Recommendations & References
Resources
For those who want to go deeper — original sources as books and carefully chosen courses on imagery methods, imagination, the nervous system, and the body’s knowledge. All of them are rooted in years of clinical and therapeutic work. Some are grounded in rigorous science. Some reach further than science goes. All of them are worth the time.
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Follow what draws you
01 Active Imagination & Imagery in Depth Psychology
02 Inner Parts & the Voices Within
03 Regulation of Trauma, the Somatic Body & Nervous System
04 Breathwork & Non-Ordinary States
05 Achievement Performance & Manifesting
06 Spirituality, Inner Knowing & Imagination
07 Different forms of Healing Imagery
Active Imagination & Imagery in Depth Psychology
Jung’s method begins where analysis ends — in the living encounter with what the unconscious actually produces. These are the books that map that territory: the figures, the shadow, the symbols that arrive uninvited and refuse to be explained away.
Courses
— Online Course — PESI
Imagery Rehearsal Therapy for Trauma
A focused, evidence-based approach to chronic nightmares and sleep disruption in trauma — working directly with the dream image through imagination. One of the few methods that uses imagery itself as the therapeutic tool rather than just a support. Sits naturally alongside Jungian dreamwork and active imagination in its understanding of what the image actually does.
Certificate course
Jungian Active Imagination & Depth Psychology
Robert A. Johnson
Inner Work
The most practical introduction to active imagination available. Johnson strips the method down to something anyone can actually do — without losing the depth.
Marie-Louise von Franz
Dreams
Active imagination runs through everything von Franz wrote. This is one of the most accessible entry points into her work.
C.G. Jung
The Red Book
Not a how-to. The living example. Jung’s own active imagination practice, documented over years. Read it slowly, or just look at the images.
Barbara Hannah
Encounters with the Soul
A quieter, more intimate book. Hannah shows how active imagination arises naturally in the therapeutic relationship — and how to meet it when it does.
Eligio Stephen Gallegos
The Personal Totem Pole Process
A somatic and imaginal approach to the chakras through animal imagery. Each energy centre holds its own inner figure — and each can speak.
Joan Chodorow
Jung on Active Imagination
For those who want to go to the source. Chodorow has gathered Jung’s own writings on the method into one place. The most academically grounded entry point.
James Hillman
Re-Visioning Psychology
Not active imagination exactly — but the same territory from a different angle. Hillman asks what it means to take the psyche’s images seriously on their own terms.
C.G. Jung
The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious
The core theoretical text on archetypes, the collective unconscious and how the psyche organizes itself through symbols and images.
C.G. Jung
Memories, Dreams, Reflections
The closest thing to an autobiography Jung ever wrote. The best starting point for understanding the man behind the theory — and how his own inner life shaped everything he built.
Marie-Louise von Franz
Projection and Re-Collection in Jungian Psychology
One of her clearest books. Maps how we project unconscious content onto others — and how to reclaim it. Quietly transformative.
Marie-Louise von Franz
Psychotherapy
Transcribed lectures, which means it reads like she is speaking directly to you. One of the best introductions to Jungian clinical thinking.
Robert A. Johnson
He, She, We
Three short, elegant books on masculine and feminine psychology in the Jungian tradition. Johnson has a rare gift for making depth psychology feel immediately personal.
Edward Edinger
Ego and Archetype
The relationship between the personal ego and the deeper archetypal layer of the psyche. Dense but enormously rewarding. A book people return to for years.
James Hollis
The Middle Passage
On the psychological crisis of midlife — when the life we built no longer fits who we are becoming. Hollis writes Jungian psychology with unusual clarity and warmth.
James Hollis
What Matters Most
Broader than The Middle Passage. A meditation on living a meaningful life guided by the deeper self rather than the ego’s agendas.
Thomas Moore
Care of the Soul
Not strictly Jungian but deeply rooted in the same tradition. Moore argues for tending the soul’s needs — beauty, depth, darkness — rather than fixing or optimizing the self. One of the most quietly influential books in this territory.
