationally introduced by means of an object, transformed into movement in the broadest sense of the word, and experienced directly with the body. The first session ends with a story, usually a fairytale or parable, so that the body experiences can be further realized symbolically at the cognitive-emotional level. The second session treats the same theme via repetition of the chosen story with the deeper transformation of symbols into color and form. The first day is jointly led by a psycho- and movement/dance therapist; the second day, by a psycho- and an art therapist. Our approach understands therapy as an integrative experience- and expression-oriented encounter with the patient via the therapist’s empathic imaginative identification with the experient. The encounter takes place via a progressively orchestrated, positivising, cognitive-emotional, theme-centered rapport. Rapport is established with the help of six therapeutic elements: theme, object, movement, fairytale, artwork, symbol. «Phantasy Therapy» offers the patient creative freedom in a humorful and playful way within a certain therapeutic security (Amae-Principle), and contradicts several, classical prejudices concerning the treatment of psychotic patients.

Presentation: The symptoms and behaviours usually accompanying the mental disorders leading to psychiatric hospitalisation generally make it difficult to treat recently admitted patients: aggression, autism/mutism, distrust, negativism, restlessness etc. Accordingly, many persons in stationary psychiatric care, especially those suffering from psychosis, can only be conditionally treated by the usual verbal and nonverbal therapeutic methods during their first week or so after arrival. In addition to dealing with this difficulty inherent to the typical clinical picture, any method of psychosis therapy of practical use must be suitable to a public clinic with an open policy of obligatory and often forced admittance, in particular, with no patient-selection. These pragmatic conditions confront therapists with patients who display numerous barriers to compliance.

«Phantasy Therapy» (Schmid, Eisenhut, Dämpfle, Frei, & Ito, 1997), (Schmid et al., 2000), (Schmid et al., 2002) is a special form of group psychosis therapy conceived in 1995 and further developed in collaboration with my colleagues within the context of our daily work on the acute and rehabilitation wards of General Psychiatry in the Cantonal Psychiatric Clinic Rheinau (since 1.1.2002: General Psychiatry ipw). The method is closely related to G. BENEDETTI's technique of "Progressive Therapeutic Mirror Imaging" (Peciccia & Benedetti, 1992) and to J.P. ZINDEL's "Active Introjection of the Therapist" (Zindel, 1997). All three methods integrate several elements of hypnosis therapy as discussed in (Schmid, 2001).

«Phantasy Therapy» has recently found a profound resonance in Japan with professionals of all psychiatric and psychotherapeutic disciplines. We have conducted self-experience and self-expression workshops in Japan similar to the one offered below.

«Phantasy Therapy» is an integrative therapy form. It is a synergy of sundry elements taken from art therapy, hypnotherapy, movement & dance therapy, music therapy and psychotherapy. Language in the widest sense of the word - spoken language, body language, the language of color, form, music and symbol - serves here as the "glue" holding together the various therapeutic "mosaic pieces". A specific theme-object-fairy tale triad, chosen anew every week, offers the patients the focus of a comprehensive therapeutic context.

«Phantasy Therapy» has a well-structured, almost rutualized course of presentation. A different theme-object-fairy tale triad is presented every week on two consecutive days (90-minutes per session), coherently, via various sensory channels. (See Table 1.) On the first day, the theme is concretely and operationally introduced by means of an object, transformed into movement in the broadest sense of the word, and experienced directly with the body. Very important here is the order of presentation: individual experience and expression within the circle of others, followed by pair experience and expression, followed by group experience and expression. The first session ends with a story, usually a fairytale or parable, so that the theme-object-body experiences can be further realized symbolically at the cognitive-emotional level. The second session treats the same theme via repetition of the chosen story with the deeper transformation of symbols into color and form.

«Phantasy Therapy» is also being planned to cover three days in a special psychosis ward of our clinic. The first two days are carried out as explained in Table 1.

• Day 1 = introduction of new theme and object + transformation of theme into mimic, gesture, and movement + closure with theme-based fairytale.
• Day 2 = repetition of theme-based fairytale of Day 1 + transformation of symbolic content into form and color with gestalt positivation.
• Day 3 explicitly introduces the musical transformation of the graphical symbolic work of Day 2 into rhythm and melody with emphasis upon the vivification and positivation of the overall theme, object, and fairytale symbolism in the sense of BENEDETTI & PECICCIA.

«Phantasy Therapy» is an interdisciplinary therapy form. The first day is directed jointly by a psychotherapist together with a movement & dance therapist. The second day is codirected by a psychotherapist and an expressive arts therapist; the third day (still in planning), by a psychotherapist and a music or multimedia therapist. In addition, a therapist-in-training serves during each session to give troublesome patients individual attention and, if necessary, to take them back to the ward.

