HISTORY OF GUIDED FANTASY IN PSYCHOTHERAPY

The historical foundations of Guided Fantasy are found inpsychoanalysis. In the famous case of  Anna O. (Breuer and Freud, 1895), a directed mental imagery technique was employed, but Freud later discarded the use of guided imagery, and developed methods involving free association and dream analysis.Growing out of this  analytic tradition, Kretschmer (1922) and Happich (1938) developed    meditative approaches to psychotherapy, and Schultz (1956) used a  systematic method for using the mind’s images called the “autogenic    training technique.”   Especially significant to the more  recent publicizing and legitimizing of fantasy psychotherapy were the methods of French psychotherapist Robert Desoille and German psychiatrist  Hanscarl Leuner. Desoille’s (1966) work with  the  waking  dream (rêve  éveillé) demonstrated that therapist-directed  daydreaming could lead patients to increased self-understanding and emotional maturity. Leuner’s (1969) “guided affective imagery” technique involves the guiding of the subject through a series of  structured fantasy situations, each with a specifictheoretical purpose…