Impactful Integration (Part Two): AI-Generated Visual Metaphors for Sustainable Change in Coaching
The power of visual metaphor and using AI-generated images during the integration process after coaching.
For the past few months I have been working on a project using AI-generated images to support my clients in their integration after a somatic coaching session.
Integration = intentional incorporation of new insights into your lived experience. Other terminology used throughout these essays are in the handy glossary at the end of each Part.
You can catch up on Part 1 here. What you missed (as nutshelly as I can muster)...
My mind gravitates towards images and visual patterns, a realisation that became clear when I was being coached. When grappling with complex 'Blocks', or issues I was stuck on, I found that visual metaphors weren't just helpful – they were transformative. They allowed me to perceive and tackle challenges in a more tangible and impactful way. And the science backs this up – our brains are hardwired to respond to visuals, making images a potent medium for memory and emotion.
I began experimenting with Dall-E, an AI image generator, but not just for play. It was a journey into the depths of my psyche. By externalising my internal visions, I gained further insights that were intellectually stimulating and emotionally (and somatically) resonant. It was as if these images were a bridge to a deeper understanding of myself. Helping me to integrate the learnings from my coaching session further.
How helpful this would be for clients! Now, how to bring this to them?
This is Part 2. The key to sustainable change through coaching is integration.
Somatic visuals as an integration tool (Part Two)
Think of a coaching session like the discovery of a treasure map. Wow, you had no idea there was all this (inner) landscape to explore! There’s your lightbulb moment, your shift in understanding yourself. Now you need to start adventuring! You won’t find that chest of gold if you just left the map sitting in the coach’s room. That’s where integration comes in. You’ve got the options of which route to take, now off you go… (And yes I did just use a visual metaphor to help you understand this coaching concept… you’re welcome.)
Integration = intentional incorporation of new insights into your lived experience.
Integration after a coaching session is really where the work/magic happens.
You may have had some insightful light bulb moments but if you don’t follow up in the hours, days, weeks that follow they can slip through your fingers. They will likely dissipate, be forgotten about or at the very least not be actioned in some way.
What does it look like? Integration doesn’t necessarily mean making huge changes in your life. It’s just your personal form of embedding, merging with and empowering yourself with what you’ve learned.
It’s the crystalisation phase.
This could be drawing or journalling. Or simply sitting with what came up and feeling into it. Sensing how it feels and letting your nervous system and neural network embed the change (I’m getting somatic on you now…). It could also be going for a run, speaking to your therapist, spending some time in nature. Or it could be pulling the trigger on a decision you’ve been needing to make.
I have had clients use the last five minutes of a session to re-draft and send a WhatsApp they have been sitting on for weeks. I have had a client message me after a session to say they sat in the car and screamed at the top of their lungs. One client paints. Another relays findings to her husband. One woman finally spoke to her manager about her dissatisfaction at work and had a one night stand that weekend, something uncharacteristic but she said she finally felt free and wild enough to try. Many clients have a need to simply breathe with a supportive hand on their chest (like Mia in Case Study Two).
Integration comes in all forms! But the point is… you need to do it. Your attention to yourself in this way will pay off.
"Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." - Thomas Edison
The bodymind learns through emotional experiences and repetition. (I use the term bodymind intentionally because in somatic modalities we don’t treat the conceptual thinky mind as separate from the embodied experience of life. We invite our clients to show up as an integrated whole.)
When we learn, neurons that run through the body’s nervous system structurally and chemically change. The longer we stay with the new possibilities that have unfolded in coaching, “the more their transformational learning will take root somatically” (The Somatic School).
On a more basic physiological level, you will have felt this when learning a new motor skill. The first time you rode a bike it took much concentration to balance and coordinate. It took practice to familiarise with what was needed to stay upright. Now you can hop on any bike and your body knows what to do, whilst your mind can be entirely elsewhere.
This is the same process for the emotional understanding of yourself, your life and your environment. First time a realisation strikes, one about your emotional landscape, it’s new and unfamiliar. You haven’t understood its edges yet. It’s not part of your ‘this is who I am’ day-to-day yet.
Take Pam (Case Study Four). Her visual brought a sense of ‘I can use my resources and trust I’m on the right path.’ She felt it in her body every time she looked at the visual. She said she ‘felt assured, powerful and resourced.’ She felt this in her tummy and it was a feeling akin to when an older sister pats you on the shoulder and says ‘you can do this.’ She kept returning to the image to re-feel it, letting it embed in her nervous system. She attributed words to the new feeling and chanted them, even saying ‘I want to know them from memory’. Which is exactly what her body was doing, memorising this new knowledge.
I’d love to hear about how you integrate your learnings… leave a comment on this essay to share!
I have also had clients rush straight back to a work call, get caught up in a personal crisis over the weekend, have well-meaning intentions to journal about their new perspective on something but then… well… life!
It dawned on me that creating a digital visual for my clients, post-session, could benefit them as part of their integration… as it had done with me (covered in Part One).
Enter my fellow Somanauts
I reached out to my fellow alum of The Somatic School (the Somanauts as we’re endearingly called by the school) to ask if anyone would be interested in having a coaching session with me.
