Everything you always wanted to know about the empty chair technique – Online Psychologists

If you think of a psychology consultation, you probably think of a room with a couch to lie on and a psychology professional sitting next to you. But the truth is that there are hundreds of thousands of different consultations. A multitude of psychologists who use different therapies and techniques: from exposure to empty chair techniquegoing through many others.

There is more and more knowledge about psychology, therapy and everything that surrounds this scientific field. However, techniques like this are little known to patients, despite their great utility.

The empty chair technique is a tool based on imaginationIt consists of the following: your psychologist makes you sit in front of an empty chair and asks you to imagine that there is someone sitting there.

It could be someone who was part of your life, the cause of some trauma or even your “self” from a past time. Once you have projected your imagination and are able to to think that there is someone sitting there in front of youit's time to talk about your feelings.

This is a technique specific to the Gestalt therapycreated by Jacob Levy Moreno and popularized by Fritz Perls.

Jacob Levy Moreno He was a psychiatrist, psychosociologist and educator born in Bucharest at the end of the 19th century. He created the psychodramaa psychological care technique whose origin is found in theatrical improvisation.

The psychodrama technique consists of the representation of events that may be real or imaginary and its objective is to help you understand your own feelings, thoughts, etc.

For its part, Fritz Perls He was the German doctor and psychoanalyst responsible for creating, together with Laura Posner, Gestalt Therapy.

Gestalt Therapy is part of the humanistic psychology and is based on a seemingly simple premise: that you, as an individual, have the ability to restore your own well-being and heal yourself.

For its creators, It was essential that the patient became aware of what was happening to him.. His perceptions, his experiences and his motivations are key points when it comes to explaining what is happening to him. It was also necessary for him to become aware of his own ability to change what is holding him back.

Furthermore, the present played a very important role in this branch of thought, since it was considered that the present is the only thing that can be changed.

In this way, instead of exploring the past, Gestalt Therapy focuses on relive shocking events in the present moment that have been experienced. That is why it is so common to use the empty chair technique in Gestalt Therapy.

If you think that the past has too big an impact on your current experiences, perhaps it is time to put yourself in the hands of an online psychologist.

The operation of this technique is relatively simple, although it will depend, to a large extent, on your imaginative capacity.

To perform this technique you must sit in front of an empty chaireither completely facing you or slightly tilted to make the opposition between your positions less evident.

Then you have to imagine there is someone sitting in that chair: maybe it's someone you've lost, someone who has hurt you, or, as we've said before, your former self. In order for this image to take shape, you must describe it to your therapist: this way you'll be able to better specify the details of the person you imagine.

From that moment on you will have to start talk to that image you have projectedout loud and with complete sincerity. The goal is to express all those feelings and thoughts that you have bottled up: it's about allowing yourself to feel what you feel.

Your therapist may encourage you to change chairs during the course of the conversation, to get you into the other person's shoes. Afterwards, you simply close your eyes and let the imagined projection come back to you.

The empty chair technique is a very useful tool to be able to managing grief brought on by a death or difficult loss.

It is usually used in situations where the loss has been unexpected and therefore there are things left to say.

For example, when someone dies in a car accident and the person in the vehicle survives, there may be traces of blame or guilt.

Since communicating with that person is no longer possible, there is no choice but to do so through imagination.

Traumatic experiences are often complex to deal with. Not only because they leave countless sequels not only in the person who experiences them, but because, on many occasions, it is not possible to obtain an explanation.

Victims of sexual assault, attacks or traffic accidents often do not have the opportunity, nor the desire, to sit face to face with the person responsible for the situation. ask him why he did it.

Luckily, through imagination they can come up with a way to express what they feel without anyone judging them and without being face to face with the culprit, within an environment controlled by a mental health professional.

You may have had something happen to you that left you with many questions that were never answered. And while the empty chair technique won't help you find those answers, it is certainly a good way to to get rid of the burden caused by uncertainty.

Let's take as an example a relatively common profile in therapy: that of Marisa. Marisa is around fifty years old and just got divorcedafter more than twenty years of marriage. The decision was not hers and her ex-husband's explanation has failed to satisfy her.

He explained to her that, in his opinion, the relationship was no longer working. The magic had run out, they argued every week and even the smallest inconvenience was a cause for disagreement.

However, Marisa is convinced that her ex was having an affair with a woman and is still determined to ask for some explanations that will simply never arrive.

In this context, the empty chair technique is useful to get rid of resentment and accept the loss. You can imagine that your ex-husband is standing in front of you and expose all doubts and insecurities that your separation has caused you. And, with the help of your therapist, you will also be able to learn to manage and let go of those negative feelings.

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