I've been having trouble body scanning - or observing any physical sensations for that matter - without visualizing them. This is something I'm just realizing now that I've been doing for quite some time, and it's obviously holding me back. I find when I scan a body part, innately an image of that body part pops up, and can overwhelm the tactility of the sensations themselves if I'm not careful. This happens especially when my concentration is lacking. I find often my eyes move, or are at least orienting in the direction of the body part. I try just to keep my eyes straight ahead, which helps initially but I find that the attention necessary to keep my eyes in check also interferes with my concentration. Does anyone have any suggestions for this?? Much help would be appreciated. Anyone specifically who has overcome this difficulty while practicing in the Goenka tradition, please throw me some insight on how to move past this hangup. Thanks!

Hey,
I did only one retreat in Goenka's tradition and abandoned the method soon after that but I remember that I had the very same question.
I asked the assistant teacher and he said "Don't move the eyes. It's not part of the instructions. However, if it is hard not to do it, then ignore it. Better to move the eyes and concentrating on the body than concentrating mainly on not moving the eyes.
For you, that means, don't worry about the eyes.

For whatever it's worth: on my first Goenka retreat I moved my eyes.  It seemed like I marched straight up the progress of insight path to have lots of interesting experiences on that retreat, and in the following month or so.  For lack of support, I ended up abandoning body scanning and moving on to more of a Mahasi style meditation.  But it seemed like the Goenka method gave me a good foundation of experience which led to motivation and progress.

howdy,
picking that stuff apart is exactly what you want to be doing.  count your blessings.  you are seeing how your world is put together. keep noticing that these images are not the sensations.  they are not substantial in any way, are impermanent.  so are the sensations but they are not the same. keep looking but don't look at it as failure.  there's no strict timeline here.

i never cottoned well to body scanning though so perhaps other mehods suit you better.  noting..following the sensations of the breath etc.

tom