Turn a looping worry into a conversation

Take a fantasy or worry that keeps replaying and step into it as yourself, so it can move instead of repeat.

Pourquoi ça marche

Johnson distinguishes active imagination from passive fantasy: in passive fantasy you watch the stream like a film, without taking part or taking a position, so it repeats until it exhausts itself or you. He names worry as a common form of it, with a triumph fantasy and a defeat fantasy taking turns. A recurring fantasy, he writes, marks where energy is concentrated; entering it, speaking with its figures and writing the exchange turns a loop with no resolution into a conflict that can actually be worked through.

Comment faire

1. Notice a worry or fantasy that has been replaying in the back of your mind today.
2. Choose one image, person-figure or scene from it as your starting point.
3. Go into that scene in your imagination as yourself, and ask the worried figure or the threatening one what it is afraid of or what it wants.
4. Write down what is said and what you say back, and stay with that one scene rather than following new fantasies as they flit in.

Données probantes

The passive-fantasy distinction and the advice to "harness" a recurring fantasy as the starting point are set out in Johnson's Inner Work, which reports that this both helps people who cannot get started and reduces the pressure of an overflowing fantasy life. Johnson attributes the core idea to Jung. This is a practitioner account, not a tested intervention for worry. (anecdotal)

No controlled outcome trial of active imagination was found (PubMed search, 2026-10-14); the evidence is clinical writing and case reports from Jungian analysis. Persistent, intense worry that disrupts daily life is better brought to a therapist; this practice is not a substitute for that help.

Sources

• Johnson, R. A. (1986). Inner Work: Using Dreams and Active Imagination for Personal Growth. Harper & Row.
• Jung, C. G. (1997). Jung on Active Imagination (J. Chodorow, Ed.). Princeton University Press.

Erreur fréquente

Simply replaying the worry with more effort. Watching the same scene again is still passive fantasy; the change Johnson describes comes only when you enter it, speak, and take a position.