Under his editorship of the JMI along with a distinguished editorial board, the Journal received acclaim around the world from theoreticians, clinicians, and researchers investigating images and Eidetic Imagery in the intricate backdrop of psychological, cultural, social, and political issues. The Journal of Mental Imagery (JMI), an international forum for the study of images and Eidetic Imagery research, and the International Imagery Association were established by Dr.
#Eidetic image definition code
Ahsen’s I-S-M (Image-Soma-Meaning) Triple Code Model grounds the eidetic image in its importance to consciousness. Without the emotion or sensory experience, the image would have no relevance in the physical world we inhabit and there would be no physical signals to the triggers in the brain that inhibit performance and block one’s intrinsic genetic manifestations. There is an additional component - the Soma (a somatic response as an emotion or body sensation) - that exists in-between image and meaning. Ahsen found that an eidetic image is more than simply a visual experience that has a meaning attached. Prior to his breakthrough research, psychology only recognized a dual code model as Image and Meaning (I-M), but Dr. ISM (Image-Soma-Meaning) Triple Code Model With this discovery, Ahsen established the structural school of eidetic theory, which links the spontaneous or structural eidetic scientifically to the Greek notion of eidos (pure ideas) and the eide (pure essence).
Ahsen discovered that the eidetic also has a universal phenomenon that occurs at all stages of a person’s development. This particular type of eidetic research later became known as the typographical school and is frequently associated with eidetic memory recall or photographic memory.
The eidetic image was first studied in Germany in the early 1900s and was thought to be found only in children or the gifted. ( See below for further explanation of ISM) Contributions by Ahsen: Two Schools of Eidetic Theory: Typographical and Structural: Ahsen’s method has been called phenomenological in studying what appears in consciousness using a natural attention process analytical in the tradition of classical depth psychology experimental in the sense that the image is a repeatable nucleus for systematic study holistic in its holographic unity of ISM (Image-Soma-Meaning) at various levels literary in its poetic emphasis and social in its binding of personal and cultural history with mythology in the same stroke. Even before the recent surge of interest in imagery, Ahsen’s work had already begun to appear as a system that demonstrated deep imagery structures having function from achieving enlightenment on the one hand to healing symptomatology on the other.ĭr. In the 1980s he defined Image Psychology as an experiential system of complex mental structures and dynamic image formations that demonstrate various functions and operations of the mind and body. Ahsen’s work proposed that the function of the science of imagery is to re-enact experience for therapeutic, education and spiritual betterment.Īhsen’s prolific writings on imagery and the eidetic covered a broad range of research, theory and application, including psychotherapy, the psychological experiment, education, sociology, literature, art, and mythology. Akhter Ahsen advanced the imagery movement and its application beyond the clinical and educational areas by incorporating art, literature, and mythology as well.
Since the 1950s, through his research and development of eidetic images and techniques, Dr. He was also a Fellow of the American Psychological Association and American Psychological Society. Ahsen authored numerous journal articles and published more than 30 books, receiving accolades from around the world.
Ahsen is still one of the most influential theorists on mental imagery.