Visualization Techniques: Guided Imagery You Can Practice

About this tool

Visualization techniques, usually called guided imagery in the research literature, are practices that deliberately construct a sensory experience in the mind: a scene, a movement, a sequence of actions, held with enough detail that the body responds to it. Imagery is not limited to pictures, which is one of the most useful things to know before you start. A well-built scene has sound, temperature, texture, position and often a felt sense of effort. People who describe themselves as bad at visualizing are often strong at one of the other senses and have simply been given the wrong instruction.

The best evidence comes from motor rehearsal. Driskell, Copper and Moran published a meta-analysis of mental practice in 1994 and found a positive overall effect on performance, moderated by the type of task, the length of the practice, and the interval between practicing and performing: the benefit faded as that interval grew. Toth and colleagues replicated the analysis in 2020 with 37 newer studies and found the effect still there and small, around r equals 0.13, again moderated by duration, task type and the kind of imagery used. So imagery is a real supplement to physical practice rather than a replacement, and it needs repeating close to the event to keep working.

The distinction that changes how most people practice is process versus outcome. Pham and Taylor ran a study in 1999 in which students spent the days before a midterm mentally rehearsing either the steps of studying well, the grade they wanted, or both. The process rehearsers started studying earlier, studied more hours and scored better on the exam. Rehearsing the grade did not produce that benefit. Oettingen and Mayer's 2002 work on positive fantasies points the same way, finding that indulging in images of a desired future was associated with less effort and poorer results than thinking that also engaged the obstacles.

That finding is the opposite of what most popular visualization advice says, so it is worth stating plainly. Picturing yourself holding the trophy, getting the offer or receiving the applause tends to deliver a small advance payment of the feeling, and spends some of the motivation you needed. Rehearsing the specific actions, in order, including the awkward parts, does not feel as good and works better. If you want the picture of success in your practice at all, pair it with the obstacle and the response, which is the structure the worksheet below uses.

Guided imagery is also used clinically for symptom relief rather than performance. Giacobbi and colleagues reviewed seven randomized trials of guided imagery in adults with arthritis and other rheumatic conditions in 2015, looking at pain, function, anxiety, depression and quality of life, and all but one of the trials reported significant improvements on the outcomes they measured. Seven small trials is a thin base, and the imagery was delivered differently in each. Imagery is a routine component of relaxation and pain management protocols, often combined with slow breathing or muscle relaxation, which makes it hard to separate the contribution of the imagery itself from the rest of the package.

Imagery has a particularly direct line to emotion. Holmes and Mathews reviewed this in 2005 and concluded that imagining an event tends to produce stronger emotional responses than thinking about the same event in words. That is why imagery is powerful in both directions. Pleasant scenes settle the body more effectively than verbal reassurance, and distressing images are more upsetting than distressing sentences. It is also why anyone with intrusive imagery or trauma memories should approach imagery practice carefully and ideally with a therapist, since a practice session can open material you were not planning to work on.

Four techniques cover most of what people are looking for. Calming imagery builds a specific restful scene and stays in it; the full script lives at Safe Place Imagery Script. Process rehearsal walks through an upcoming task action by action, in real time, from inside your own body. Coping rehearsal does the same but deliberately includes the thing going wrong and your response to it, which is what makes it useful for performance anxiety. And motivational imagery, best represented by the exercise at Best Possible Self Exercise, writes a detailed future in order to clarify what you actually want, not to summon it.

Two practical choices shape the quality of a session. The first is viewpoint: internal imagery, seen from behind your own eyes, suits rehearsing an action, while external imagery, watching yourself from outside, suits reviewing form or getting distance from a distressing scene. The second is timing: rehearse in real time rather than fast-forwarding, because the compressed version skips exactly the transitions that trip people up. Keep sessions to five or ten minutes. Imagery fades into daydreaming quickly, and a daydream does not rehearse anything.

If you cannot produce voluntary mental images at all, you may have aphantasia, which Zeman and colleagues described in 2015. It is a variation in experience rather than a disorder, and estimates put it at a small percentage of people. The practices on this page still work with an adjustment: rehearse in words, describing the sequence of actions in order, or rehearse through the non-visual senses, especially the felt sense of movement and position, which many people with aphantasia retain. Aphantasia Test is a self-assessment you can use to reflect on how your own imagery works.

Imagery is a skill with limits worth naming. It does not substitute for the physical practice, the preparation or the conversation you are rehearsing. It does not make outcomes more likely by itself, and no reputable study supports the idea that mental pictures attract events. For distress, it is a coping and relaxation technique rather than a treatment. If imagery consistently takes you somewhere upsetting, if intrusive images arrive uninvited, or if anxiety is interfering with your work or sleep most days, a licensed therapist can work with imagery properly, including the trauma-focused approaches that use it deliberately and safely.

Reviewed by Michael Callans, MSW
Checked that the page states the process-over-outcome finding accurately and flags imagery as a coping technique rather than a treatment, including the caution for intrusive imagery.

References

1. Driskell JE, Copper C, Moran A. Does mental practice enhance performance? Journal of Applied Psychology. 1994;79(4):481-492.
2. Pham LB, Taylor SE. From thought to action: effects of process- versus outcome-based mental simulations on performance. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. 1999;25(2):250-260.
3. Oettingen G, Mayer D. The motivating function of thinking about the future: expectations versus fantasies. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 2002;83(5):1198-1212.
4. Giacobbi PR, Stabler ME, Stewart J, Jaeschke AM, Siebert JL, Kelley GA. Guided imagery for arthritis and other rheumatic diseases: a systematic review of randomized controlled trials. Pain Management Nursing. 2015;16(5):792-803.
5. Holmes EA, Mathews A. Mental imagery and emotion: a special relationship? Emotion. 2005;5(4):489-497.
6. Zeman A, Dewar M, Della Sala S. Lives without imagery: congenital aphantasia. Cortex. 2015;73:378-380.
7. Toth AJ, McNeill E, Hayes K, Moran AP, Campbell M. Does mental practice still enhance performance? A 24 year follow-up and meta-analytic replication and extension. Psychology of Sport and Exercise. 2020;48:101672. doi:10.1016/j.psychsport.2020.101672

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