Compassion Focused Therapy Chair-Work - in Manchester

About this Course

'Chair-work’ refers to a group of experiential psychotherapeutic techniques that incorporate chairs, the positioning of chairs and the client’s movement between them. Chair-work has a rich history in psychotherapy and has a key role in Compassion-Focused Therapy (CFT). Research has found chair-work to be an effective, experiential intervention that increases emotional processing and activation; facilitates differentiation, dialogue and integration between internal ‘parts’ or ‘selves’; allows clients to gain a metacognitive stance; whilst also being memorably ‘enactive’ in nature. CFT chair-work interventions include the enactment of self-critical dialogues between two chairs (the critical and criticised ‘selves’) before introducing and utilizing the ‘compassionate self’ in a third chair. Another core CFT chair-work intervention involves embodying various threat emotions, in separate chairs, before relating to them with compassion.

The workshop will provide participants with an opportunity to practice key CFT chair-work interventions, as well as two-chair interventions to facilitate the flow of compassion between self-to-other, other-to-self, and self-to-self. Alternate and novel applications of CFT chair-work will be introduced and practiced, including how to work with blocks to compassion using chair-work and how to address an internalized abusive ‘other’ using chairs. Each CFT chair-work intervention will be modeled by the facilitators and broken down into specific steps to aid practical application.

Learning Objectives

-Understand the underpinning principles and theoretical rationale for chair-work in CFT

-Practice core CFT chair-work interventions including self-critic and ‘multiple-selves’ interventions

-Undertake ‘two-chair’ interventions to introduce and cultivate the flows of compassion

-Work with blocks, fears and resistances to compassion using chair-work

-Practice novel applications of chair-work in CFT

-Integrate client feedback from recent research into their CFT chair-work and reflect on the role of the therapeutic relationship

-Learn how to adapt CFT chair-work for specific client populations and to address client reservations and blocks to chair-work

-Experience chair-work from the ‘inside-out’ by working with their own difficulties