ABSTRACT
This chapter examines using imagery to revise dysfunctional assumptions. For example, an anxious client who has distressing images of fainting in the high street and being laughed at never gets beyond in her mind the 'fainting and the laughter'. Her assumption is: 'If I faint in public, then people will laugh at me and call me a drunk'. The therapist guides client beyond the 'fainting and the laughter' to arrive at a different interpretation. The client to build a new assumption based on a realistic appraisal of the likely reaction of others to her predicament which reinforced by her own recollections of public reaction to a person who had fainted. If the client had wanted to include in the imagery exercise someone calling her a 'drunk', the therapist could have asked her: With regard to the client's query why people would respond with nastiness towards her if she fainted, it emerged that she treated badly in earlier relationships and behaviour.
