Author says flipping through memory’s “film clips” helps develop
positive self-image
By Teresa Gubbins
Dallas Morning News, June 2001

IT IS, PERHAPS, A LOT TO ASK of someone you don't know: "Let's walk" 10 blocks from the hotel to a restaurant in the West End where we'll have lunch, rather than the more convenient, more typical, "I'll pick you up outside and drive you there."

But Jaqueline Lapa Sussman, a psychotherapist who is here to talk about her book, Images of Desire: Finding Your Natural Sensual Self in Today's Image-Filled Society (Forge Books; $23.95), responds to the request agreeably. In her slacks and comfortable shoes, she is beautiful but not frou-frou. A small walk is not out of the question. And so we are off.

Nobody expects crime novels to be written by murderers; and yet it is hard to resist the urge to scrutinize someone who has written a book about finding one's sensual self, and not seek out that essence of desirability. It is something so many of us want; what does she know?

The answers aren't simple. Dang. It's not like a cologne that you can spray on and become sensual. You have to work on yourself. You have to think.

She talks about a process called eidetic imagery, in which you go back through the "film clips" you've accumulated and analyze how they've affected your self-image. It can help you gain insight about people. It can bring healing energies to the body. It can change negative emotions into positive ones. It can give you a different perspective on the world.

Ms. Sussman developed techniques in her role as a director of an organization called the International Imagery Association.

At lunch, she quickly tries one out.

"Picture your home, where you grew up," she says, and suddenly her voice sounds soothing. "Picture yourself there - where are you?"

This feels a little silly, in the bustling dining room at YO Ranch, but pouf - a snapshot emerges: watching cartoons on Saturday morning.

"Is it a comfortable picture?" she asks. "A comfortable home, where there are good feelings with your parents, leads to a feeling of comfort you carry throughout your life."

Does some of this seem obvious? Yes, maybe. But actually going through the imagery process somehow seems to evoke a clearer sense of how your childhood situation and relationship with your parents affects you as an adult.

Get in touch with your inner sexuality, she says, by examining how you relate to your parents (yuck!). For example, do you imitate them or react against them? Or maybe there was an inevitable episode - "playing doctor" is a common example - when you were chastised, and that still affects you today.

Ms. Sussman considers her mentor to be Dr. Akhter Ahsen, an author and eidetic imagery leading theoretician with whom she has worked for years. The market for a book about their techniques seemed ripe, so she took on the task.

She also has a counseling practice in Connecticut, a fact that becomes evident as the lunch hour swims by. She has an aura of peace that exerts a calming effect. How else to explain the fact that you've lowered your voice a bit, or that you're not screaming at the server for forgetting the sliced lemons for your water? Is it possible you walk away feeling just a bit more sensual?

She admits that, in our sex-saturated world where images of young-and-pretty flood the media, her inner-you approach is a whisper, not a scream. But she is determined to share what she knows, because she believes it is a good thing.

"You have to be a voice," she says. "You have to get the idea out there."