Empty Chair technique

The empty chair technique is a method used in psychology to help resolve issues involving past traumas, depression, interpersonal problems, and other situations. The technique involves carrying on a conversation with someone who is not in the room and is represented by an empty chair. It is sometimes called chairwork. Originating in the 1920s, the technique has become a common part of Gestalt therapy, which is a humanistic and holistic psychotherapy often used to treat anxiety and depression.

Background

In Gestalt therapy, a psychiatrist investigates how a patient’s present-day responses to their past experiences affect the condition for which they are seeking treatment. This type of therapy incorporates art, role-playing, and reenacting past events to uncover a person’s feelings about and reactions to what happened in their past. These techniques engage the entire person—thoughts, actions, and emotions—in uncovering the root of a variety of mental health conditions.

Fritz Perls, a German psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, and his wife Laura, a psychotherapist, created the practice of Gestalt therapy in the 1930s. They named their therapy after the German word for “whole.” The Perls believed that healing from conditions such as depression, grief, and anxiety required a conscious awareness of how past experiences affected current emotions, thoughts, and behaviors. They developed active therapy—as opposed to the talk therapy common until that time—to help a person develop greater awareness of how their past and present reactions affected their current situation.

Beginning in the 1920s, Romanian psychiatrist Jacob Levy Moreno developed a form of therapy he called psychodrama. He encouraged patients to reenact various life experiences as a way of understanding why they thought, felt, and acted the way they did. Although his early efforts were not successful, the idea appealed to Fritz and Laura Perls and was incorporated into their Gestalt therapy. They began using what they called chairwork, or various processes of having a person sit in a chair and confront their past actions and experiences to get at the root of the matter that led to their seeking therapy.

Overview

One specific form of chairwork was dubbed the “empty chair technique.” In this type of therapy, the patient sits near an empty chair that represents either an absent person or an aspect of themselves thought to be related to their condition. The patient is directed to have a conversation with the chair as if the patient or an aspect of themselves was sitting there. The therapist observes and sometimes guides the process. For example, the therapist might encourage the patient to continue with a thought or ask a question to help them focus or dig deeper into a specific point.

As the one-sided conversation continues, the patient is encouraged to name and accept the emotions they feel. Honesty in both expressing and acknowledging these emotions is strongly encouraged, and the therapist will often provide guidance in these areas as well. The goal is to help the patient become aware of how they really feel about the past and how those feelings might be affecting their current life.

While this type of therapy can be used in many situations, it is often used when the person seeking treatment is unable to directly confront someone who played a role in their current situation. This might be because they are trying to work through their own role in a relationship problem but are not ready to confront the other party, who might be a work colleague or a spouse. This therapy might also be used when the other person is not available for direct conversation, perhaps because they have died or are no longer in the person’s life. For example, a person who had a troubled relationship with a parent might be encouraged to pretend that the parent is in the chair and share all the anger, sadness, or fear that they felt during their childhood. A person who is grief-stricken and angry about the sudden loss of a spouse or close friend might speak out their anger and grief to the empty chair as a representative of the person who has died.

There are several variations of the empty chair technique. One is the two-chair technique, in which the person alternates sitting in two chairs that face each other. One chair represents them, while the other represents either the other person or an alternate aspect of themselves. This technique involves roleplaying either the second part of themselves or the other person. Sometimes chairwork involves a second real person, with another individual or the therapist taking the part of the absent person in a roleplaying conversation.

Empty chair therapy can be used to treat a variety of conditions, including depression, anxiety, grief, past trauma, interpersonal conflict or mistreatment, self-hatred, and inner conflict. It can succeed in helping a person understand why they have certain feelings, thoughts, and behaviors. Exploring past situations can be helpful in releasing and exploring emotions and thoughts that have become counterproductive in a person’s life. It can also help a person take responsibility for their own thoughts and reactions and develop better ways of coping with them.

Empty chair therapy can be challenging in some situations. Patients may find it difficult to converse with an empty chair. They may also be reluctant to have such a personal conversation in front of the therapist. It is sometimes suggested that they close their eyes and talk directly to the person or practice with an empty chair in a quiet room at home. The experience can often be very emotional as well; it is not uncommon for patients to become angry or extremely tearful while talking to the empty chair. These are expected outcomes and an acceptable part of the process. Although the technique does not always work, experts say that after the therapy, many patients are relieved of negative or harmful emotions toward themselves. They may also experience closure for past relationships that have been troubling them in the present and greater insight into their own emotions and thoughts.

Bibliography

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