Inner Parts & the Voices Within
The mind is not singular. These resources work with that reality — not to silence the conflicting voices, but to meet them, understand what they protect, and find the larger self that can hold them all.
Courses
— Online Course — PESI
The Complete IFS Therapy Competency Course
A start-to-finish instructional series in Internal Family Systems therapy — from understanding parts to working with Self-leadership across complex presentations. Built for clinicians who want IFS to become a genuine clinical language rather than a technique.
Certificate course
— Online Course — PESI
Traumatic Memory Processing Workshop
Over twenty clinical techniques for reaching traumatic memory that resists conventional talk therapy — including Brainspotting, EMDR, and Internal Family Systems. The IFS component brings parts work and inner dialogue directly into trauma processing, making this a natural bridge between somatic trauma work and the deeper conversation with what lives beneath the surface. For therapists working with what has been difficult to reach through words alone.
Certificate course
Books
Richard Schwartz
No Bad Parts
The most accessible introduction to IFS. Written for general readers, not therapists. The one people actually finish and recommend to others.
Richard Schwartz
Introduction to the Internal Family Systems Model
More technical and structured. For those who want to understand the model in depth.
Jay Earley
Self-Therapy
A practical guide to doing IFS work on your own. Widely loved for making the method genuinely usable without a therapist.
Richard Schwartz & Patrick Walder
You Are the One You’ve Been Waiting For
IFS applied specifically to relationships and how our parts show up with the people closest to us.
Susan McConnell
Somatic Internal Family Systems Therapy
The bridge between IFS and somatic work. McConnell shows how the body’s sensations, movements and gestures carry parts — and how to work with them directly.
Imagination in Somatic Trauma Healing & Nervous System Regulation
The body remembers what the mind has not yet found words for. These resources work at the intersection of physiology and imagination — where traumatic memory is stored in sensation, where the nervous system learns safety through experience rather than explanation, and where healing happens not through understanding alone but through something that shifts in the tissue, the breath, the image. Science and somatic practice meet here, alongside the imaginal methods that reach what neither can reach alone.
Courses
— Online Course — PESI
Somatic Trauma Healing Step-by-Step
With Abi Blakeslee. A body-centered approach to trauma for therapists and practitioners — working step by step with what the nervous system holds and how to help it release
Certificate course
— Online Course — PESI
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) Intensive Online Course
A thorough grounding in ACT — the approach that works not by eliminating difficult thoughts and feelings, but by changing your relationship to them. Particularly effective for anxiety, trauma, and the kind of emotional rigidity that keeps people circling the same ground. Evidence-based, practical, and deeply respectful of what the inner life actually is.
Certificate course
— Online Course — PESI
The Hakomi Method to Somatic Healing: Complete mind-body trauma transformation
Hakomi works beneath the surface — tracking the body, the nervous system, and the subtle cues that reveal what words alone cannot. This certificate training guides you step by step through the method, from deep listening and precise tracking to helping clients access their own innate capacity for change. Foundational concepts of mindfulness, body tracking, and recognizing core beliefs are ones that change how any practitioner relates to their own inner experience as well.
Certificate course
Books
Bessel van der Kolk
The Body Keeps the Score
The book that brought trauma into mainstream conversation. Dense, research-based, and still the most comprehensive single volume on how trauma reshapes body and mind.
Gabor Maté
The Myth of Normal
Trauma, illness and healing in a culture that produces both. Maté is a rare writer — rigorous and deeply humane at the same time.
Gabor Maté
When the Body Says No
The connection between suppressed emotion and physical illness. One of those books that changes how you read your own body.
Peter Levine
Trauma and Memory
How traumatic memory differs from ordinary memory — and what that means for healing. Bridges neuroscience and somatic practice.
Peter Levine
In an Unspoken Voice
The foundational text on how trauma lives in the body and how the nervous system finds its way back to safety. Somatic experiencing at its clearest.
