Once you've developed some insight into the meaning of your symptoms, an important question is often "What are you going to do about it?" Insight can stimulate change, but it may take continued awareness and action over time to make the change a part of your daily life. Psychoanalysis is often criticized for producing patients who understand everything they do, but do the same things they did when they entered therapy. It's not just the knowing, but the doing that counts. As Will Rogers once said, "You may be on the right track, but you'll get run over if you don't move."

While in some situations the imagery itself will have the effects you desire, in many others it will only point you in the direction you need to go. The process of grounding your insight, of using it to make tangible change in your life, is the key to converting the imaginary to the real. Paradoxically, imagery can help even in this down-to-earth step of self-healing. You will learn how in the next chapter.