Visioning: Ten Steps to Designing the Life of Your Dreams [Paperback]

Lucia Capacchione (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 3, 2000

A truly visionary book based on the popular workshops of a highly acclaimed art therapist, designer, and pioneer in personal growth through creativity.

The ten steps of Visioning are a road map to the creative process applied to health, relationships, career, home, and other areas of life. The author of ten self-help classics, including the bestselling Recovery of Your Inner Child and The Power of Your Other Hand, Lucia Capacchione now offers a manual featuring ten simple steps for designing the life you've always wanted but didn't know how to achieve.

Visioning follows the same rules that inspire professional designers and demonstrates how anyone can use them in everyday living. Drawing on her experiences as a designer and corporate consultant, Capacchione applies the design principles she acquired from her own mentors: Charles Eames, Buckminster Fuller, Corita Kent, and Walt Disney. Readers learn how to apply her blueprint to their individual lives, from making a wish through "creative chaos" to realizing personal goals and dreams. With easy-to-follow and playful hands-on art activities and time-tested techniques, readers effectively grasp how to visualize their true heart's desires.

Lavishly illustrated with photos and collages, and filled with success stories, Visioning sparks "the designer within" and makes real the notion that if you can dream it, you can do it.

Illustrated throughout with collages and photographs Bibliography Endnotes

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This how-to manual for "manifesting your heart's desire" will no doubt prompt memories of kindergarten collage-making for many readers. Based on her observations of engineers, architects and designers (including toy and theme park creators), Capacchione offers a framework for shepherding an idea into reality, whether the goal is to create a company mission statement, improve one's health or build a dream home. An art therapist, corporate consultant and the author of 10 books (The Creative Journal, etc.), she instructs readers on choosing a theme, gathering images and words that "grab" one's attention, finding order in the chaos, committing one's vision to paper and glue, getting feedback from others, dwelling on one's vision, getting help to implement the plan and celebrating the final result. With a tone that's both playful and serious, Capacchione provides detailed instructions and numerous exercises for working through this process. She also encourages journal writing (using both hands to engage both sides of the brain) and addresses common internal and external obstacles. Even if some of the numerous samples and stories culled from her workshops come across as a bit schematic and glib, Capacchione provides a fun and empowering approach to creativity for those willing to roll up their sleeves and play in the rich field of their desires. (Jan.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About the Author

Dr. Lucia Capacchione, Ph.D., A.T.R., is an art therapist, artist, author, popular workshop leader, and corporate consultant who has worked for Hallmark, Mattel, and the Walt Disney Company. She lives near Big Sur, California.

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Tarcher (January 3, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1585420123
• ISBN-13: 978-1585420124
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 7.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,593,023 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Lucia Capacchione, Ph.D., A.T.R., R.E.A.T., www.luciac.com


I am a Registered Art Therapist, Expressive Arts Therapist, workshop leader and best-selling author of 15 books. My innovative methods spark and nurture creativity in all areas of life. I originated:

* The Creative Journal Method, blending writing with drawing (The Creative Journal series of books for kids, teens, adults)
* Healing through writing and drawing with the non-dominant hand (The Power of Your Other Hand and The Art of Emotional Healing)
* The Visioning® process of life design through collage and journaling (Visioning)
* Inner Child/Inner Family healing through the expressive arts (Recovery of Your Inner Child)

I was originally a professional artist and Montessori-trained child development specialist, one of the first Head Start directors in the U.S. After successful careers in both art and education, I stumbled onto the healing power of art and of journaling with my non-dominant hand while struggling with a mysterious life-threatening illness. Journaling through drawing and writing with both hands opened my right hemisphere. It gave my emotions a means of full expression, helped me remember and work with dreams, develop my intuition and connect both hemispheres of my brain. My Creative Journal opened new worlds to me (internally and externally) and it paid huge dividends in terms of my health. My full recovery without medication led to a new career as an art therapist.

Methods which I developed for my own healing and refined in private practice with others are now being used worldwide for treating addictions, trauma, and childhood abuse. Many of my books are used as texts in courses on therapy, psychology, writing, art, career development and applied creativity. My work is being used in mental health and recovery programs, medical centers, school systems (kindergarten through college), prisons, health and healing programs, spiritual retreat centers, business, and industry. I have trained professionals word-wide in the Creative Journal Expressive Arts Certification Training, and consulted for corporations, community groups and schools throughout the U.S., Canada, Italy, the UK, Australia and Mexico.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

71 of 73 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Visioning: Its Therapeutic Value, January 25, 2000

By 

Marilyn H. Hamlin - See all my reviews

This review is from: Visioning: Ten Steps to Designing the Life of Your Dreams (Paperback)

As a psychotherapist in New York City the search for creative "homework" assignments to give my clients is an ongoing process. I first discovered Dr. Capacchione's techniques of collage and journaling with the non-dominant hand in her earlier book, "Putting Your Talent To Work". After following her simple guidance, obstacles started to dissolve and results began manifesting, both in in my own life and in my clients' lives. I feel very grateful there's now a whole book devoted to the process of visioning and realizing one's dreams. Many people come to therapy without a clue about what they want in life. Here's a book I can recommend for homework that will give them permission to identify what they truly want. Further, there is therapeutic value in using the tools Dr. Capacchione lays out for working through one's inner obstacles: confusion, self-criticism, lack of confidence and self doubt. The sequence and quality of these collage and journal writing exercises comes from an author whose work is refined by a lifetime of experience in the creative and personal growth field. This book is for everyone who has a dream or wants to find one. It's comprehensive and deep. Best of all, it's simply easy to use!

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars wonderful tool for accessing our inner visions, September 15, 2005

By 

Tobey Crockett (Los Osos, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Visioning: Ten Steps to Designing the Life of Your Dreams (Paperback)

I have bought at least ten copies of this book in the five years since I first encountered it. I often end up giving away my only copy and then having to buy it again. It is just the thing for finding your way. The process is marvelously mapped out and easy to follow. I suggest resisting the impulse to skip any steps - the things you don't want to do are likely the very ones you will find most productive. Oh how we do tend to resist change, even as it is the very thing we claim to seek! LOL.

When I turned 40, I realized that the directions I had thought my life should go in were just no longer satisfying to me, and I needed a real change. But I just wasn't sure what I wanted to do. Working on this project gave my life an entirely new sense of direction, and I am still following the trajectories that my first efforts brought home to me. My life is like a dream come true... I just can't say it any other way. My journey continues to unfold, but I feel a much greater sense of purpose and pleasure than before.

I really recommend this for many purposes - once you understand these techniques, you can put them to use them over and over again for a variety of problem solving situations. I just can't say enough about this book. I also recommend The Creative Journal.

28 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Inspiring Deeper Creativity, April 17, 2000

By 

Gail McMeekin (Author of The Power of Positive Choices and The 12 Secrets of Highly Creative Women) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Visioning: Ten Steps to Designing the Life of Your Dreams (Paperback)

Lucia has created a wonderful catalyst for creative expression and goal attainment. By using visual images, Lucia teaches you an amazingly effective method for unlocking your unconscious longings and bringing them into full view. I have long used the collage method myself and with coaching clients, but Lucia's book offers new techniques and wonderful success stories to further inspire all of us to delve deeper into our fantasies and learn their meaning. Bravo Lucia! I am recommending this book to all of my clients and friends. This book is destined to become a classic in the field of creativity.