Deb Dana
Anchored
Written for general readers. The most accessible entry point into polyvagal theory and what it means for everyday life and relationships.
Deb Dana
The Polyvagal Theory in Therapy
Polyvagal theory made practical. Dana translates Stephen Porges’ neuroscience into something a therapist — or anyone doing inner work — can actually use.
Stephen Porges
The Polyvagal Theory
The original academic text. Dense but worth it for those who want the science behind the nervous system’s three states.
Thomas Hanna
Somatics
An older, quieter book that maps the body’s intelligence with unusual precision. Underread and worth discovering.
Breathwork & Non-ordinary states
Breath is the one autonomic function that can also be consciously directed. In that threshold between automatic and intentional, between ordinary and non-ordinary states, imagination deepens into something that ordinary waking life rarely reaches.
Courses & Practice
Courses & Audio
Soma Breath — 21 Day Awakening Journey
A structured introduction to conscious breathwork rooted in pranayama and neuroscience. Twenty-one days of guided practice working with the nervous system, inner imagery and expanded states.
Breath app
App Soma Breath App
Daily breathwork sessions for nervous system regulation and inner practice. A consistent practice without committing to a full course first.
Professional Training Soma Breath
Instructor Certification
For therapists and coaches who want to integrate breathwork into their practice. Rooted in both the science and the lived experience of conscious breathing.
Books
Stanislav Grof & Christina Grof
Holotropic Breathwork
The foundational text on holotropic breathwork — the method Grof developed after LSD research was shut down. Consciousness, the psyche and non-ordinary states through breath alone.
Stanislav Grof
The Adventure of Self-Discovery
Broader than breathwork alone but maps the territory holotropic states open up. Essential for understanding what breathwork can actually reach.
James Nestor
Breath
The best general introduction to the science of breathing. Nestor spent years researching how modern humans breathe wrong — and what it costs us. Accessible, well-researched, and genuinely surprising.
Dan Brulé
Just Breathe
A practical, accessible guide to conscious breathing from one of the most experienced breathwork teachers working today. Less clinical than Nestor, more practice-oriented.
Richard Staudacher
The Healing Power of the Breath
Quieter and more meditative than the others. Focuses on breath as a tool for nervous system regulation and inner listening.
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Achievement, Performance & Manifesting
Imagination is not only a path inward — it is also how the mind rehearses what does not yet exist. These resources work with the brain’s capacity to simulate future states, build neural readiness, and close the gap between where you are and where you are moving. From peak performance to the quieter work of clarifying what you actually want — this is imagination in its most forward-facing form. And at the edge of what science can measure, manifesting asks whether inner states do more than prepare us — whether they actively shape what we draw into our lives.
Books
Gabriele Oettingen
Rethinking Positive Thinking
The research that dismantles received wisdom about positive thinking and offers something more useful in its place. Oettingen shows why imagining success alone often backfires — and what actually works instead.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Legendary psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s famous investigations of “optimal experience” have revealed that what makes an experience genuinely satisfying is a state of consciousness called flow.
Carol Dweck
World-renowned Stanford University psychologist Carol Dweck, in decades of research on achievement and success, has discovered a truly groundbreaking idea-the power of our mindset.
Maxwell Maltz
Maltz was the first researcher and author to explain how the self-image has complete control over an individual’s ability to achieve (or fail to achieve) any goal. And he developed techniques for improving and managing that self-image—visualization, mental rehearsal, relaxation
Timothy Gallwey
“A Zen classic” (The Washington Post) about achieving the state of “relaxed concentration” that’s not only the key to peak performance in tennis but the secret to success in life itself”
Joseph Murphy
A classic from 1963: “With its clear, accessible approach, Murphy distills decades of psychological and spiritual wisdom into practical techniques that empower you to harness the incredible force within your mind.”
Neville Goddard
“Change your conception of yourself and you will automatically change the world in which you live. Do not try to change people; they are only messengers telling you who you are. Revalue yourself and they will confirm the change.”
