Guided Imagery in Spiritual Direction: Recovering a Creative, Ancient Practice

Across religious and psychological traditions, images have long been recognized as carriers of truth, insight, and transformation. Yet in much contemporary spiritual accompaniment the imaginal dimension—once central to Christian prayer and discernment—has often been sidelined or treated with caution. A rediscovery of guided imagery opens a creative and deeply rooted way of engaging the soul, a way that resonates with the ancient Christian imagination as well as with modern depth psychology.

In this article I explore the creative possibility of guided imagery in spiritual direction, a process I have found deeply beneficial in my own work. I trace its lineage through the Ignatian tradition, the Desert Fathers and Mothers, and the contemporary insights of Carl Jung and Elizabeth-Anne Vanek. Rather than a technique, I seek to present guided imagery as a way of honoring the psyche (the soul's) natural language—its images—and inviting these images into the spiritual journey.

The Soul Speaks in Images

“Image is psyche,” James Hillman, a well-respected Jungian writer, famously wrote. The deepest movements of the heart are often not conceptual or propositional but imaginal: dreams, symbols, spontaneous inner scenes, and mythic motifs. For James Hillman, these images are not merely representations of something else; they are the psyche speaking in its native tongue. To attend to images is to attend to soul.

Carl Jung similarly saw images—whether from dreams, active imagination, or spontaneous visualization—as the primary medium through which the unconscious communicates with consciousness. For Jung, the psyche is an imaginal ecology in which figures, landscapes, and symbolic intensities hold meaning, energy, and guidance.

When viewed through this psychological lens, guided imagery becomes not an artificial imposition but a midwifing of what the soul already knows how to do. It becomes a way of inviting images to surface, to unfold, to speak of their desire and direction. And when placed within a spiritual frame, these images become part of the larger conversation between the soul and the Sacred.

A Deeply Christian Lineage: Ignatian Imaginative Prayer

Long before Jung or Hillman, Christian spiritual directors were already engaging the imaginal life with sophistication. Nowhere is this clearer than in the Ignatian tradition, where imaginative contemplation is central to the Spiritual Exercises.

Ignatius of Loyola understood that the imagination—far from being a distraction—could become a portal into intimate encounter with God. Retreatants are invited to enter Gospel scenes with all five senses, to speak with Jesus as one friend speaks to another, and to allow feelings, images, and movements to emerge naturally.

This is guided imagery in its most sacred form:

• an image-based encounter

• grounded in relationship

• oriented toward discernment and freedom

  
  

Ignatius provides perhaps the clearest historical precedent for using guided imagery within spiritual direction. The director is not manipulating images but helping the retreatant notice and trust where the Spirit may be moving through the imaginal field.

The Christian tradition, then, already understands that God can speak through images; guided imagery simply extends that affirmation into contemporary practice.

Desert Wisdom: Early Monastics and the Imaginal Landscape

If the Ignatian tradition gives us a formal and theologically articulated practice, the Desert Fathers and Mothers offer an earlier, more archetypal example of working with inner imagery.

Their writings are full of encounters with inner images - hostile figures, seductive voices, oppressive shapes, and sometimes even luminous presences. While couched in the language of spiritual conflict, many scholars note that these descriptions can be read phenomenologically: the early monastics were wrestling with inner images arising from the depths of their solitude, austerity, and prayer, which we understand today opens us to the depths of the unconscious realm.

These images were taken seriously, engaged dialogically, tested, and interpreted. They were not dismissed as mere fantasy but seen as personal and spiritual realities—the imaginal life revealing its depths.

Though the idiom differs, the practice is resonant with both Jungian active imagination and guided imagery in spiritual direction: a willingness to encounter inner figures, discern their meaning, and learn from them. And, guided imagery today stands in continuity with this ancient monastic engagement with the imaginal landscape of the soul.

Elizabeth-Anne Vanek: A Contemporary Spiritual-Director’s Voice

Among modern practitioners, Elizabeth-Anne Vanek (1969-2018) is one of the few who have explicitly championed guided imagery as a natural and fruitful tool for spiritual direction. Her work, Image Guidance, argues that spiritual directors can safely and creatively accompany directees into their inner imagery—whether arising from prayer, memory, or spontaneous visualization.

She emphasizes that images often speak more directly to spiritual experiences than abstract theological language. An image may reveal longing, resistance, desire for healing, or an invitation from God before the directee can articulate any of it.

And, she treats imaginal work not as a psychological technique but as a form of contemplative listening, a way of receiving the inner movements of grace. Her voice is important precisely because this practice has diminished in contemporary direction, despite its rich lineage.

Jung and Hillman: Imaginal Depths as Spiritual Terrain

While Ignatius offers the Christian grounding, Carl Jung and James Hillman help expand our understanding of how and why imagery carries spiritual potency.

Jung’s contributions help us see that:

• imaginal figures have autonomy and inner life

• images contain both personal and archetypal meaning

• engaging an image can foster integration, healing, and transformation

  
  

Hillman deepens this by insisting:

• images should be treated poetically rather than reduced to concepts

• the imaginal field is the natural habitat of the soul

• the goal is not to interpret images away but to dwell in them

  
  

Together, they remind us that guided imagery is not merely a tool but a way of honoring the imaginal nature of human experience—including spiritual experience.

Guided Imagery as a Creative Reopening in Spiritual Direction

Bringing these threads together, guided imagery can be seen as:

• Creatively natural: aligned with how the psyche already moves

• Deeply traditional: present in Ignatian prayer and desert spirituality

• Psychologically robust: supported by Jungian and post-Jungian understandings

• Spiritually fruitful: as demonstrated by Vanek’s work

  
  

At its best, guided imagery invites the directee to meet their own soul in a language older than words. It encourages spiritual directors to trust the images that arise—images of consolation, conflict, grace, fear, calling, and transformation.

We might say that guided imagery helps open the “inner chapel” where the divine and the human meet through symbol, presence, and imagination.

Reclaiming the Imaginal Path

Guided imagery need not be viewed as exotic, psychological, or alternative. It is a native capacity of the human spirit, richly affirmed in Christian tradition and reinvigorated by modern depth psychology. When spiritual directors engage the imaginal life with creativity and reverence, they recover a practice with ancient roots and contemporary relevance.

In an age hungry for soulful depth, this gentle yet powerful approach may help spiritual accompaniment reclaim its imaginative heart.

In future articles, I plan to present some of the image guidance I have created in my spiritual direction practice, along with real-life examples, to support fellow spiritual directors in their work and show how spiritual direction-accompaniment can fruitfully tend both spirit and soul.