Chairwork With A Strong Coping Mode

Speaker

Remco van der Wijngaart

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Date & Time

Thursday, March 19, 2024 from 11am -1 pm EST

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Type

Virtual (Zoom Video)

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Description

The chair technique is seen as one of the most powerful intervention techniques within schema therapy. Our clients can express the feelings and thoughts of the different modes from different chairs. By then having your client get up from that chair, not only a physical but also an emotional distance is created from those modes. The use of chairwork can be a tool to bypass the coping modes and help to connect with the vulnerable child mode. It is in the mode of the Vulnerable Child where corrective emotional experiences can be created that lead to a positive therapy outcome (Yakin et al, 2020).

In clinical practice, however, it is not always easy to bypass these coping modes and connect with the client's emotions and needs. Especially the Perfectionist Overcontroller is a master at keeping all feelings away. Negotiating with that coping mode often proves to be a challenge. Your client is convinced that it is better to maintain control and keep emotions away. If you manage to place the client in the chair of the Vulnerable Child, your client then seems uncapable of making contact with her emotions. Your client physically sits in the chair of the Vulnerable Child, but has no contact with her feelings. You talk to your client in the chair about these feelings and needs, but your client looks at you with a flat face and gives rational answers. Therefore, the effective use of the chair technique is not just asking your client to take a seat in another chair. To use this technique effectively, a deeper understanding of the mechanisms and options in chairwork are required. 

In this webinar we will be focus on the strategies we can use to effectively negotiate with the Perfectionist Overcontroller of our clients. We will also address the question of how we actually generate corrective emotional experiences when your client is in the Vulnerable Child mode. The webinar also deals with the additional challenge of doing a chairwork in an online environment.

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BY THE END OF THIS WORKSHOP, PARTICIPANTS WILL BE ABLE TO:

1. Learned to do chairwork in an online environment

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2. More insight into the specific steps and mechanisms in chairwork

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3. Learned to bypass the patient's Perfectionistic Overcontroller 

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4. Learned to generate correct emotional experiences

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5. Had a fun and educational 2 hours

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Biography

Trainer & Supervisor Schema Therapy and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy 

Director of the Dutch Institute for Schema Therapy 

Owner/director Van Genderen Opleidingen BV

Vice President of the International Society of Schema Therapy, ISST 2016-2018

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Remco van der Wijngaart works as a psychotherapist in a private practice in Maastricht, the Netherlands.  Initially trained in Cognitive Behaviour Therapy, he was trained and supervised in Schema Therapy personally by Dr Jeffrey Young from 1996 till 2000. Remco specializes in borderline patients, patients with cluster C personality disorders as well as Anxiety and depressive disorders.

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As a director of the Dutch Institute for Schema Therapy (in the Netherlands known as Van Genderen Opleidingen), he organizes training courses and workshops in the field of schema therapy. More than 7000 therapists have participated in one or more of these training courses. He produced and directed several audio-visual productions, e.g. “Schema therapy, step by step” and “Fine Tuning Chairwork”. Remco is the author of ‘Imagery Rescripting, theory and practice’ (2021) and ‘Chairwork, theory and  practice

Price