Abstract:

This session will begin with a brief overview of the Four Orienting Principles and the Four Dialogues.  It is my belief that the Four Dialogues is a paradigm that can guide us in the creation of more powerful and more effective Chairwork interventions.  The Four Dialogues are:

• (a)   Giving Voice – This involves asking a patient to move to a specific chair and give voice to a feeling or internal part that they may be experiencing
• (b)   Telling the Story – In the first approach, I ask the patient to sit in a chair and, to the degree that they are willing,  tell a painful or difficult story.  I will then ask them to repeat this several times in a row.  The second approach utilizes imagery rescripting.  Here the patient is invited to close their eyes and go back into a difficult memory and to change the situation by taking whatever imaginal actions are necessary to help both their child and adult selves feel safe and empowered.
• (a)   Internal Dialogues – In this approach, which uses multiple chairs, different parts are invited to speak.  The parts may co-exist and speak separately, they may directly engage with each other, or one part may witness the others.
• (b)   Relationships and Encounters – This which is the world of interpersonal dialogues.  In this work, the patient sits in one chair and imagines a person from their past, their present, or their future in the chair opposite.  They are invited to resolve “unfinished business” and work though relational difficulties through the expression of love, anger, fear, and grief.  This structure can also be used to help them develop their capacity for assertiveness. (Kellogg, July, 2018, October, 2019, February 22, 2020). 

We will then look at how these interact with the six core dialogue structures of Schema Therapy:

• (1)   Schema Restructuring;
• (2)   Mode Experiencing;
• (3)   Mode Rebalancing;
• (4)   Interpersonal Dialogues;
• (5)   Relationship-Centered Imagery Work; and
• (6)   Trauma-Centered Imagery Rescripting (Rafaeli, Bernstein, & Young, 2011; Roediger, Stevens, & Brockman, 2018).

This will be followed by a live Chairwork demonstration with a Schema Therapist who would be willing to do a role-play centered on a psychotherapeutic challenge that they are facing with a patient.  If time permits, we will have a Q&A about the experience.

Kellogg, S. (February 22, 2020).  Working with the four dialogues: Using Chairwork in clinical practice.  Mad in America.  Available at: https://www.madinamerica.com/2020/02/four-dialogues-chairwork/ 

Kellogg, S. (October, 2019).  Transformational Chairwork.  InPsych: The Bulletin of the Australian Psychological Society Limited, 41, 16-21.

Kellogg, S. (July, 2018).  Transformational Chairwork: The four dialogue matrix.  Schema Therapy Bulletin. Available at: http://transformationalchairwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Kellogg-TCW-Four-Dialogue-Matrix-ISST-Bulletin1.pdf

Rafaeli, E., Bernstein, D. P., & Young, J. (2011).  Schema Therapy: Distinctive features.  London: Routledge.

Roediger, E., Stevens, B. A., & Brockman, R. (2018).  Contextual Schema Therapy: An integrative approach to personality disorders, emotional dysregulation, and interpersonal functioning.  Oakland, CA: Context Press.

About the Presenters:                   

Scott Kellogg:

Dr. Scott Kellogg is an ISST-certified Advanced Schema Therapist who has also received training in both Gestalt Therapy and Voice Dialogue.  He created the Transformational Chairwork approach in 2008 and he currently teaching this method of psychotherapeutic dialogue to clinicians in both the United States and abroad.  Dr. Kellogg is in private practice in New York City.

Dr. Kellogg has served on the faculties of New York University, The Rockefeller University, and the Yale University School of Medicine.  He is the also the Past-President of the Division on Addictions of the New York State Psychological Association.

Dr. Kellogg is the author of Transformational Chairwork: Using Psychotherapeutic Dialogues in Clinical Practice (Rowman & Littlefield, 2014).