Overcoming Obsessive Images

From: Dr. Frank Gunzburg

Find a time in your day when you will have about a half an hour to complete the following activity. Then locate a quiet, secluded spot where you can relaxed without interruption, and try the following visualization exercises.

Take a few deep breaths, and close your eyes. Slowly calm yourself, and allow your mind to unfold and relax. Allow yourself to unwind. You can use the breathing exercise I described in Section 2 if you wish.

When you are ready, bring the fantasy with which you have been struggling to mind. Take the time to visualize it completely. This could be painful, but facing that pain is your first step to freeing yourself from it.

Take the time to imagine every detail. Put each of the elements of the fantasy in place just the way you have been carrying them around with you all this time. Once you have the image strongly in your mind, I want you to experiment with it in a number of ways.

First, see if you can take the whole scenario that you have imagined and play it backward. Imagine that you can hit a rewind button just like you do on your DVD player and run the entire fantasy in reverse.

How is that for you? Does it change your perspective on the fantasy? If it made any change, even a small one, repeat this exercise five times, with a break between each repetition. Do each repetition faster and faster until it becomes a blur.

Now look at each of the images in the fantasy. See if you can take these various objects and actually change the size and physical space they occupy. Change their shape. Manipulate and move them around in the fantasy.

Once you have done this for a little while, take the entire scene and turn it upside down. If there is a room in the fantasy, imagine that the floor of the room is where the ceiling should be. Imagine that all the people in the fantasy are suspended from the ceiling or perhaps standing on their heads.

If there are auditory elements to your fantasy, or if the fantasy is auditory in nature, try and manipulate the sounds that you hear. Speed up the voices, and then slow them down. Change their pitch and tenor. Change the voices into Donald Duck or Minnie Mouse voices. Make them very loud and then very soft. Play this audio feed backward if you can, as though it were a record being played in reverse.

Once you have done this, see if there are other ways that you can imagine to manipulate and change the way your obsessive image operates. When you are satisfied that you have manipulated the fantasy enough, slowly bring yourself back to the present moment. Open your eyes, and take some deep breaths. Look around the room, and reacquaint yourself with the here and now.

This exercise is designed to help you in several ways. First, it helps you realize that it is your brain which generates these obsessive thoughts. You can take charge of your brain if you want, although at times we all forget that fact. Secondly, it helps you break the rigid pattern your mind has been using to maintain your bad feelings. Once this happens the bad feelings themselves more easily evaporate.

Your mind is your territory. You are in charge of your mind when you take charge of it. The images that have been plaguing you aren’t real. To respond to them as if they are real isn’t necessary. By manipulating the images or thoughts the way we did above, you will be breaking the pattern your unconscious mind is using to haunt you. In effect, you are putting yourself back in charge of your mind.

There is one final note I would like to make before we move on to the next part of this section, and that has to do with compulsions. If you find yourself engaging in specific behaviors in order to reduce your distress; for example, if you are compulsively washing clothes or the furniture, showering more frequently than you are comfortable with, or asking your partner to stay in certain rooms or on certain pieces of furniture, then you are probably engaging in some form of compulsive behavior. Again, keep in mind that I am not using the word “compulsive” here in its diagnostic sense.

If you find yourself compulsively doing things you don’t want to do, you can try waiting a few weeks, or even a month, because the behaviors might disappear on their own. If they don’t, you probably need to seek professional help. Even if you have diagnosable compulsions, if they came on suddenly due to the trauma of the affair, they are most likely treatable. But you will probably need the help of a therapist to accomplish this.

Dr. Frank Gunzburg is a licensed counselor in Maryland and has been specializing is helping couples restore their marriage for over 30 years.

For more information about restoring the trust after an affair, please visit: http://www.surviveanaffair.com