Free Therapist Training›Schema Therapy Toolkit›Chair Work Guide
Last updated: November 11, 2026
Chair work is an experiential technique in which the client moves between chairs to speak as different schema modes, so that a critic, a coping mode or the Vulnerable Child can be heard and answered in the room. The therapist, and later the client's Healthy Adult, answers each mode with an aim that suits it: firm limits for a critic, care for the child, and an empathic challenge for a coping mode. The chair work session guide matches each form of chair work to the mode it fits, sets out the seven phases of a session with a decision point in each, and ends with a session record. It comes with a completed record for an invented client, a PDF and an editable copy, and it is part of the free schema therapy toolkit.
The guide is written for clinicians trained in chair work and for trainees working under supervision. It sets out the structure of the intervention and the decisions the clinician makes along the way, and it is not a script for a client to follow alone.
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What Is in the Chair Work Session Guide?
The guide has three parts. The first table matches each form of chair work to the mode it suits and the aim of the dialogue, the second sets out the phases of a session with the decision the clinician makes in each, and the session record captures what each mode said, what the therapist did and what changed.
Choosing the form of chair work
| Form | Use it when | The aim |
|---|---|---|
| Critic dialogue | A Demanding or Punitive critic mode is active. | Punitive Critic: firm limits, and send it away. Demanding Critic: question its standards and agree on realistic ones. The therapist confronts first, then the client's Healthy Adult. |
| Giving the Vulnerable Child a voice | The child mode's feelings are blocked or unspoken. | The client speaks as the child, and the therapist or Healthy Adult responds with care. |
| Empathic confrontation of a coping mode | A coping mode such as the Detached Protector keeps the client from the work. | Interview the coping mode, acknowledge what it protects against, and ask it to step back. |
| Mode dialogue | Two modes pull in opposite directions in a decision. | Each mode states its case from its own chair; the Healthy Adult decides. |
| Empty-chair dialogue with a caregiver | A memory of a caregiver keeps the schema alive. | The client tells the imagined caregiver in the empty chair what the child needed, with the therapist's support. |
Structure of the session
| Phase | What the clinician does | Decision point |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Notice and name the mode | Points out the mode in the moment and agrees a name for it with the client. | If the client does not recognize the mode, return to the mode map first. |
| 2. Rationale and setup | Explains briefly why the mode gets its own chair, and places the chairs. | Use cushions or a second screen position in online sessions. |
| 3. Give the mode a voice | Has the client sit in the mode's chair and speak as the mode, in the first person. | Keep the critic's turn short. If the client cannot stay in the mode, the therapist can voice it from the client's words. |
| 4. Respond from the other chair | Has the client move to the Healthy Adult or child chair and respond, with coaching. | If the Healthy Adult is weak, the therapist confronts the critic first and the client watches. |
| 5. Limit the critic | Sets firm limits on a punitive critic rather than debating it, and can move its chair out of the room; with a demanding critic, questions its standards and agrees on realistic ones with the client. | Continue until the critic loses force and the client's distress falls. |
| 6. Care for the child | Turns to the Vulnerable Child's chair and responds to what the child feels and needs. | End with the child cared for, never with the critic. |
| 7. Debrief | Asks what the client noticed in each chair, allows time for the feelings the exercise raised, and links it to the case conceptualization. | Keep early chair work short and the client's arousal tolerable. |
Session record
| Field | Entry |
|---|---|
| Date and session number | |
| Form of chair work and the modes involved | |
| What each mode said (brief) | |
| The therapist's role: modeled, coached or observed | |
| Change observed: distress before and after, 0 to 10, and what shifted | |
| Debrief and links to the case conceptualization | |
| Homework and follow-up |
What Does a Completed Chair Work Session Record Look Like?
The record describes a critic dialogue with Lena, the invented client used throughout the toolkit. She is a 36-year-old accountant who calls herself useless after small mistakes at work, a verdict that comes from her Punitive Critic (also called the Punitive Parent), which she names "the judge." Her Healthy Adult is still weak, so the therapist confronts the judge first while she watches and then coaches her to do it herself, and the dialogue ends with care for her Vulnerable Child, "little Lena." All of the details are invented.