The practical realisation of «Phantasy Therapy» according to the suggested therapeutic elements and steps outlined above progressively activates those mental attributes generally known to be considerably disturbed by psychosis, so-called «cognitive deficits»; cf. (Goldberg & Gold, 1995), (Heinrichs & Zakzanis, 1998):

• motor coordination, mannerisms, posturing and speed of performance;
• working memory which enables the simultaneous processing of information from different sensory channels;
• orientation, attention and expectant attention (vigilance);
• abstract thinking, planning- and problem-solving ability (executive function);
• speech and conceptual organisation.

The optimisation of «Phantasy Therapy» for the treatment of cognitive deficits remains an active part of my research program. I have already discussed elsewhere (Schmid, 1997), (Schmid, 2002) the extent to which these cognitive deficits could be consequences of linear information processing (weakened «binding») in the mind-brain.

Our clinical approach understands therapy as an experience- and expression-oriented encounter with the patient evoking all of his or her sensory functions and creative faculties while focusing these upon a single theme. This encounter is orchestrated during each session by the therapist’s empathic imaginative identification with the patient onhand a progressively positivising, cognitive-emotional thematic rapport. The resulting «therapeutic presence» in the sense of empathy, participatory interest and expectant attention (vigilance) of both patient and therapist can be enhanced by the specialized therapeutic elements of «Phantasy Therapy»: Theme, object, movement, fairytale, artwork, symbol, and, assuming a three-day program, a seventh element: music.

«Phantasy Therapy» offers the patient creative freedom in a humorful and playful way within a certain therapeutic security (Japanese Amae-Principle - see (Doi, 1982), (Ito, 1994), (Ito & Takei, 2001)). In particular, «Phantasy Therapy» defies certain well-known prejudices about therapeutic work with psychotic patients. These prejudices claim that, amongst other things, the following kinds of work and encounter with psychotic patients should be avoided at all costs:

• Imaginative work
• Multisensorial Experience and Expression
• Closeness and Touching
• Group Therapy
• Large Groups.

A descriptive statistical survey of patients' attitudes toward «Phantasy Therapy», as well as of their behaviour during and after each session indicated a certain therapeutic effectiveness within only a single session. Furthermore, it could be shown that «Phantasy Therapy» fulfills the 3 major quality-assurance criteria of the Swiss National Health Office (Schweizer Bundesamt für Gesundheitwesen). It is:

• practical (applicable to all psychiatric distrubances, in particular, psychosis; applicable to patients in all stages of illness - acute, remitting, ambulatory; motivating for patients in all degrees of arousal, negativism or aggression, as long as they are willing to enter the therapy room)
• effective (!AJA!-Effect, and reduction of desorganisation and aggression in only one or two 90-minute sessions), and
• economical (up to 18 patients / 3 therapists x 1.5 hours = up to 9 patient-hours per therapist).

Conclusion: The treatment of a single theme onhand an object ("it-feeling"), one's own body ("I-feeling"), one's partner ("you-feeling"), one's group ("we-feeling"), the spoken word, color & form, and rhythm & melody supports the focusing of the patient's faculties of sensation, cognition, affectation, and intuition upon the common, collective reality centered on the chosen theme. The method of approach has been designed to enhance both the patient's and the therapist's «therapeutic presence» in the sense of empathy, participatory interest, and expectant attention during this process of focussing. The patient's inherent, playful curiosity and humor help him or her to gather and strenghten their seemingly devasted resources for use in the positive, suggestive reconstruction of their inner life within the context of an empathic, identificatory therapeutic process. Laughter plays a central role in this orchestrated transformation.

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Workshop in Phantasy Therapy

A workshop in «Phantasy Therapy» has been planned to take place on the 7th and 8th of November 2002 in Balsthal, Switzerland under the auspices of the Swiss Medical Society for Hypnosis (SMSH).

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I need your help!

Would you like to participate in a Phantasy Therapy Workshop or do you have information (in English or German) about objects, art/dance/movement/music or fairytales/stories relevant to the theme of Phantasy Therapy which you feel important enough to share with others? If so, please send me an e-mail describing it in detail! If it's interesting enough, I'll share it with other readers in my Data Bank on this home page and may even publish it in the next version of my book! Thanx!

Send me YOUR REQUEST TO PARTICIPATE IN A PHANTASY THERAPY WORKSHOP (in English or German) to society@mind-body.info with the comment "Phantasy Therapy Workshop".

Send me INFORMATION (in English or German) about objects, art/dance/movement/music or fairytales/stories relevant to Phantasy Therapy to society@mind-body.info with the comment "Phantasy Therapy Info".

With each true, first-hand story please include the following information:

• Your name in full
• Your complete home address and e-mail address
• Your telephone number
• The exact source of your story and any necessary background information which may be important to understanding the full impact of your experience
• Your expressed agreement allowing me to tell your story further (orally, in print, online etc.).
  Your anonymity is guaranteed! (If you would like me to explicitly mention you by name in quoting your story online or in print, please send me per post ("snail mail") a signed statement to this effect at my business address: Trittligasse 2 / CH-8001 Zürich / Switzerland.)

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