The Empty Chair Technique

In psychology, there are several approaches to treating patients who need help managing their mental health. One such therapy is known as Gestalt therapy. This approach aims to guide patients to focus on the present moment and process emotions that were affected by their past experiences. This gave rise to a technique known as the empty chair technique. In this article, we will learn more about what this technique is about and how a therapy session using this technique can look like. 

What is the Empty Chair Technique? 

The empty chair technique, also known as the “two-chair technique” or “chairwork”, is a technique that allows the patient to talk to an empty chair about their thoughts and feelings to another person, a version of themself, or even a concept of something. Its aim is to allow the patient to start talking to the other party or versions of themselves so that they are able to increase awareness and resolve conflict that the patient may have with themselves or others. 

The technique was founded by Fritz Perls (who also coined the term Gestalt therapy!) sometime between the 1940s to 1950s, but was further developed by others in the field such as Edgar Stuntz in 1973 and Kellogg and Garcia Torres in 2021 (White, 2023). This gives rise to a few differing interpretations of how to conduct the empty chair technique in therapy sessions, but many have been said to have built upon Perls’ work and his idea of projecting a part of the patient’s self onto the chair. 

According to Kellogg and Torres (2021) (as cited in Lovering, 2021), the empty chair technique is often helpful for people with depression, anxiety disorders, interpersonal mistreatment, personality disorders, inner conflict, self-hatred, and those suffering from grief and socially induced trauma. Yet, for people not willing to project the part of themselves that needs help onto the chair, this technique would not be helpful for them as they would not be able to immerse and understand the emotions that they are feeling and thus not be able to resolve the conflict that they face. 

What goes on during the therapy? 

In general, during a therapy session using this technique, under the guidance of a therapist, the patient would first identify an ‘object’ to place on the empty chair. Then, the patient would undergo a ‘conversation’ with the ‘object’ on the empty chair. Sometimes, the therapist may get the patient to switch places with the ‘object’ and “respond from the other person’s perspective (or part of themselves) in the empty chair” (Sutton, 2024). Finally, the therapist would wrap up the session and debrief with the patient about what has happened. 

Let us explore more in-depth in a specific way that uses multiple chairs in the technique. This is usually for the case of projecting oneself onto the empty chair(s). (Bear in mind that this is merely one of many ways that the empty chair technique can take shape.)

Stuntz (1973, as cited in White, 2023) outlined that when conducting the multiple chair technique, the room would have four chairs consisting of the Adult ego state, the Child ego state, the Parent ego state, and the therapist. The patient would usually project themselves as the Adult ego state as this state is the inner, healthy role that takes charge of the patient. Eric Berne (as cited in White, 2023) stated that the Parent ego state refers to the state of the person who is unconsciously affected by the parents in their life, which becomes part of the person’s personality that can then be projected onto an empty chair. 

The Child ego state is usually the state that holds the most feelings and emotions about a certain situation. In such cases, the patient would have to regress into their Child ego state during the session to better understand their feelings. This is why for the empty chair work to be effective, Goulding (1985, as cited in White, 2023) and White (2023) both mention the importance of the patient to “regress” into the Child ego state, or else the chair work would simply be an “intellectual exercise” for the patient. This would defeat the purpose of doing the empty chair technique! As such, for the empty chair technique to be effective, the patient should allow their emotions to resurface and be felt during the session. 

Undeniably, some patients would feel too overwhelmed to do such a thing and create reasons such as feeling too embarrassed about talking to the empty chair (White, 2023). For such people, other approaches should be used to better help them during therapy. 

Conclusion 

In conclusion, the empty chair technique is a technique that has patients speak to an “empty chair” so that they may project a part of themselves onto the chair and verbalise their thoughts and emotions towards it. 

With this technique, patients are able to better understand how their emotions and past experiences had been affecting them in the present moment, and this could lead to outcomes such as resolving internal conflict or finding closure in past relationships. 

Works Cited 

Lovering, C. (2021). Empty Chair Technique: What It Is and How It Helps. [online] Psych Central. Available at: https://psychcentral.com/health/empty-chair-technique [Accessed 29 Jun. 2025].

Sutton, J. (2024). The Empty Chair Technique: How It Can Help Your Clients. [online] PositivePsychology.com. Available at: https://positivepsychology.com/empty-chair-technique/ [Accessed 29 Jun. 2025].

White, T. (2023). Empty chair work and its use in psychotherapy. Edukacyjna Analiza Transakcyjna, [online] 12, pp.15–29. doi:https://doi.org/10.16926/eat.2023.12.01.