The Imagination Gone Awry

Based on an incisive comment from a reader of this blog regarding the role of the imagination in anxiety, I think it could be worthwhile to turn our attention from the issue of fear to that of the imagination and its role in mental health, sin, the spiritual life, and one’s daily life.  Imagination has its bright and its dark sides in all these areas and is a topic so immense that it will no doubt require a number of blog posts in order merely to touch on these themes. Technology, inventions, works of art, works of literature, and quality research all involve a healthy use of the imagination that envisions more than what the eye can immediately see and the ear can hear. And yet, clinicians often see imagination gone awry. In anxiety disorders, the imagination is ubiquitous. In agoraphobia, people imagine they will have a panic attack in public without being able to escape; with phobias, they imagine the phobic stimulus (a barking dog or a snake) will attack them; with social phobias, they imagine being embarrassed in a social situation (like public speaking); with generalized anxiety disorder, they imagine a number of possible catastrophes that could take place daily engaging in excessive worrying. Outside of anxiety disorders, the imagination is also overactive in hypochondriasis in which one imagines that normal aches and pains represent a serious illness, in body dysmorphic disorder in which one imagines that one’s appearance is far worst than it is. Then, there are the personality disorders in which the paranoid imagine that everyone’s motives are malevolent and the narcissistic imagine that everyone should admire them. And, we’ve yet to touch schizophrenia in which the imagination takes on a life of its own in florid delusions and hallucinations. For the contemporary psychologist, the imagination is clearly a weak point in the human psyche.

The ancient fathers would agree, but they would base themselves not only on what they observe in others and in themselves, but also on the truths about anthropology that they garner from revelation in general and their understanding of the Fall in particular. As is pointed out in Ancient Christian Wisdom, they understood that “although the divine image was not erased by the Fall, it was darkened, thereby permitting human reason to grow indolent and lose its ability to clearly see the things of God. Instead of being directed toward the Giver of Light, human reason turned with blind selfishness toward creation and fell under the shadowy influence of the imagination that encouraged all manner of illusion, prejudice, superstition, and idolatry to grow freely.”  This is precisely why the fathers are unanimous in rejecting imagination in the especially sublime efforts to communicate with God in prayer, although they would permit it in practical efforts to live virtuously.  Saint Silouan the Athonite gives this notion a modern expression as Archimandrite Sophrony’s commentary on the Saint’s teaching relates:  “Finally, consider the play of the imagination when the intellect attempts to penetrate the mystery of being and apprehend the Divine world.  Such endeavors inevitably involve the imagination, to which many are inclined to give the high-flown label, divine inspiration.  The ascetic, devoting himself to active inner silence and pure prayer, resolutely combats this ‘creative’ impulse within himself because he sees in it a process contrary to the true order of being, with man ‘creating’ God in his own image and likeness.” In other words, using the imagination in prayer not only prevents us from coming into contact with God, but also makes us to come in contact with an idol of our own making and that idol is a part of us, so what is ultimately being worshiped is self. The imagination was not only responsible for the fashioning of idols in ancient times, it continues to do so today.  In spite of the patristic admonition to the contrary, the so-called Western mystics after the Schism, such as Teresa of Avila and Ignatius Loyola, have actively used the imagination in meditation and provided methods for developing the imagination in prayer. Unfortunately, when the imagination is dominant, the nous is weakened and dominated by the activity of the reason arranging the products of the imagination.

Even Sigmund Freud seemed to recognize the limitations of human reason and imagination when he answered a question posed to him concerning whether he cured people of their ailments.  Freud’s response was a clear no.  Rather, in Freud’s view, what he was able to accomplish is free his patients from the fake problems or fantasies so they could then confront the real problems of human existence.  The cognitive model is also not inconsistent with “what Christians see in the results of the Fall and a state of sin: namely, prideful selfishness, a swollen imagination, and a fear of death and corruption that warps human judgment.”  While cognitive therapists may not hold the same views as Christian thinkers concerning the Fall, they do generally recognize the after effects of what Christians ascribe to the Fall.

In Ancient Christian Wisdom, I note the role imagination plays in ordinary instances of cognitive dysfunction.  “In an insightful paragraph akin to certain passages in Beck’s Prisoners of Hate, the Christian version of the Encheiridion reads: ‘Remember that it is not the person who insults you, speaks badly of you, or hits you, but it is your idea that he supposedly curses you. When someone makes you angry, know that your own idea made you angry. For this reason, try not to be dominated by the imagination, because if you gain a little time and delay, you will easily keep yourself in check.’ This passage contains several instructive observations about cognitive processes. First, anger is provoked by our interpretation of someone else’s behavior as unpleasant rather than by the behavior in itself. Second, the seemingly combative person and our mental image of that person are not the same. Third, when our imagination embellishes our interpretation, the offense seems far worse than it in fact is and this exaggerated interpretation incites us to react. Fourth, if we fight against the tendency to elaborate on the initial image and refrain from reacting to it, we can reacquire our self-composure.”

If the imagination is capable of wrecking such havoc in relations among mortals, how much more so in a mortal’s attempt to grasp the Immortal?  Archimandrite Sophrony explains the proper response of the mortal to the Immortal in these words, “hesychastic prayer is neither artistic creation nor scientific investigation; neither philosophical research and speculation nor abstract intellectual theology.  The spiritual life does not mean satisfying our emotional desires, as do the arts, for instance.  All these activities, some noble, some less so, relate to the sphere of the imagination which must be overcome if one is to attain to perfect prayer, true theology and a life verily pleasing to God.”

This is not to say the imagination and rational discursive thought have no place in human life, for they certainly do. But the use must be constructive and within certain limits. Psychologists delineate many unhealthy uses of the imagination, in which behavior is guided by the misguided imagination, rather than a realistic understanding of various situations. There are many instances in which imagination is not the best tool, and in one case, it is actually the worst, and that is the practice of genuine prayer.