Neville Goddard
“This is the definitive practitioner’s edition—Neville Goddard’s most powerful teachings carefully curated, thoughtfully modernized, and woven into a structured daily practice you can begin immediately.”
Gay Hendricks
“Gay Hendricks demonstrates how to conquer your hidden Upper Limit Problem, go beyond your internal limits, release outdated fears and learn a whole new set of powerful skills and habits to liberate your authentic greatness. ”
Spirituality, Inner Knowing & Imagination
Long before psychology named what it was doing, spiritual traditions were already working with imagination — as a faculty for perceiving what cannot be seen with the eyes, for receiving guidance, for crossing the threshold between the visible and the invisible. These resources take that seriously. Not as metaphor, not as projection, but as a genuine mode of knowing.
Books
Thomas Moore
“In Care of the Soul, readers are presented with a revolutionary approach to thinking about daily life—everyday activities, events, problems, and creative opportunities—and a therapeutic lifestyle is proposed that focuses on looking more deeply into emotional problems and learning how to sense sacredness in ordinary things.”
Richard Rohr
“Drawn from the Gospels, Jesus, Paul, and the great Christian contemplatives, this examination reveals how many of the hidden truths of Christianity have been misunderstood or lost and how to read them with the eyes of the mystics rather than interpreting them through rational thought. “
Sandra Ingerman
Sandra Ingerman explores how trauma, loss, and emotional wounding can leave us feeling fragmented and disconnected from ourselves. Drawing on the shamanic tradition of soul retrieval, she presents a perspective on healing that combines imagination, symbolism, and the restoration of inner wholeness.
Sandra Ingerman
“With Awakening to the Spirit World, teachers Sandra Ingerman and Hank Wesselman bring together a circle of renowned Western shamanic elders to present a comprehensive manual for making these practices accessible and available in our daily lives.”
Iain McGilchrist
Blending neuroscience, philosophy, and cultural history, Iain McGilchrist explores how different modes of attention shape perception, meaning, and human experience. A landmark work for anyone interested in consciousness, imagination, cognition, and the ways we construct reality.
William James
William James explored some of humanity’s most enduring questions: What is consciousness? Why do beliefs matter? How do religious and mystical experiences shape our lives? This collection gathers his most influential works and offers a rich introduction to one of the most original thinkers of the modern era.
Evelyn Underhill
First published in 1911, Evelyn Underhill’s Mysticism is one of the most influential studies of mystical experience ever written. Drawing on examples from different spiritual traditions, Underhill explores the nature of the mystical path, the stages of inner transformation, and the relationship between human consciousness and the transcendent.
Joan Halifax
Joan Halifax explores how qualities such as empathy, compassion, integrity, and engagement can become both sources of strength and sources of suffering. Drawing on decades of work in contemplative practice, psychology, neuroscience, and humanitarian service, she examines how we can meet life’s challenges with greater wisdom and resilience.
Healing Imagery
Some healing does not come from within — it comes through. These resources work with imagination as a receptive faculty: a way of opening to experiences that feel greater than the ordinary self. Whether interpreted as divine presence, spiritual guidance, sacred relationship, or the intelligence perceived in nature, what these traditions share is a willingness to engage with mystery—not as an idea to explain, but as an experience to meet.
Books
Martin L. Rossman
Guided Imagery for Self-Healing
“Using methods he has taught to thousands of patients and health-care professionals since 1972, Dr. Rossman teaches a step-by-step method of harnessing the power of the mind to further one’s own physical healing.”
Michael Samuels
In this practical guide, physician Michael Samuels explores the use of guided imagery as a tool for healing and personal growth. Drawing on decades of clinical experience, he presents exercises and techniques designed to engage the imagination in ways that support physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being.
Barbara Brennan
The research that dismantles received wisdom about positive thinking and offers something more useful in its place. Oettingen shows why imagining success alone often backfires — and what actually works instead.
Stephen Levine
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