"We are born whole with a genetic self, and history diminishes us." Jaqueline Lapa Sussman - Masterworks

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Uncovering Women's Power
by Kathleen Kiley
The Weston Forum

ELEVEN WOMEN ARE SITTING IN A CIRCLE, their eyes closed, as therapist Jaqueline Lapa Sussman guides them through an eidetic imagery exercise.

"Go back to the home you grew up in", she says, "and picture your mother. Where is she? How does she look? What are you feeling?" Ms Sussman asks.

After several moments of letting images and feelings surface, everyone opens their eyes. Ms. Sussman breaks the silence and asks if anyone would like to share what they have experienced.

After some hesitation, several women volunteer their experiences. Some describe warm mother images, others cold and distant, while others reveal that they could not visualize their mothers.

For the next six hours Ms. Sussman guides the group through additional imagery exercises. The focus of the April 25 workshop was Discovering Personal Images to Empower Women. It is one of many workshops Ms. Sussman conducts at her home in Weston.

A small building set off from the main house has become the center for personal growth and professional training in eidetic imagery, which Ms. Sussman founded six years ago. It is called Masterwork. She is also the director of the Imagery Training Center in New York City, as well as director of research of the National and International Project of the International Imagery Association.

Masterwork

Ms. Sussman uses eidetic imagery to resolve emotional conflicts, and also works with people who have learning disabilities, addictions and allergies.

Ms. Sussman describes an eidetic image as a snapshot of a person's experiences that is filed away in the brain.

"Within the images are our real selves," she says. "We are born whole, with a genetic self, and history diminishes us."

Eidetic imagery unlocks and works with images that can unleash a person's original nature, as well as happiness, passion and creativity, she says.

Ms. Sussman has had a lot of success in working with children that were diagnosed with learning disabilities. "With learning disabilities the mind has shut down due to the person's environment, and we work to restore the child's natural abilities," she says. "For instance, with dyslexia we found there is an intrusion from someone, so a child could not focus or concentrate."

She recalls her colleagues working with one child that was labeled mentally retarded, but as it turned out he was really depressed. Working with this child for about a year in weekly sessions has turned him around, according to Ms. Sussman.

"He is now a leader in his class."

His mother, Jody, a participant in the Saturday workshop, talks about the positive changes she saw in her son after he began working with Ms. Sussman and Dr. Akhter Ahsen, the founder of the imagery therapy. Her son was diagnosed with learning disabilities.

"He was five years old at the time that I took him to see Dr. Ahsen, who worked with him for one hour a week for about a year," Jody says. "They looked at how he learned and how I could communicate to him in a different way. If I see him slipping in school I know there is something going on at home."

Eidetic Therapy

Ms. Sussman has worked and trained with Dr. Ahsen for 16 years. He is a fellow of the American Psychological Association and the editor of the Journal of Mental Imagery. He is also the founder of the International Imagery Association and has written 16 books in the field.

Ms. Sussman met Dr. Ahsen through a friend about 16 years ago, and became very interested in working with him personally and training with him professionally. "I've always been a person that has explored," she says. Before meeting Dr. Ahsen she had been a staff member at the Esalen Institute in the early 1970's which was the center of consciousness psychology at that time, Ms. Sussman explains.

When Dr. Ahsen began his research on eidetic imagery in the early 1950's it was only being studied in the experimental psychology field. Eidetic therapy falls under the realm of consciousness psychology, and is now coming to the forefront, Ms. Sussman says.

Consciousness psychology emerged in the early 1900's, but was overshadowed by the traditonal Freudian psychoanalytical approach, she says. "Freudian theory makes us adapt to society as it is," Ms. Sussman says. There is no adaptation with eidetic therapy, because the answers are within, she adds. Eidetic therapy taps into our true nature or spirit.

A Powerful Tool

"It's powerful, but it's down to earth, and truthful," Jody says. Jody got involved with eidetic therapy through her sister, who had recommended Dr. Ahsen. Prior to working with Dr. Ahsen, she had been in traditional psychotherapy for eight years.

" I went to traditional therapy for about eight years, and I did get in touch with a lot of pain and anger toward my parents, and I understood why, but I never got past the anger," she said
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Entering into eidetic therapy changed the way she thought about her parents. " I began to focus on more positive things, and I became much more forgiving of my parents," she says.

The changes she referred to did not take years, but occurred over intensive two all-day sessions with Dr. Ahsen.

"Dr. Ahsen and Jackie's works get you going, and you don't become dependent on them,"she adds.

Five more women who participated in the workshop who had switched from traditional therapy to eidetic therapy had similar experiences. "It's one thing to go through pain and go through understanding it...and then traditional therapy asks you to accept it and adapt to it," says Mary. (Not her real name.)

Mary has been working with Ms. Sussman on a regular basis for about two years now, and she says the changes she sees in herself are dramatic.

"This is working for me. I see enormous possibilities," she says. " These images are in us, not just a historical record, but what would have been the natural thing to do before the hurt got in the way." Much of the work with images is also done outside the sessions, like homework, Mary says. She can assess an image on her own to work through a situation or confront a problem.

Empowerment of Women

The thrust of Ms. Sussman's work in recent years has revolved around women. She has helped them to rediscover their gifts, potential and power.

"We really need feminine participation in the world...I think that women have gotten out there, but they need to know their unique selves better," Ms. Sussman says.

In the fall she will be teaching women at Hunter College in New Youk City how to empower themselves. She will also be doing research at St. John's University.

Also in the works is a book about women in powerful positions in society. Over the last three years she has interviewed women such as Gloria Steinem; television anchor Carol Jenkins; and Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, a renowned psychologist and therapist on death and dying.

Like these women, Ms. Sussman has a desire to contribute and improve the world she lives in. She will continue to do this by empowering other women, teaching, continuing her research and exploring her own nature.

"There's something happening here," she says. " Maybe the message and effects of the work are getting out there.