I got some excited and willing participants for this experiment…
The Process
I meet with my client and ask them to treat this like any other somatic coaching session.
(Somatic coaching is an approach that treats the client as an integrated neuro-psycho-biological being. We work with an embodied level of self-awareness, not just the thinking mind (the conceptual self). In a session I might invite the client to check in with any sensations arising in their body and we incorporate what arises into the process.)
I remind my clients that there is no need to force any imagery or explain things differently. This is in service of them and I will work with whatever comes up.
The clients bring all areas of their lives, from frustration with how they manage their time to wanting to live more visibly. We explore whatever block they have brought to the session, talking through whatever arises. I ask questions that might challenge their thinking, nudge them to probe a bit deeper, cause them to pause and think. I might invite them to check with any sensations arising in their body, or to follow a ‘fidget’ that the body is doing (touching an ear, hunching forward etc). We take one hour to explore their original question and I might close by asking them what insights they are leaving with, and if they feel compelled to integrate those in any way.
After the session, I work with the descriptive language my client has used and digitally craft the image with the help of AI. For Daphne (Case Study Three) for example I started with, ‘big onyx stone like a mountain but with round smooth curves with tiny translucent flies swarming joyfully above the stone, alive and active. And there is a small bird in the corner watching.’ I try to stay as close to the precise words my client used because this exercise is at the service of Daphne, to maximise resonance for her when she sees it.
I also intuitively sense into myself to know what direction to take.
To explain…
During a coaching session there is a process of shared resourcing and co-regulation that happens between client and coach. Our nervous systems are interacting and influencing each other.
Some practitioners argue that this co-regulation is the sole reason the therapy or coaching container is so effective.
"The research shows that, more than any technique or intervention, it's the quality of the emotional bond between therapist and client that heals." Sue Johnson
From a neurobiological standpoint, the co-regulation in a therapy or coaching session involves a complex interplay of brain activities and hormonal responses. Mirror neurons for example are firing when we see and hear our feelings reflected back to us, helping us connect to one another. These contribute to building trust, reducing stress, and enhancing the client's ability to process and manage their emotions and thoughts, making the specific techniques used less central than the quality of the therapeutic relationship.
In the realm of interpersonal neurobiology, the mind is seen as arising from the interactions of our neural processes with our relationships. This means that our relationships, including those in therapy, have the power to shape our brain's development and functioning. It's not just the techniques we use, but the way we connect, understand, and attune to each other that facilitates healing and growth.
I use this connection I have made with my client to guide me in creating their digital image.
We then find a time to come back together to reveal the image. The client checks with their body on any sensations arising as they receive their visual: an externalised representation, and interpretation, of their inner world.
Key findings
The results have been extraordinarily impactful. Clients have said:
“There’s a knowing, an internal knowing, intuitive knowing of what we are moving towards. It makes me feel calm and helps me feel reassured.”
“I know where everything is, I know, I can see this and feel this.”
“I’m so touched by this, it’s so spot on and beyond. I feel so heard.”
“Stunned by how intricate it is and in its subtleties how you’re able to convey this.”
“I don’t feel this is leading, it is very resourcing.”
I’m going to share five case studies of clients I have worked with (in Parts Three to Seven). In the hope that these real world coaching journeys will speak for themselves in the impact they had on my clients. However the themes that arose throughout are as follows:
Co-creative integration
Clients don’t usually get any support for their integration after a session.
Some coaches provide accountability tools, ways to check in and remind clients of the work they are doing. However this is rarely more than a nudge or a hand-hold. The client has a breakthrough in a session and then is left out in the wilderness of their ordinary life to integrate alone.
The Somatic Integration Visual is however a continuation and extension of the co-creative process of the initial coaching session. Client and coach keep cycling together on the path of self-discovery in a unique way.
Being witnessed, being seen.
When you hear a piece of music or see a beautiful painting it can feel like it’s speaking directly to you. It can also hugely help in processing and healing. (Hence the term ‘break up songs’!)
However, (sadly) they were not created for you, nor from you. The uniqueness of the Somatic Integration Visual is that it was produced from the language of the client’s deep emotional psyche.
There is of course a level of interpretation from me (and AI), and I am cautious of this aspect. I remind my clients that I don’t need any appreciation. Unlike an artist who might have another agenda for creating the artwork, I keep only the client’s resonance in mind.
Clients are consistently gobsmacked by how accurate they feel the image is. “It’s like you were in it with me” one reported. Being ‘seen’ in your true, unedited self is powerful (hence why coaching and therapy is so effective). You have had the courage to vulnerably show up, share the depths of who you are (even the messy parts) and I listened, accepted and respected you.
Having someone then gift you with a visual that represents how deeply they saw the authentic you is a truly validating experience. Being seen in this way encourages you to trust me and the process you’re on, and build your confidence in better understanding yourself. Chipping away at those negative internal scripts or shame.
Tangible Resource.
