Chair Work
Reflections on the empty chair in psychotherapy
The 'empty chair’ technique is one of the the most archetypal of therapeutic interventions associated with Gestalt therapy. Recently while undertaking training in Redecision therapy, a school of Transactional Analysis (TA) that combines TA and Gestalt and very much centres the ‘empty chair’ in its process, I reflected on the technique and its long and interesting history across a range of therapeutic traditions in modern psychotherapy.
While its roots can be trace back to Jacob Moreno's psychodrama work in the 1920s and 1930s, where role reversal and auxiliary chairs were used to enact interpersonal dynamics, it was Fritz Perls, one of the founders of Gestalt therapy who utilised the empty chair as a significant intervention in modern psychological healing. Perls popularised the technique in the 1960s and 1970s, using it for a remarkably diverse range of therapeutic purposes. His approach centred on the mechanism of projection—the idea that what we place in the empty chair is not merely imagination or memory, but rather a living projection of part of our own personality. The chair is physically empty, yet everything placed into it comes from within the client's own personality structure. When clients see their mother in the chair, they're actually seeing their introjected mother—the internalised recording that became part of what in TA would be described as their Parent ego state, that is the voice of their parent they carry within them. As Eric Berne, founder of TA described, we internalise our parents' voices and behaviors, and these introjections become permanent parts of our personality. Empty chair work allows us to externalise these internal structures and work with them directly.
Perls employed the technique for integrating disowned parts of self, working with polarities within the personality, exploring dreams, finishing unfinished business with significant others, and facilitating goodbyes. The power of his approach lay in helping clients move from talking about their experiences to actually reliving them in the present moment. This distinction is crucial: clients don't remember past events—they relive them. This isn't role-playing or imagination; it's phenomenological re-experiencing. Robert and Mary Goulding, the founders of Redecision Therapy, later emphasised this when they wrote about clients getting "together the memory with the affect" and beginning to relive scenes. When clients occupy the parent chair and speak from that position, they're not performing their parent; they are, in that moment, being the internalised parent part of themselves.
The integration of Gestalt techniques with Transactional Analysis began in earnest in the early 1970s. James and Jongeward's popular book "Born to Win" explored connections between Perls' methods and TA theory, particularly focusing on dialogues between fragmented parts of the personality. Edgar Stuntz's 1973 paper on the "Multiple Chairs Technique" further systematised the approach within TA, proposing five specific applications: structural analysis, decontamination, redecision, parenting work, and relationship analysis. In Stuntz's model, clients would physically move between chairs representing different ego states—Parent, Adult, and Child—allowing therapists to observe firsthand how these aspects of personality interact, cooperate, or conflict.
The most comprehensive integration of Gestalt chair work with TA came through the Goulding's development of Redecision therapy. Their 1978 book, "The Power is in the Patient: A TA/Gestalt Approach to Psychotherapy," placed empty chair work at the very core of the therapeutic process. The Gouldings believed that combining the cognitive insights of TA with the emotional immediacy of Gestalt chair work created a powerful vehicle for change.
Their approach required clients to regress into their Child ego state, and understanding this regression process is essential to grasping how chair work achieves its therapeutic power. When clients first agree to empty chair work, they typically begin from their Adult ego state—rational, organised, and in executive control. If they remain in this Adult state throughout, the exercise becomes merely intellectual, lacking the emotional immediacy necessary for change. The critical shift happens when clients regress into their Child ego state, where original feelings and decisions reside. This regression isn't forced; rather, the chair work itself facilitates this natural movement. As dialogue begins with projected material, the Child ego state spontaneously enlarges and comes to the forefront.
This requirement for regression might explain why some clients initially refuse chair work as their Child ego state feelings are too overwhelming or threatening in that moment. The fear of losing Adult control and feeling the full intensity of childhood emotions drives the resistance. Paradoxically, this very capacity to induce regression is what makes chair work therapeutically valuable, particularly for clients who struggle to access their feelings.
John McNeel's development of the Parent Interview technique represented another crucial application within TA. In this specialised use of chair work, clients project their internalised parent figures onto the empty chair and then speak from that parental position. McNeel noted that the Gouldings would often speak directly to clients while they occupied the parental chair, addressing them as if they were the actual historical parent—a technique he called "Talking to Parent Projections." This introduces a dynamic: when empty chair work begins, a third entity enters the therapeutic space. Normally, transactions occur between client and therapist. The empty chair introduces an entirely new set of possible transactions—the Child can confront the Critical Parent, the Adult can negotiate with the Child, and the therapist can directly address specific ego states in the chair. This helps clients understand their parents' inner experiences and motivations, often leading to greater compassion and integration.
The observational power of chair work also provides invaluable diagnostic information. When clients claim to have a weak ‘Nurturing’ Parent but then speak from that chair with warmth and capability, therapists see the actual functioning rather than the client's narrative about it. This firsthand observation reveals how ego states actually interact, rather than how clients intellectually believe they function. For clients themselves, chair work offers phenomenological self-understanding at a depth rarely achievable through other means—they don't just think about their personality parts; they experience each one intimately and directly.
Beyond Gestalt and TA, empty chair work has been adapted across numerous therapeutic modalities. Schema therapy uses chair dialogues to work with schema modes. Cognitive-behavioral therapists employ chair work to externalise and challenge negative automatic thoughts. Emotion-Focused Therapy has developed sophisticated two-chair protocols for resolving internal conflicts.
What might make the empty chair technique so enduring across therapeutic traditions is its fundamental psychological truth: through projection, clients can externalise any aspect of their personality—Critical Parent, Free Child, traumatic memories, even dream elements or body parts—and work with these projections in present-moment dialogue. The capacity to facilitate regression and the movement from intellectual understanding to profound experiential knowing.
