Schema coaching techniques, Part 3: Imagery rescripting and transformational chairwork

Schema coaching, a recently developed approach, integrates a range of techniques from psychodynamic therapy, cognitive behavioural therapy, attachment theory and gestalt therapy. This provides the suitably trained and ethically adherent coaching psychologist with a wide range of powerful experiential techniques to deal with persistent and protracted client problems. In this article, the third in the series on schema coaching, the techniques of imagery rescripting and transformational chairwork are explored. Imagery rescripting is designed to help the client to get in touch with painful archaic emotions and to help to start to heal these distressing memories. The client cannot undo the past and cannot delete old memories that have been imprinted but new neural pathways that inhibit the old ones can be created with the help of the coaching psychologist. Rescripting does not change the memory but does enable the client to see it in a new way and find new meaning in it. By contrast transformational chairwork refers to a wide range of techniques in which chairs are used to help clients better gain an understanding of themselves in the present moment. The technique was first used in psychodrama, but it was Fritz Perls who popularised the approach in gestalt therapy. Chairwork can be used in a wide range of ways in schema coaching including to explore and help resolve painful historical events, to strengthen the healthy adult, to reduce the impact of the inner critic or to help deal with painful emotions such as sadness, guilt, anxiety or anger. Both techniques are powerful and highly experiential so are particularly useful for intelligent, articulate executives who have a strong tendency to intellectualise their problems while having a real desire to deal with the underlying drivers of their dysfunction.