Abstract:

• Background and Objectives: Imagery rescripting (IR) has been described as a method of change in psychotherapy for more than a century. Over the last two decades, however, there has been a significant growth in the clinical and scientific interest in the applications and working mechanisms of this technique. IR represents a valuable tool to produce change on an emotional level, fulfilling unmet core needs. However some evidence suggests that it also plays a role in the decrease of the negative core beliefs that are encapsulated within childhood episodes.
• Methods and conclusions: The presentation will have both a clinical and a scientific interplay. It explains how imagery exercises can be used and how the therapist will learn to rewrite meaningful images from the past, affecting emotional and cognitive aspects. Further, preliminary results of a study exploring the efficacy of IR in reducing negative core beliefs in a non-clinical sample will be presented. The presentation will have the form of a webinar with some practical demonstrations showing how to implement IR focusing on negative core beliefs, and how the therapist might deal with some challenging situation, such as the detached protector mode intervening by preventing the exercise to take place or blocking its emotional activation.

About the Presenters:                   

Remco van der Wijngaart:

Remco 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.

Since 2000 he frequently has been given training courses in Schema Therapy worldwide. He produced and directed the DVD series “Schema therapy, working with modes” which is considered to be one of the essential instruments in learning schema therapy. In 2016 he co-published 2 new DVD series “Fine Tuning Imagery Rescripting” and “Schema therapy for the Avoidant, Dependent and Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder”.

Barbara Basile:

Barbara Basile, PhD in Neuropsychology, Psychologist / CBT Psychotherapist, Trainer and Supervisor in Schema Therapy at the Institute “Dialogo in Schema Therapy”, Frankfurt (Germany). Teaching at the School of Cognitive Psychotherapy (SPC) and Cognitive Psychology Association (APC) in Italy. Wrote book chapters on OCD, ED, depression and trauma. Author of many scientific publications on Schema Therapy, Emotional Processing, and Neuroimaging in OCD and other psychopathological conditions.