Zoom Recording: Mastering the Creative Therapeutic Technique of Two-chair Work

In preparation for the session, I suggest you read the following long paper, written many years ago (1995), on Working with Polarities / Dialogue / Two-chair work. In many places, this paper is quite laboured, somewhat repetitive and obviously written by a German,  but the basic principles and distinctions still seem sound to me after 25 years,  and will form the basis and starting point of the teaching.

Here is an edited transcript of an interview, addressing some key questions in anticipation of a past CPD workshops on two-chair work; same interview as an mp3 audio file.

If you want to do more detailed preparation (especially if you are not that familiar with the technique),  you can watch the following online videos, by a variety of Gestalt therapists, demonstrating two-chair work.  I suggest you watch them with both an appreciative and critically enquiring attitude, experimenting internally with identifying both with the client and therapist. I suggest you watch for charged and significant moments in the interaction, and pay attention especially to the issue of spontaneity versus performance (how natural & emergent versus contrived & instructed does it seem). One of the main stumbling blocks in using the technique is that it very obviously is a 'technique', a therapeutic exercise and tool, that requires the client's collaboration and can therefore become artificial and contrived.

Two Chair Work -TA Therapy Explained