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For many decades, cognitive scientists have debated the question of whether mental images exist in the mind or whether they merely appear to exist (Tye, 1991). To those of us not directly involved in this discussion, the question may appear somewhat academic. After all, as Kosslyn (2005) described, if I ask you to tell me the shape of Mickey Mouse’s ears, you will undoubtedly do so through the use of an image in your mind’s eye. In many ways, my understanding of this debate centers on the question of how much we can trust what we see when we look inside. The stark experience of subjectivity present when images are evoked appears to likewise have some bearing on the position images hold in clinical treatment, most specifically in psychodynamic psychotherapy and psychoanalysis. And although the word distrust is perhaps too strong, there does appear to be a subtle discomfort with images dating back to the origins of psychoanalysis (Singer, 1971). And yet, as will become clear from the articles to follow, images and image-based experience are alive and well.
In conceptualizing this issue for Psychoanalytic Inquiry, it was my intention to provide a space for the reader to become acquainted with some of the forms that image-based experience currently takes in psychodynamic treatment and psychoanalysis. What emerges from this discussion, however, has the potential to take the reader beyond a simple recognition of images as a part of psychotherapy process and into realms of philosophy, art, poetry, and neurobiology that offer rich opportunities for therapeutic enhancement.
The issue begins with an article from Rebecca Curtis that traces the use of imagery from Freud and Jung to contemporary authors and theorists. The history of imagery she documents reveals a subtle path of ambivalence surrounding imagery within the psychoanalytic culture. Bringing in her own approach to imagery, Curtis reveals a number of ways in which imagery can be used within a treatment. And as she finis