Imagination · “Feel It Real”
The Ideal Model
To deliberately build a chosen quality or pattern of action into yourself by repeatedly evoking a vivid mental image of yourself already embodying it — the next realistic step in your growth, not an impossible perfection.
Ideal Model in 5 lines: Pick ONE realistic next-step quality. Eyes closed, see yourself in a mirror already expressing it — and feel the matching state and posture. Then picture yourself acting with that quality in a specific hard situation, succeeding. Make the image vivid and brief, not long. Evoke daily; revise upward as you grow. Vividness, not duration, imprints it.
What it is
Assagioli observed that we already carry images of ourselves — often unconscious, often negative or imposed by others — and that we tend to become what we picture ourselves to be. The Ideal Model technique makes this deliberate: you consciously construct a clear, attractive image of yourself already possessing a chosen quality or pattern of action, then evoke it vividly and repeatedly until it begins to actualise.
The key discipline is realism: the Ideal Model is not a fantasy of total perfection but “the next chosen step or stage in our growth” — strengthening one undeveloped function, building one quality (e.g. courage, patience, calm), or establishing one more effective way of acting.
It rests on Assagioli’s psychological law: images and ideas tend to produce the physical conditions and external acts that correspond to them.
The Method
From “The Technique of the Ideal Model” in Psychosynthesis (1965) and Assagioli’s 1967 lectures:
- Choose one realistic next step. Select a single quality or pattern to develop — the next stage, not the summit. Assagioli warned against over-ambitious or “absolute perfection” models, which only generate discouragement. Name it precisely (e.g. “calm under criticism,” not “be perfect”).
- Form the Static Model (the still image). With eyes closed, see yourself as if in a mirror, endowed with and expressing the chosen quality — in your face, bearing, posture, expression. Build the image until it is clear and lifelike.
- Evoke the inner state to match. Don’t just see the quality — feel it from inside. Evoke “the state of mind corresponding to the quality” so the image is charged with the actual emotional tone of, say, serenity or confidence. (Assagioli also used the body: take on the physical attitude/posture of the quality to help evoke it — image and bodily attitude reinforce each other.)
- Form the Dynamic Model (yourself in action). Now picture yourself in a specific, concrete situation — especially one you usually find difficult — acting with the quality fully present. See yourself responding the new way, step by step, successfully, in that real scenario.
- Make it vivid, not long. Assagioli stressed intensity over duration: “a very vivid image immediately impresses the film, just as a photograph taken in bright sunlight.” A short, brilliant evocation imprints better than a long, dull one. Don’t strain to prolong it.
- Repeat daily and let it work. Evoke the model regularly (a good time is on waking, or before a situation that calls for the quality), trusting that consistent vivid imaging gradually produces the corresponding inner state and outward behaviour. As you grow, revise the model to the next step. (Sourcing note: the Static/Dynamic Model distinction, the “next step not perfection” rule, the mirror image, and the “vividness over duration / photograph” point are Assagioli’s documented teaching, attributed; descriptions are faithful paraphrase with short quotation.)
Source & Lineage
Roberto Assagioli (1888–1974) presented the Ideal Model as a core psychosynthesis technique in Psychosynthesis: A Manual of Principles and Techniques (1965), elaborated in archived lectures (Doc. #23382, Florence, 1967) and woven into The Act of Will (1973), where imagination serves the will.
It draws on the New Thought / autosuggestion insight that mental images self-actualise, and overlaps directly with Maxwell Maltz’s self-image work (Psycho-Cybernetics) and with the broader “act as if / assume the feeling” lineage.
The Traditions' versions
Self-image psychology (Maltz) — Psycho-Cybernetics: change behaviour by changing the internal self-image; near-identical premise.
- Neville’s “assume the feeling of the wish fulfilled” — imagining the end-state as already real and emotionally felt.
- Possible Selves (Markus & Nurius) — the academic version: vivid future self-images shape motivation and behaviour.
- Mental rehearsal / motor imagery (sport & performance) — visualising successful performance to improve real performance; the best-evidenced relative.
- Implementation imagery — picturing yourself acting in a specific situation, the Dynamic Model’s empirical counterpart.
- Ignatian “composition of place” — vivid imaginative placement of oneself in a scene to evoke an inner state. → (visualization methods).
Common refinements
Modelling perfection. The single biggest error Assagioli flagged: an unreachable ideal breeds self-criticism and collapse. Model only the next attainable step.
- Seeing without feeling. A cold mental picture has little power. Evoke the actual inner state and bodily attitude of the quality.
- All Static, no Dynamic. A serene mirror-image won’t transfer unless you also rehearse yourself acting serenely in the specific situation that usually defeats you.
- Long, vague, drowsy imaging. Vividness beats duration — go for a brief, bright, sharp evocation, not a long murky one.
- Rigidity / self-suppression. Don’t use the model to clamp down on disowned parts of yourself; pair it with self-honesty (and with the Disidentification work).
- One-off use. It’s daily conditioning over weeks, with the model revised upward as you grow.