The researchers cited in this OCD research refreshingly talk about the possibility that imagination can cause or maintain obsessive compulsions. Imagining bad results if certain rituals are not carried out.
Cognitive psychology talks about thoughts but our lives are much more led by what we imagine which is more hypnotic than cognitive.
Depression, anticipatory anxiety even the vivid uncontrolled imaginings of Post traumatic stress disorder and schizophrenia all entail massive firing of uncontrolled and misused imagination. Dreams are processed through powerful imaginings. We don’t cognitively decide what to dream we spontaneously imagine vivid dream narratives which sometimes can terrify us.
Learning to gain more control of our imaginations as well as our thoughts and actions (which can both spring from imagination) is, I think, an integral part to developing and overcoming psychological difficulties.
As the esteemed Sufi poet Rumi said almost 800 years ago: “There is no cause for fear. It is imagination, blocking you as a wooden bolt holds the door. Burn that bar….”
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