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Carl Jung discovered a method for exploring his internal landscape when he was disoriented and discouraged following his estrangement from Freud in 1912-1913. Others have extended his method, which he experienced more in images than in words, into approaches such as active imagination and interior dialogue. Ira Progroff and Barbara Hannah explored journal methods for creating an interior dialogue. These methods may assist the grieving person gain resilience and relief.
Death ends a life, but not a relationship. After four family members died in a period of two years, I called upon my long-time journal practice and Progoff Journal Method training to deepen and continue a growing relationship with those I loved. In my clinical practice, I encourage clients to use these methods when they are grieving. While I do not think that my departed family members communicate with me from the other side, I can report that sometimes “their” communications surprise me. Here is an example, coming from the time soon after my younger sister Janice died in 2004. Reeling from grief, I found myself short-tempered and uninvolved with my husband. This challenging time in our marriage improved with surprising advice from the sister-in-my-psyche. I wrote in my journal about how hurt I was feeling by my husband’s lack of warm compassion, especially when I awakened during the night. I asked Janice for counsel:
Janice responds: He is very sad. He lost me, and now he feels like he’s losing you to grief. Could you be nicer to him? He’s suffering, and he’s doing the best he can.
I write in response: OK, Jannie. I’ll try. You’re still coaching me about being kinder, just like when you were the little cherub, and everyone liked you better than me.
I watched and learned from you then; I’ve been learning from you all these years.
Janice responds: You just get stressed and sad, and then it’s hard for you to be kind. But you can do it.
The Method
1. Prepare your materials, space, and mind. Draw a line down the center of a page, and pick out two different ink colors. If writing on your computer, set up your word document with the fonts you will use, such as bold and plain, or Caps and small letters, i.e.:
writer: Concern or question, such as “I want to talk with you, Mom, about my speculation about your unlived life, or what you may have wanted in your life that you did not pursue.”
MOM: YOU ARE NOT SURE I DID WHAT I WANTED IN MY LIFE. I KNOW THAT CONCERNS YOU.
writer: i know i need to let this go, but i am struggling. did you want children, or did you feel trapped by the expectation to have kids in the 1940’s and 1950’s?
MOM: I PROBABLY SHOULD HAVE WAITED A WHILE LONGER, BUT I ABSOLUTELY WANTED ALL THREE OF YOU CHILDREN. YOU WERE ALL PLANNED. I COULD NOT HAVE PURSUED AN INDEPENDENT CAREER, MARRIED TO A MINISTER. I STILL USED MY EDUCATION AND ENJOYED THE ACTIVITIES I CHOSE.
(Continues until the writer lets go of her guilty worry about her mother’s life.)
2. Begin with a specific image or conversation. Consider using a photograph, a vivid image from a dream, a conversation you would like to have, or an unfinished conversation. Progoff refers to these options as "Dialogue With People," or "Dream Enlargements." For this post, I stay with dialogues with people in imagination or dreams, although Progoff and Hannah incorporate visual or auditory images.
3. Write your opening question or concern, something on which you imagine your imagined dialogue partner has something to offer. Picture the person in your mind’s eye, and wait. Or look quietly at the photograph, ask your question, and wait. Recall the person in a dream, and reflect before you write.
4. Imagine a place where you have often talked, such as a certain room or place outside. For instance, I often remember my Dad and I sitting in the two chairs beside the fireplace in our Colorado cabin or in my home. Recall the tone of voice, the facial expressions, and specific way of speaking this person embodied.
5. When dialogue emerges in your imagination, write it down. Wait before you continue with your part. Continue this way until the conversation seems to be finished.
6. Thank your imaginative partner for the conversation, and say goodbye.
How Can Interior Dialogue/Active Imagination Help Resolve Grief?
One of the painful realities of loss through death remains the thought that we will never be able to have a conversation with our departed other again. Or someone might have died without crucial conversations taking place. Forgiveness may be wished for, either from the other or for the other. The sense of a slammed door cuts off contact. While this closed door remains strictly true, the person lives in our memory and imagination. Continuing conversations lead to an intimate sense of connection. One may feel less alone when the only life left, the life of memory and imagination, can be taken seriously and extended. You may find that the other’s voice indeed lives inside you. Interior dialogues can lead to a deep acceptance of both the death of the other, and of the life that remains inside the imagination. Try this method to see how it works for you.
References
Hannah, Barbara. Active Imagination. (2013). Chiron Press, New York.
Hocker, Joyce. The Trail to Tincup: Love Stories at Life's End. (2018). She Writes Press: Berkeley, CA.
Progoff, Ira. At a Journal Workshop. (1975). New York: Dialogue House Library.
