A Study of Attempts to Use Collage in the Naikan Process：The Effects of Combining Words and Images

Abstract

  Collage therapy is an arts therapy developed in 1987 on the conceptual model of the “portable miniature garden.” Works of collage facilitate representations of the world of the unconscious that cannot be expressed in language and canthus arrive at significant insights and to effect self−transformation. As a technique for representing the non-verbal unconscious, combining the processes of Intensive Naikan and collage therapy enriches both methods and may possibly enhance psychological changes that occur within the Naikan process. In addition, relationships that have involved the introduction of collage to the Naikan process remainunkown. To that end, to study her own Naikan experience using an introspection method（naisei）, the author has created collages after undergoing Naikanaiming to discover whether the combination of collage with the Naikan process promotes the earlier appearance of psychological changes in Naikan, which would allow the performance of a more effective Naikan. The Naikan methodology involved using factual reality to examine three items and report these as “words”；whereas for collage, it involved reflecting on the results of a day of Naikan, and then creating and reporting the images and thoughts elicited from within the self, using the magazine-picture method. Subsequently, psychological changes began to appear on the third day of collage production. The target of the changes was her husband；first, the internal reflection led to an opening of the deep psyche and then the collage production brought out an expression of internal changes. By combining words and images within the Naikan process, the psychological changes of the Naikan analysand were represented in real time, and reflection showed a tendency to become deeper and more specific. These findings were confirmed against other indicators, such as the values assessed on the CISS subscale represented in the analysand’s collages. They provide a clue that could lead to an effective method for future Naikan. While this occasion discussed the result of a single case only, it is hoped that this discussion will deepen in juxtaposition with other cases in future.