Beyond The Screen: How Chairwork Psychotherapy Thrives In A Telehealth World

By Author: ELLA
Total Articles: 7
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For years, my therapy room was my sanctuary. It was where the magic of Chairwork truly happened: the client stepping out of their "vulnerable child" seat and—with a deep breath and a visible physical shift—sitting down to confront their internalized "harsh critic." The air in the room would practically hum with transformative energy.
Then, the world changed. Suddenly, we were all on screens.
The question I, and every experiential therapist, immediately faced was: Can an intervention that relies so heavily on embodied movement and spatial dynamics—like Chairwork—actually work online? Is the power of an empty chair lost when it's just a blurry backdrop on a video call?
The short answer is no. But to make it work, we couldn't just do Chairwork online; we had to re-imagine it. This is the story of how Tele-Chairwork has moved from a temporary fix to a powerful, compassionate, and often preferred modality in the modern age of telehealth psychotherapy.

The Heart of the Work: What Chairwork Does
If you're new to it, Chairwork is a profoundly moving, emotion-focused technique. It’s based on the ...
... idea that our psyche isn't one monolithic entity; it’s a collection of "parts" or "voices" that hold conflicting views—the part that seeks connection, the part that sabotages relationships, the voice of the inner parent, the voice of anxiety.
The In-Person Power: The brilliance of physical chairs is how they instantly make the invisible, visible. They turn a confusing internal monologue into a dynamic, externalized scene. The client literally moves between chairs, embodying these different 'I-positions', which facilitates:
Tangible Reality: The conflict leaves the head and becomes real in the room.
Deep Feeling: Movement triggers emotion faster than mere talking.
Empowerment: The client can physically stand up to a voice (like the Critic) that they feel helpless against internally.
When we went remote, these three pillars were threatened. Here’s how we adapted.

Bridging the Distance: The Tele-Chairwork Masterclass
The shift to remote therapy exposed two major deficits: losing the full body view and losing the shared therapeutic space. Overcoming these required a more intentional, collaborative, and creative approach from both me and my clients.
Challenge 1: The 'Floating Head' Problem (Loss of Embodied Cues)
My Initial Fear: I can't see their feet tapping! I can't see the shift in their shoulders when they move seats! I'll miss the subtle sign that they're disconnecting or feeling overwhelmed.
The Humanized Adaptation:
I Became a 'Vocal' Detective: Since the visual data was limited, I had to train my ear to pick up micro-shifts in vocal tone and tempo. Is their voice getting higher? Is their pace speeding up? I started asking more direct, gentle questions about the body: "Take a moment, where are you noticing that heavy feeling right now? Is it in your chest or your stomach?"
Strategic Camera Angles: I stopped being shy about giving directing cues. I'd ask a client to scoot back so I could see them shift from a 'rigid' chair (the Critic) to a 'softer' chair (the Vulnerable Part), giving me just enough visual information to track the embodiment.
Challenge 2: The 'Clutter and Chaos' Problem (Home Environment)
My Initial Fear: What if they can't find two empty chairs? What if their partner walks in during the most vulnerable moment?
The Humanized Adaptation:
The Pre-Session Safety Brief: This is the most important part of Ethical Considerations Telehealth Chairwork. Before we ever start, we confirm:
The Sanctuary: Is the door locked? Are headphones on? Are pets and children secured?
The Tools: We use substitutes for chairs. A cushion on the floor vs. a dining chair. A different color blanket. The use of a simple notebook on their lap to represent the 'other.' The imagination is often more powerful than the props.
The Fire Exit: I always have their current address and a clear crisis plan (nearest hospital, emergency contact). Safety is non-negotiable.
Leveraging Digital Space for Mapping: For clients who struggled to physically move, we'd use digital whiteboards or even just a shared, annotated image. We could map out the conflict—"The red circle is your Critic, the small blue square is the Vulnerable Child"—before diving into the dialogue. This intellectual mapping helped them connect the dots before the emotional leap.

The Unexpected Gifts of Remote Experiential Therapy
While we focus on the challenges, the transition to Tele-Chairwork has brought surprising and powerful benefits:
Profound Accessibility: This is the greatest win. For clients with chronic illness, mobility issues, or those living in remote areas (finally finding a specialist in Schema Therapy Chairwork Remote!), telehealth removes the tyranny of geography. The work is no longer limited by who can get to my office.
The Comfort of Home: Paradoxically, for a technique that requires intense emotional vulnerability, being in one's own space can feel safer. Clients are more grounded. I’ve seen clients access and express grief or rage more fully because they are in their home "nest," knowing they don't have to compose themselves for a drive afterward.
Real-Time Integration: When a client resolves an internal conflict (e.g., they empower their Healthy Adult to soothe the Child Part), they are already home. The resolution is immediately integrated into the environment where their daily life happens, making the therapeutic gains feel less abstract.

Conclusion: The Enduring Power of the Dialogue
The experience of conducting Virtual Therapy using a technique as powerful as Chairwork has been a profound lesson in the resilience of the human connection. The medium changes, but the core need remains: to externalize our pain, confront our inner demons, and find a path toward self-compassion.
Whether my client is sitting on a velvet couch in my office or a kitchen chair across a video platform, the dialogue that happens between two "empty" seats is a testament to the transformative power of therapy itself. Tele-Chairwork is effective because it’s not about the chairs; it’s about the courage of the person willing to occupy them, one part at a time. The future of the work is here, and it’s thriving, screen and all.
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