Imagination and Psychiatry

A Tract Book Essay

By

Anthony J. Fejfar, Esq., Coif

© Copyright 2007 by Anthony J. Fejfar

I have a very good imagination. In my mind’s eye I can imagine

an internal motion picture of myself catching a trout in a stream. I can

imagine the numbers 2+2=4 in my imagination. I can imagine a song

played by a band in my imagination. When I read a novel, I can imagine

the scene described in the novel as if was really happening. Finally, I can

imagine a conversation taking place in my imagination between two

persons, seemingly acting independently of each other.

I point all of this out to you because I have heard that there are

some persons, most notably psychiatrists, who do not believe that the

imagination exists. Because they do not believe in the imagination, it is

impossible for these psychiatrists to see that a normal, mentally healthy

individual can “hear a voice” in his or her imagination, just as one can hear a

conversation in the imagination. It is wrong for a psychiatrist to diagnose

psychosis where the mental activity taking place, takes place in the internal

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imagination of the mind. I think the problem is that some psychiatrists do

not have an imagination themselves. Perhaps the imagination is a gift which

only creative artists have, so that the mundane psychiatrist is excluded.

Unfortunately, the mundane psychiatrist, instead of noticing his or her

deficiency, prefers instead to find that the normal person with an artistic

imagination is abnormal. This must stop. This is malpractice.