Chapter 9. Transformations: Change From Learning to Growth

The visual images and terms employed in the following model are chosen without regard to the sources from which they have been derived.

Two people are present: myself and a patient. I am detached and so is he, though for both of us the experience is important. As he lies on the couch and I sit, I imagine that a cloud begins to form rather in the way that clouds can sometimes be seen to form above a hot-point on a summer's day. It seems to be above him. A similar cloud may be visible to him, but he will see it arising from me. These are probability clouds.

Soon, other clouds form: some of these are new clouds, some formed from old ones, probability clouds that have changed into possibility clouds. The situation must be conceived of as tense, however little appears to be happening. I extend the scope of my model by doing away with the restriction implicit in the term ‘visual’ imagery. ‘Olfactory image’, ‘auditory image’, ‘tactile image’ are absurd terms which can, however, indicate the direction and scope of freedom I want. To abolish any restriction on absurdity, implicit in the analogies drawn from sense impressions, I shall describe the model as composed of C category elements and assume that tension, like ‘possibility’ and ‘probability’, is apparent1 even if it is not apparent to any known sense. C category elements are described as visual because it enables me to draw on analogy from the sense of sight to communicate my meaning. The tension which is an essential part of the model is perceptible as are clouds. The clouds have increased; possibility clouds become clouds of doubt. Certainty clouds also appear; clouds

of depression, guilt, hope and fear likewise. To every cloud there corresponds its hot point, but the cloud, like its analogue in nature, may have wandered far from it.

I associate pressure with both tension and clouds. The total situation I have tried to describe pictorially I would like to be able to