Resources are invaluable in the process of improving your embodied self-awareness. Resources can be things like going to nature, speaking with a good friend, dancing, breathing, carving alone time, journaling. Resources can also be internal felt senses that are resourceful for you (we can gather these when we do more somatic activities and healing). For instance, the security of the feeling of the solid ground connecting with the soles of your feet. Sensing your heartbeat. A sensation of fullness and love in your core. (Have a think about what your Resources are and jot them down. I’d love to hear about them.)
The Somatic Integration Visual becomes a Resource in this way. It provides a physical takeaway that can be held, printed out, stuck up on a wall, used as a screen saver. It’s immovable and unchangeable and captures a moment (of your psyche) in time. As opposed to the wispy, fleeting and ever-changing imaginations of our mind that we can find hard to hold on to or understand.
This tangible artefact helps to anchor the emerging self-discovery the client is experiencing.
It’s also something that clients seem to more easily return to. During future meditations, in moments of dysregulation (when your nervous system is out of whack, you’re anxious, jittery or flooded with emotion for instance) and/or as an unprompted nudge from the body during their day to day.
This was especially true for Molly (Case Study Two). She described her visual as a ‘bookmark’. It was like a stamp in time on an emotional awakening delivered by her psyche. Say you have a special experience in a museum in Berlin. Your mind can visually remember the surroundings for years to come. Helpfully ‘taking you back’ to that special moment. The Somatic Integration Visual provides this same thing. A physical form of that special moment you had in coaching, the moment your understanding of yourself evolved.
Deepened embodied integration.
Clients experience what they call ‘felt shifts’ in a somatic coaching session. They glean some understanding of themselves that wasn’t apparent before by sensing it in their body. Just like when you hear something that resonates you get that little hello from your gut, or tingles up your arms. A ‘that’s it!’ from the body. However, without good integration, the brain and body will go back to patterns already there. Unlearning a way of being is possible, thanks to neuroplasticity (the brain’s ability to reorganise itself by forming new neural connections throughout life in response to learning and experience), but it needs to be acknowledged and practised.
An excellent way to do this is to continue to ‘sense’ into the new knowledge. What this means is when you have that lightbulb moment, a change in perspective, sit with how it feels in your body. In somatic coaching I often will invite a client to simply ‘be with’ that felt sense.
When clients receive the Somatic Integration Visual, it is a further opportunity to feel into the new perspective that the visual represents. They have a continued embodied experience which supports this continued neural shift. The image is now a unique and personalised framework to sense further into whatever was unfolding.
Just to drive the somatic knife home… there has been a study on simply imagining doing physical exercise actually creating physiological change in the visualiser’s muscles. A beautiful demonstration of the link between the brain and body. No wonder that visuals linked to emotional resonance during coaching can lead to profound shifts in our bodies and minds.
What a tremendous tool for sustainable change!
I look forward to diving into the five cases studies over the following parts of this series, to demonstrate the impact the Somatic Integration Visuals had on the clients.
Part 3: Case study 1 — Reframing Time
Part 4: Case study 2 — Earth Goddess
Part 5: Case study 3 — Swarming Flies
Part 6: Case study 4 — At a Crossroads
Part 7: Case study 5 — The Artist’s Store Room
Just itching to try this out?? You can book a somatic coaching session with me via this link: So you want to get somatic?
Lastly but by no means leastly… I have been invited to showcase the Somatic Integration Visuals, and their related case studies, at the upcoming DAR Fest exhibition in Brussels from 1–25 Feb 2024 at the Octopus Heart Center.
Happen to be in Belgium? Come check it out! Event details are here. You can catch me doing a live Q&A on 17 Feb at 5.30pm.
Somatic Integration Visuals - Glossary
Block: Refers to the ‘issue’ (or area of the client’s life or specific problem) that the client is stuck on. Something the client can’t seem to move past, no matter what they try.
Bodymind: We are integrated neuro-psycho-biological beings! in somatic modalities we don’t treat the conceptual thinky mind as separate from the embodied experience of life. We invite our clients to show up as an integrated whole.
Embodied Self-awareness: The holistic understanding of yourself through physical sensations and experiences of the body. Being conscious of your body's movements, feelings, and presence in space, and recognising how these physical sensations relate to your emotions, thoughts, and overall sense of self.
Focussing: A body-oriented coaching tool the client is invited to focus on any internal sensations that arise. The client names these ‘felt senses’, without meaning making. The aim is to understand how these sensations are connected to their emotional state or life situation. We dig to find the story behind the story which can be told by these subtle clues in sensations in the body. By naming the sensations this helps the client ‘disidentify’ with them. The client listens to the data held in their body and this can lead to insights in how they view their situation, or even resolutions to problems.
Integration: intentional incorporation of new insights into your lived experience. It isn’t necessarily an action-based process. It’s more about incorporating, merging with, activating, embedding, unifying and even empowering something you are newly learning about yourself. In a holistic and intentional way. It’s ‘being with’ this new understanding and letting it, on an embodied level, sink into your being.
Resource: These are invaluable in the process of improving your embodied self-awareness. Resources can be things like going to nature, speaking with a good friend, dancing, breathing, carving alone time, journaling. Resources can also be internal felt senses that are resourceful for you (we can gather these when we do more somatic activities and healing).