ABSTRACT
Working with clients with eating disorders (EDs) presents therapists with some of the most challenging modes. These modes trigger therapists’ schemas and tend to exacerbate fruitless battles that therapists rarely “win”. To avert these pitfalls, a good deal of self-reflection and mode-management is needed from the therapist’s side. Beginning with some introductory remarks regarding how to balance the therapeutic relationship in general, this chapter goes on to explore the most prevailing therapist schemas. It provides recommendations about how to use self-disclosure using advanced chairwork techniques, in order to bypass clients’ most powerful coping modes and form a stronger emotional connection with them. The specific techniques we present are centred around the idea of weakening clients’ automatic coping modes by changing body positions in strategic ways.