Session record
| Field | Entry |
|---|---|
| Date and session number | Session 14, early in the change phase. Lena's first critic dialogue, about 20 minutes of a 50-minute session. |
| Form of chair work and the modes involved | Critic dialogue, chosen because the judge was active from the start: Lena came in calling herself useless over an error in a quarterly report. Three chairs: the Punitive Critic ("the judge"), the Healthy Adult and the Vulnerable Child ("little Lena"). |
| What each mode said (brief) | The judge: "Useless. One mistake and everyone can see what you really are. You deserve to feel this bad." Healthy Adult, the therapist: "Stop. You don't get to call Lena useless. She made one mistake in a long report, and she fixed it." Healthy Adult, Lena: "I made a mistake and I fixed it. I'm not useless, and I'm done listening to you." Little Lena: "I feel small and stupid. I want someone to tell me I'm still OK." |
| The therapist's role: modeled, coached or observed | Modeled, then coached. The therapist confronted the judge from the Healthy Adult chair while Lena watched, then coached Lena once she took the same chair, offering words and asking for a firmer voice, until she set the limit herself and moved the judge's chair to the corner. When Lena moved to little Lena's chair, the therapist spoke to the child warmly and told her she was still cared for after a mistake. |
| Change observed: distress before and after, 0 to 10, and what shifted | Distress 8 before the dialogue, 4 after. Lena's voice was quiet on her first try in the Healthy Adult chair and firm by the third. With the judge's chair in the corner, she said it "sounds smaller from over there." In little Lena's chair she cried briefly and stayed with the feeling without going on autopilot. |
| Debrief and links to the case conceptualization | Lena said the judge sounds like her father when her grades fell short of top marks. Links: Punitiveness and Unrelenting Standards/Hypercriticalness, and her goal "Stop the judge running my life." She felt drained, so the last ten minutes went to the debrief and to settling before she left. |
| Homework and follow-up | When the judge starts after a mistake at work, Lena will name it, read the Healthy Adult flashcard she and the therapist wrote during the debrief, and do one kind thing for little Lena, such as a short walk. She will note each time in her mode log. Next session: review the log and repeat the dialogue, with Lena in the Healthy Adult chair from the start. |
What Is Chair Work in Schema Therapy?
In schema therapy, chair work turns the conflict between modes into a dialogue: each mode gets a chair of its own, and the client speaks as a mode from one chair and answers it from another. Lockwood (2009), writing for the International Society of Schema Therapy, describes clients moving between chairs to hold dialogues between parts of the self, such as the Detached Protector and the Healthy Adult, and also to practice assertiveness or reach closure with imagined significant others, often in combination with imagery.
In schema therapy for borderline personality disorder, each mode is placed on a separate chair, and the therapist or the patient's Healthy Adult speaks to each one with an aim specific to that mode (Josek et al., 2023). Chair work can also bring in people from the past. In historical role-play, a related technique that Arntz and Weertman (1999) set out alongside imagery rescripting, the therapist plays a key figure from the client's childhood in a remembered interaction, the two swap roles, and the client then replays the scene with new behavior. They prefer imagery rescripting when the caregiver could not have given the child what was needed, and rule out role-play for memories of physical abuse.
Which Form of Chair Work Fits Which Mode?
The active mode decides the form, because each mode needs something different from the dialogue. When the Punitive Critic (or Punitive Parent) is active, a critic dialogue lets the therapist, and later the client's Healthy Adult, set firm limits on it and send it away; with the Demanding Critic (or Demanding Parent), the dialogue questions its standards and agrees on realistic ones. When the Vulnerable Child's feelings are blocked or unspoken, the client speaks as the child from the child's chair and the therapist or the Healthy Adult answers with care, so the child's needs can be met in the moment. A decision that pulls two modes in opposite directions calls for a mode dialogue, in which each mode states its case from its own chair and the Healthy Adult weighs both and decides. An empty-chair dialogue suits a memory of a caregiver that keeps a schema alive: the caregiver is imagined in the empty chair, and the client tells them what the child needed (Lockwood, 2009).
When a coping mode such as the Detached Protector keeps the client from the work, the therapist turns to empathic confrontation, naming the cost of the pattern while showing real understanding of why it developed, so the client can see the cost without feeling judged (Rafaeli et al., 2011). In chair work, the coping mode gets a seat of its own and the therapist interviews it: what it protects the client from, when it learned to do that, and what it costs now. The therapist acknowledges the protection it has given and asks it to step back for a few minutes, so the client can reach the feelings it holds off.
How Do You Run a Critic Dialogue?
A critic dialogue gives the critic a chair and a voice, answers it from the Healthy Adult chair until it loses force, and ends with care for the Vulnerable Child. The therapist names the critic when it appears, using the client's own name for it, explains briefly why it gets a chair, and sets out chairs for the critic, the Healthy Adult and the child. The client then speaks as the critic from the critic's chair, briefly: patients in one study valued therapists who gave the punitive mode little space (Josek et al., 2023).
When the client's Healthy Adult is still too weak to answer, the therapist sits in the Healthy Adult chair and confronts the critic while the client watches, naming what the critic is doing, telling it firmly to stop, and stating the facts it distorts. Once the client has watched, they take the chair and confront the critic in their own words, with the therapist alongside suggesting phrases and asking for a firmer voice, until the words carry conviction. The critic is then limited and the child cared for: in schema therapy for borderline personality disorder, the Punitive Critic's chair may be carried out of the room, and the Vulnerable Child is comforted, sometimes with a plush toy or a childhood photo (Josek et al., 2023).
