General Overview:

Chairwork has been playing an increasing significant role in Schema Therapy in recent years ((Heath & Startup, 2020; Kellogg, 2015). The discovery of the Four Dialogues in 2018 was significant  breakthrough because it provided a powerful and elegant model for effective psychotherapeutic action whether using Chairwork, Imagery, or more conversational forms of clinical encounter (Kellogg, 2018, 2019; Kellogg & Garcia Torres, 2021). The Four Dialogues are: Giving Voice, Telling the Story, Internal Dialogues, and Relationships and Encounters. 

Giving Voice involves amplifying and giving expression to a feeling, interviewing a part to better understand it, and/or empowering people to claim power and affirm the decisions that they are making in their lives.

Telling the Story is centered on working with people to express and work through difficult, painful, or secret narratives.

Internal Dialogues involve working with the patient’s inner parts or modes. These chairwork dialogues usually take one of three forms: (1) Polarity Dialogues; (2) Alternative Dialogues; or (3) Mode Dialogues.

Relationships and Encounters dialogues are rooted in the interpersonal world, and it involves working with the cycle of emotions—or the expression of love, anger, fear, and grief.

This model provides a framework not only for listening to patients, but also for taking effective action. 

Drawing on the insights and strengths of both Contextual Schema Therapy and the Four Dialogues, the goal of this presentation is to outline how Chairwork can be used to treat a range of clinical issues as a way of empowering clinicians to create more powerful dialogue-based interventions. 

Topics to be covered are:

(1)          Foundations – An introduction to the Four Principles and the Four Dialogues

(2)          Using Chairwork in Contextual Schema Therapy – A Review of Interventions

(3)          Demonstrations and Role-Plays

a.      Polarity Dialogue – Resolving Inner Conflict/Making Decisions

b.     Working with Trauma – Third Person Storytelling

c.      Voice Dialogue – Interviewing a Mode

d.     Vector Dialogues – Working with Complex Emotions (If time permits)

(4)          How Chairwork Heals

References:

Arntz, A., & Jacob, G. (2013). Schema Therapy in practice: An introductory guide to the schema mode approach. Chichester, UK: Wiley-Blackwell. 

Heath, G., & Startup, H. (2020). Creative methods with coping modes and chairwork. In G. Heath & H. Startup (Eds.), Creative methods in Schema Therapy: Advances and innovation in clinical practice (pp. 178-194). London: Routledge.

Kellogg, S. (2014). Transformational Chairwork: Using psychotherapeutic dialogues in clinical practice. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. 

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

Kellogg, S. (October, 2019). Transformational Chairwork: Therapeutic change using the four dialogues. InPsych: The Bulletin of the Australian Psychological Society Limited, 41, 16-21. https://www.psychology.org.au/for-members/publications/inpsych/2019/october/Transformational-chairwork

Kellogg, S., & Garcia Torres, A. (2021). Toward a Chairwork Psychotherapy: Using the Four Dialogues for Healing and Transformation, Practice Innovations, 2021. https://psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/2021-57510-001.html

Roediger, E., Stevens, B. A., & Brockman, R. (2018). Contextual Schema Therapy. 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 Psychotherapy Project in 2008 and he currently teaches this method of psychotherapeutic dialogue to practitioners in both the United States and abroad. Dr. Kellogg is in private practice in New York City.

Dr. Kellogg received his Doctorate in Clinical Psychology from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, and he has served on the faculties of New York University, the Rockefeller University, the Yale University School of Medicine, and Teachers College/Columbia University. He is also a Past-President of the Division on Addictions of the New York State Psychological Association.

In his writings, he has focused on such topics as Gestalt Chairwork, Humanistic Addiction Psychotherapy, and Schema Therapy. Dr. Kellogg is the author of Transformational Chairwork: Using Psychotherapeutic Dialogues in Clinical Practice (Rowman & Littlefield, 2014).

His websites are:

Transformational Chairwork: http://transformationalchairwork.com/

Gradualism and Addiction Treatment: http://gradualismandaddiction.org/

His email is: kelloggchairwork@gmail.com

Eckhard Roediger

Eckhard Roediger (MD), born 1959, Neurologist, Psychiatrist and Psychotherapist. Trained in psychodynamic and Cognitive-Behavior therapy. Formerly Director of a Psychosomatic Department of a clinic in Berlin (GER), since 2007 working in Private Practice and Director of the Schema Therapy Training Center in Frankfurt (GER). Past-president and honorary member of the ISST. Working on the conceptual background of ST and its integration into CBT, Couples therapy and integrating Mindfulness and ACT into ST.