Parental figures, as individuals or as a couple, are our first image-makers. And being human and, thus, as imperfect as they are, they teach us about ourselves, about them, as well as about our ancestors, culture, and society at large. Before stepping out into the world, we experience a multitude of images in the home. Dr. Akhter Ahsen, seeing the influence of parental images, developed his cornerstone analytical instrument — the Eidetic Parents Test — to examine the interactions of mind to see the influences history has upon the present as well as the future of an individual.

Below are four questions from the Eidetic Parents Test. Read each question slowly, allowing an image to form, and then write your response to each question before proceeding to the next question.

EP1:

Picture your parents in the house where you lived most of the time with them, the house which gives you the feeling of a home. Where do you see them? What are they doing? How do you feel when you see the images?

EP2:

Now, set aside this picture of the house and see your parents standing directly in front of you. —Tell me, as you look at them, who is standing on your left and who is standing on your right? —Now, try to switch their positions. —Do you experience any difficulty or discomfort when you do this? Try to switch their positions again. —Do you again feel any difficulty? Do you feel that their images are independent of your control?

EP3:

As you see your parents standing in front of you, do they appear separated or united as a couple? —Describe the character of the space each occupies. Do the spaces differ in temperature and illumination?

EP28:

Now see your parents’ complete images standing in front of you again. —Imagine that a window has been carved in each chest and that you can see their hearts beating there. —See the hearts beating, and describe how each parent’s heart beats. —Is there any sign of anxiety in the heartbeats?

Eidetic Parents Test

by Akhter Ahsen

After having received widely acclaimed recognition by authorities in the diverse schools of behaviorism and 
psychoanalysis for his work being of “historic importance,” in 1972 Dr. Ahsen published his book, Eidetic Parents Test & Analysis. His work has been called a “breakthrough” in revealing the importance of hitherto unrecognized aspects of human development and mental functioning. Called “a milestone in the evolution of a truly integrative and comprehensive system of effective psychotherapy,” it paves the way for a long overdue synthesis.

Eidetic Parents Test and its analysis is not a “new school” in psychotherapy but a unique work providing an original, insightful, scientific view on the effective, practical use of eidetic imagery. Ahsen shows the use of eidetics in their qualities of spontaneity, interiority, demonstrability, and repeatability, and in their tendency to appear in the areas of conflict.

Eidetic Parents Test & Analysis concentrates on internal eidetic phenomena and how the individual relates to them. It describes parent-parent, father-child, mother-child interaction, reconstructing these relationships in their original developmental complexity through the eidetics. In these highly elusive and complicated areas of interaction the test replaces over-simplifications, hunches, and surmises with the realities of perception. The test quickly brings developmental themes to the surface and provides an objective basis on which to build intimate and meaningful perceptual experience. The eidetics spontaneously emerge and expand the awareness of the individual and enable him to experientially recognize how his symptoms are linked with difficulties in the developmental past. This book articulates illuminating eidetic procedures that practitioners of diverse theoretical persuasions can readily incorporate into their own methods.