Martijn van Teffelen

Chapter 5 110 THERAPIST: “I would now like to ask you to express this alternative, helpful belief (read for the white board) “She’s been foolish and only a little girl that needs help from her father” in an image, just like we did during the introduction with ‘the cat crashing into something whilst catching a fly’. Now close your eyes… I want to ask you to visualize as detailed and vividly as possible what it would look like in a picture that “She’s been foolish and only a little girl that needs help from her father”. I am not looking for a realistic image. The picture should adequately capture your feelings, not reality. Like a cartoon for example. Use as many details as possible. JOHN: “Uh okay, so I see my daughter standing there in the room. I always say to her that she has these deer-like eyes, like Bambi. So, I see this image of her, standing in the room like a timid, helpless little girl with these Bambi-eyes, nervously playing with her hair.” THERAPIST: Very well John. Now we are going to install this new image. You can keep your eyes closed. If we go back to the situation, you just went through sexual education and she tells you that in fact she already had sex with the boy, you see the living room, your wife behind you, your daughters face as white as can be, it is dead silent. What now goes through your mind is “She’s been foolish and only a little girl that needs help from her father”. You can now change the old image to the new, helpful image of your daughter, standing in the room like a timid, helpless little girl with Bambi-eyes, nervously playing with her hair. Take your time. How does this image affect you when you look at it? JOHN: “Now that I see her, I really have this urge to help her. I mean, she has been foolish, but she cannot help it, she is so young. She has seen nothing of the world yet. Yeah, I want to talk to her and comfort her. POTENTIAL PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS A first potential problem that may occur is that participants stick to a realistic description of what happened when transforming the beliefs into images. When this occurs, a possible solution is to repeat the instruction that the image does not have to be realistic and that it can be caricature- or cartoon-like. It can also help to ask additional questions, such as “What does the other person look like? What is his/her facial expression? What is his/her posture? Is the person little or tall? What does a person look like that is ridiculing/taking advantage someone?”. A second problem a therapist might run into is asking too many details, or a participant provides too many details. The goal of the mental imagery phase is to evoke a mental image that is as lively as possible, but still tolerable for participants (Hackmann et al., 2000). Questions such as “What do you see? Who is there with you? Are you standing or