Guiguzi:
A pioneer of coaching for personal development

Ben Jing (本經 The main text), the first half of Guiguzi, mentioned various types of core skills that a successful lobbyist should learn. These practical skills include when to speak and when to stay silent (“Bi-he” 捭闔, when to open and close the mouth), how to identify the loopholes of lies with mnemonic (“fan-ying” 反應, how to trace back the memory and give response), how to create interpersonal networks successfully (“nei-jian”, 內揵, inner connection), how to make sense of emotional complex (“chuan”, 揣, understanding motivation), how to comfort others verbally (“Mo”, 摩, soothing), how to grasp different kinds of debate opponents and respond to them (“Mou”, 謀, strategy), and how to make decisions (“jue” 決, decision-making) etc. Surprisingly, Ben Jing Yin Fu (本經陰符, Secret code of the main text), the latter half of Guiguzi, is an exercise book that is in accord with Ben Jing. The latter half of the book, which is based on the goals of Ben Jing above, aims to cultivate personal qualities. These qualities are represented by seven auspicious beasts and animals including ‘Dragon’ (training in vocal delivery using the diaphragm), ‘Turtle’ (concentration training by means of gazing designated objects), ‘Snake’ (visual mental imagery training), ‘Bear’ (training in acting skills and the use of facial expressions), ‘Bird’ (humour skills training), ‘Tiger’ (debate training) and ‘Fish’ (emergency evacuation training). Among them, ‘Snake’ (visual mental imagery training) aims at strengthening apprentices’ iconic memory imagery with a series of topics in guided imagery, for example, “Imagine the formation of the sky and the earth, try to understand the transformation of things in the world” (以觀天地開闢，知萬物所造化) refers to meditation on the birth of universe, while “Meditate upon human relations and ways to manage people, upon a state that you could stay at home and understand the world, not looking through the window and could see the heaven” 原人事之政理…不出戶而知天下，不窺牖而見天道) means that not only deep reflection upon interpersonal relationships and politics in our daily life with our eyes closed, but also imagination of outdoor scenery with strengthened mental imagery allow us to understand the world. These techniques have something in common with Mindfulness Intervention advocated by positive psychology in recent years.

Nevertheless, Guiguzi concerned about memory of mental imagery, not only for enhancing resilience, but also for practising mnemonic. In the chapter titled Fan Ying (how to trace back the memory and give response), Guiguzi categorized contents of conversations into different images as memories and linked them with numbers (original quote: “assign an image to a phrase, align various events in order, from the order of images, one could observe the whole picture” 言有象，事有比；其有象比，以觀其次). Therefore, the contradictory parts in long conversations can be memorized to achieve outcomes of detecting lies.

Guiguzi is the earliest personnel training course in the Chinese history. Much of techniques covered in this book are echoing skills adopted in modern psychology. In addition, this book emphasizes the necessity to make sense of others’ emotional complex (understanding motivation), adjust strategies based on others’ personalities (strategy), and soothe others’ emotions through active listening and paraphrasing the contents of their conversations, so as to arouse others’ motivation to communicate. These techniques are still commonly adopted in modern counselling. Thus, Guiguzi must be one of the most significant ancient texts in the history of applied psychology.