Chair work is emotionally demanding: in a qualitative study of 29 outpatients in that treatment, participants reported emotional pain and exhaustion, and some felt pressured. The authors suggest keeping early chair work short, about 20 minutes at most, and keeping arousal tolerable (Josek et al., 2023). Leave time to debrief: ask what the client noticed in each chair, let the feelings settle before the client leaves, and link what happened to the case conceptualization.
What Does the Research Say About Chair Work?
A small study within schema therapy supports chair work with the Punitive Critic, and meta-analyses back chair work in individual psychotherapy more broadly. In 20 patients with borderline personality disorder, one session of the empty chair technique and one session of cognitive challenging both made the Punitive Critic's beliefs less believable and gave patients more sense of control; cognitive challenging lowered believability more after one session, but patients preferred the empty chair (van Maarschalkerweerd et al., 2021). Because the study was a small, counterbalanced crossover comparison of single sessions, it cannot show how the two methods compare over a course of therapy.
Across individual psychotherapy, meta-analyses found that a single session of chair work deepened client experiencing more than empathic responding did, and that using chair work repeatedly across a treatment gave a meaningful benefit over treatments without it (Pascual-Leone & Baher, 2023). Those analyses were not specific to schema therapy. For chair work in cognitive behavioral therapy, Pugh (2017) offers a narrative review.
Keep reading
Imagery Rescripting Session Guide, the companion template for imagery rescripting, often combined with chair work
Schema Modes List and Mode Map Worksheet, the map to return to when a client does not recognize the mode in the chair
Schema Flashcard Template, for carrying the Healthy Adult's words from the session into the week
Practice Time Episode 21: Schema Critic Mode, a short free practice video on recognizing and confronting the critic mode
Frequently Asked Questions
What is chair work in schema therapy?
Chair work is an experiential technique in which the client moves between chairs to speak as different schema modes and to answer them. Schema therapists use it to confront and limit critic modes, give the Vulnerable Child a voice, ask a coping mode to step aside, settle a conflict between two modes, and tell an imagined caregiver what the child needed. It includes the empty chair technique, in which the client speaks to a mode or a person imagined in an unoccupied chair, and is often combined with imagery.
Can chair work be done in online sessions?
Chair work can be adapted for video sessions. Before the first dialogue, check that the client has privacy and room for two or three chairs or cushions within view of the camera, or agree on a different position in the frame for each mode. The client can move the critic's chair out of view or turn it to face the wall when the critic is limited. Keep early dialogues short, and plan how you will help the client settle at the end, since you cannot sit beside them.
What if the client feels silly or ashamed talking to a chair?
Say openly that the exercise can feel strange, then lower the stakes: give a short rationale, keep the first exchange brief, and let the client talk about the mode before speaking as it. The therapist can voice the mode from the client's own words or model the Healthy Adult first. Shame about the exercise may itself come from a critic mode, which can have a chair of its own. If the client declines, revisit the rationale another day or choose another intervention.
What if the client agrees with the critic?
Treat the agreement as the critic speaking, and as a sign that the client's Healthy Adult cannot yet answer it alone. The therapist takes the Healthy Adult chair and confronts the critic while the client watches, then asks the client to try one sentence of their own. Asking whose voice the critic sounds like can link it to its origins and loosen its hold. Over several sessions the client takes over, and a schema flashcard carries the Healthy Adult's words into the week.
References
Arntz, A., & Weertman, A. (1999). Treatment of childhood memories: Theory and practice. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 37(8), 715–740. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0005-7967(98)00173-9
Josek, A. K., Schaich, A., Braakmann, D., Assmann, N., Jauch-Chara, K., Arntz, A., Schweiger, U., & Fassbinder, E. (2023). Chairwork in schema therapy for patients with borderline personality disorder: A qualitative study of patients' perceptions. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 14, Article 1180839. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2023.1180839
Lockwood, G. (2009). Techniques. International Society of Schema Therapy. https://schematherapysociety.org/Techniques
Pascual-Leone, A., & Baher, T. (2023). Chairwork in individual psychotherapy: Meta-analyses of intervention effects. Psychotherapy, 60(3), 370–382. https://doi.org/10.1037/pst0000490
Pugh, M. (2017). Chairwork in cognitive behavioural therapy: A narrative review. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 41(1), 16–30. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10608-016-9805-x
Rafaeli, E., Bernstein, D. P., & Young, J. (2011). Schema therapy: Distinctive features. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203841709
van Maarschalkerweerd, F. A. T., Engelmoer, I. M., Simon, S., & Arntz, A. (2021). Addressing the punitive parent mode in schema therapy for borderline personality disorder: Short-term effects of the empty chair technique as compared to cognitive challenging. Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, 73, Article 101678. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbtep.2021.101678
