Chair dialogues with a coping mode are a powerful emotion focused technique used in schema therapy to understand the role of modes in our emotional lives. This could be a mode that helps to cut off painful emotions (avoidance of schema activation), a mode that chooses to prioritise the needs of others habitually to escape fears of rejection (surrendering to schema activation) or a mode that presents a façade of confidence and control (overcompensating for the schema).
Interviewing the coping mode provides a space for clients to develop awareness of how the mode has supported emotional survival, especially in childhood, where needs were left unmet by caregivers. Chair work also provides opportunity to deeply understand the ways in which the coping mode blocks needs getting met in the present.
Developing awareness might be the main aim in the early days of therapy. Towards middle and late therapy, the role is to put in place boundaries to encourage the mode to step aside, so the needs of the vulnerable child can be met in a healthy adult way by the individual and in their relationships.
Introducing Chair Work with a Coping Mode
When you spot a coping mode is spotted in the first 15 minutes of a session, the idea of a chair dialogue with the mode can be introduced. Coping modes can be spotted when you ask your client how they are feeling and the response comes from the coping mode, rather than the vulnerable chid or healthy adult mode. For example, the detached protector might respond with “I don’t really feel anything.” The compliant surrenderer mode might respond by saying “I think it was the right thing to do to focus on what my mum needed”. Whereas a response such as “Let’s focus on what I have achieved this week” might indicate an overcompensating mode is present. Tuning into your feelings about their response gives another clue about the presence of a coping mode.
When you have spotted a coping mode’s presence, chair work can be introduced by saying: “I notice a part of you is present that makes it hard to know how you feel about what happened yesterday. Can we explore this more so we can understand what’s going on?”
“I would like you to sit in this chair and act as though you are that part that shuts down your feelings. The part of you that says “I don’t know” when I ask you how you feel. I think you described it as a numb feeling in your body.”
“Can you talk as though you are that part?”
What if your client is very self-conscious about acting out a mode? If you have a client who is emotionally inhibited and feels very embarrassed about acting out a mode, instead of asking them to sit on the chair and be the mode, ask them to tell you what the mode would say to your questions. They can stay sitting in their original therapy chair and ‘put words into the mouth of the mode’.
Where to Put the Chairs
Pull up a chair across from the therapist and client for the coping mode and invite the client to move to this chair and assume the role of the coping mode.
Position a chair behind the coping mode to represent the vulnerable child mode. The position of this mode represents how the coping mode blocks feelings and needs from being met.
Interview the coping mode.
If the vulnerable child mode is reached, the client can move to this chair and the therapist moves closer to the vulnerable child to offer validation and soothing.
Client moves back to the original chair for the debrief.
Questions to ask a Coping Mode
During the mode interview, these themes and questions can be helpful to structure your discussion.
Explore the origins - understand how long the coping mode has been present and how it developed.
Tell me when you first became part of their life?
Why did they need you then?
How did you learn to survive this way?
Explore and validate the functions - understand the how the coping mode has helped the individual to survive their experiences and validate the work and intentions of the mode in attempting to maintain emotional safety.
How do you help?
When are you strongest?
What are you worried would happen if you weren’t here to step in?
What’s the dream outcome for you?
Explore the costs - understand the downsides of the mode’s presence, focusing on blocks to meeting needs and attending to feelings.
What do you say you will do? Are you successful?
What happens to the feelings and the needs of the vulnerable child when you are around
What are the downsides to relying on you?
Invite change - during middle and end phases of therapy, the mode dialogue can be used to encourage greater flexibility and choice about the use of the mode.
What would help you step back a little bit
How can we manage your fears in therapy, so you can go off duty?
What do you need the healthy adult mode to do, so you can step back?
Connecting with the Vulnerable Child Mode
Once an understanding of the origins, the function and the costs has developed, if appropriate for the stage of therapy, you can negotiate with the coping mode to step aside with the questions detailed above. At this point, invite your client to move to the vulnerable child mode chair and express the feelings about the situation as fully as they are able to, now the coping mode has agreed to step aside.
Often after the mode interview, simply asking your client how they are feeling is enough to connect with emotions that have been blocked. This is also an opportunity to reflect on how it feels for the vulnerable part of them to be blocked from getting their needs met by the coping mode.
Focus your energy on soothing the vulnerable child mode with compassion by empathising and validating their feelings about the situation. Give feedback to your client about how it feels to connect with this vulnerable part of them to encourage further expression of needs and feelings in sessions.
Debrief the Exercise
Invite your client to move back to their original chair for the final essential element of the process; the debrief. This is an opportunity to consolidate what has been understood from the mode interview.
Tasks:
Reflect on the experience of the chair dialogue.
Understand what has been learnt.
Add functions of the coping mode to the mode map.
Recognise the feelings and needs of the vulnerable child mode and how the coping mode blocked those from being met.
Write down any agreements made with the coping mode to step aside.
Reflect on your experience of connecting with their feelings and needs.
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