About the Volume

What happens when people bring their dreams, fantasies, memories, personal myths, and unconscious experiences into psychotherapy—not simply through spoken descriptions, but through creative works that can be seen, heard, performed, and experienced?

Throughout the history of psychotherapy, clients have used images, stories, objects, movement, music, and creative expression to communicate psychological experiences that may be difficult to articulate verbally.

The collection will engage the work of Carl Gustav Jung, Wolfgang Giegerich, James Hillman, and other depth psychologists, alongside psychoanalysis and contemporary psychotherapy approaches. Its theoretical scope includes Jungian analytical and archetypal psychology, CBT, narrative therapy, trauma-focused work, and expressive arts therapies.

Painting, clay, sculpture, sandplay, photography, music, psychodrama, filmmaking, digital storytelling, virtual reality, and AI-assisted creative expression are among the modalities through which individuals may explore memories, emotions, conflicts, identities, and imagined possibilities.

Contemporary digital technologies, including virtual reality, interactive media, and generative artificial intelligence, expand these possibilities. Yet the fundamental clinical question remains: How do therapists understand and respond when an individual's internal psychological experience becomes externally represented?

This proposed edited collection will bring together diverse theoretical traditions, clinical practices, and research approaches to explore the therapeutic meaning of externalized psychological experience, including dreams, fantasy, personal myth, and creative expression.

The volume is not intended primarily as a book about artificial intelligence. Rather, it examines the broader relationship among imagination, creative expression, psychological interpretation, and the therapeutic encounter.

The collection spans painting, clay, sculpture, sandplay, photography, music, psychodrama, filmmaking, digital storytelling, virtual reality, and AI-assisted creative expression across psychotherapy traditions. AI is one tool among many, not the primary subject.

Video Examples

Areas of Interest

Contributions are invited across the following overlapping areas.

1. Dreams, Imagination, and Personal Myth

Dreams, nightmares, and dream interpretation

Active imagination and symbolic expression

Archetypes, complexes, and individuation

Personal mythology, identity, and life narratives

Fantasy, projection, and unconscious processes

2. Creative and Expressive Modalities

Clay, sculpture, and three-dimensional expression

Painting, drawing, and visual art

Sandplay and miniature-world construction

Music, sound, songwriting, and improvisation

Drama therapy, psychodrama, and therapeutic performance

Photography, phototherapy, and photographic self-representation

Film/video-based therapy, animation, and digital storytelling

Movement, embodiment, and interdisciplinary expressive arts

3. Psychotherapeutic Traditions and Clinical Interpretation

We welcome perspectives from:

Psychoanalysis and psychodynamic psychotherapy

Jungian and post-Jungian analytical psychology

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT)

Trauma-focused and exposure-based therapies

Narrative and constructivist psychotherapy

Humanistic, existential, and person-centered approaches

Family systems and group psychotherapy

Somatic and integrative psychotherapy

Authors are encouraged to examine how different therapeutic traditions understand, use, and interpret externalized psychological material, including points of convergence and disagreement.

4. Trauma, Memory, and Psychological Transformation

Trauma narratives and post-traumatic growth

Grief, loss, and remembrance

Identity reconstruction and personal transformation

Cultural memory and intergenerational experience

Therapeutic relationships, witnessing, and meaning-making

Ethical challenges associated with representation and interpretation

5. Emerging Technologies as Expressive Tools

Virtual reality and immersive storytelling

Therapeutic video games and interactive environments

AI-assisted visual storytelling and filmmaking

Digital representations of dreams and imagined experiences

Authorship, privacy, consent, and psychological interpretation

The distinction between human creative intention and algorithmically generated content

Artificial intelligence is welcome as a subject of critical examination or as a creative modality, but its inclusion is not required.

Central Questions for Contributors

Proposals should address one or more of the following:

What changes when internal psychological experiences become visible, audible, embodied, or otherwise externalized?

How does the chosen creative medium influence psychological expression and interpretation?

How do therapists engage with client-created material without imposing interpretations?

How do different psychotherapy traditions conceptualize the relationship between creative expression and psychological change?

What ethical, cultural, relational, and clinical considerations arise when clients share personally meaningful creative works?

Types of Contributions

We welcome theoretical chapters, critical literature reviews, empirical research, clinical-methodology chapters, ethically presented case studies, and interdisciplinary scholarship.

Contributions should demonstrate a clear relationship to psychotherapy, psychological theory, or clinically relevant research. Descriptive accounts of artistic techniques alone are unlikely to be sufficient.

Chapter Proposal Submission Requirements

Please submit:

Proposed chapter title

300–500-word abstract outlining the central argument, theoretical orientation, methodology or evidence base, and contribution to the volume

5–7 keywords

Author name, credentials, institutional affiliation, and contact information

Brief biography of approximately 100 words

Identification of the primary creative modality and psychotherapeutic tradition

Disclosure of any generative-AI use in preparing the proposed work

Coauthored and interdisciplinary submissions are welcome.

Anticipated Chapter Requirements

Selected authors will be invited to develop chapters of approximately 6,000–8,000 words, subject to final editorial and publisher requirements.

Chapters should demonstrate scholarly rigor, engage relevant literature, distinguish empirical findings from theoretical interpretations, and discuss implications for clinical practice, research, or professional education.

Any clinical material must follow applicable confidentiality, informed-consent, and ethical requirements. AI-generated material must be appropriately disclosed and should not be presented as independent clinical evidence.

Selection Process

Abstracts will be evaluated for:

Relevance to the central theme

Theoretical and scholarly contribution

Clinical or research significance

Methodological rigor and ethical considerations

Originality and contribution to a balanced, interdisciplinary collection

Selection will also consider the overall coherence of the book and representation of different therapeutic traditions and expressive modalities.

An invitation to submit an abstract does not guarantee selection. Acceptance of an abstract does not guarantee chapter acceptance or publication and does not constitute a publishing contract.

Submission Information

Chapter abstract deadline

February 15, 2027, at 11:59 PM Pacific Time

Notification of decisions

To be announced

Full chapter deadline

To be announced

Submission instructions

Submit via Your Digital Storytelling Project (link forthcoming).

Submit Your Chapter Proposal

Submit your 300–500-word chapter abstract and indicate provisional contributor interest through the Your Digital Storytelling Project submission website. Deadline: February 15, 2027, 11:59 PM Pacific Time. Submission does not guarantee acceptance or publication.

Publication Status

This edited collection is currently being developed as a proposal for Routledge / Taylor & Francis. The publisher has not yet approved or contracted the volume. All proposed contributions remain subject to editorial review, final selection, and publisher approval.

Proposed Editor

Dr. Joshua L. Cohen, PhD
Founder, Film/Video-Based Therapy™

Editor and coeditor of three Routledge volumes on filmmaking, psychotherapy, trauma, and post-traumatic growth.

Your Digital Storytelling Project, LLC
Storytelling, editing, coaching, and technology advocacy for meaningful creative work.