Guided fantasy

A process in which individuals, often in therapy, use their imagination to create a new experience for themselves. The purpose is to create an experience which, at least in part if not in its entirety, has not previously been encountered. Guided fantasy is therefore most appropriately used when an individual's representation of his environment is too impoverished to offer an adequate number of choices for coping with that environment. At the same time it provides the therapist with an experience which can be used to challenge the individual's presently impoverished model of reality. Guided fantasy also serves to create a reference structure in terms of which the individual can be encouraged to order his experience. Guided fantasies often take the form of metaphors, rather than a direct representation of the problem with which the individual claims to be faced.

This is a method of facilitating concentration and directing attention. Directed fantasy sessions are useful for learning specific content, while open-ended fantasies evoke creativity and aid self-discovery.

Most of the education in modern society emphasizes verbal knowledge and reasoning and is considered to be primarily a function of the left-hand hemisphere of the brain which is predominantly sequential and analytic in its processing of clearly defined symbols. The right hemisphere is spatially oriented, however, and functions in terms of pictures, perceives patterns as a whole, and operates in an intuitive, emotional, and receptive mode. Guided fantasy offers the possibility of engaging the right half of the brain in the learning process. For example, in guided imagery, members of the group are guided, by suggestion, to visualize or fantasize pictures as an aid to developing their imagination.