Joining in imaginary worlds

I was curious about the story linked to below, which talks about how to join a child’s imaginary world in order to relieve their distress.  This approach matches my own sense of how to work with young kids – but also, I think, is a good way of working with adults who, when they are overwhelmed, regress toward more childlike ways of relating to their imagination.  I especially like the stuff about how kids may know the monsters are not real but still need help organizing their imagination to empower themselves against the monsters.  Because the imagination is a world of its own, which we ignore at our peril.

In “rescripting” therapy, and in helping people rewrite their nightmares, I help people activate their imagination to deal with their negative imagination, memories (flashbacks), and dreams.  And I try to help people make friends with their voices, though I’m not that good at it yet.  (Making friends with voices is an important thing to attempt, since so many people who really recover have managed to do this.)

http://psychcentral.com/news/2009/11/13/coping-with-childrens-worries/9565.html