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Writer's pictureDr Jo White

Five Top Tips for Facilitating Chair Work Online


Chair work online skills

Transitioning from facilitating chair work in the therapy room to facilitating chair work online can feel clunky and cumbersome. So much so, lots of schema therapists veer away from chair work when working online and clients miss out on the powerful emotional shifts this intervention brings about.


Here are my top tips for smoothly facilitating chair work online.


1. Stand up to Move Between Schema Modes

To help clients fully shift between modes, leaving one behind and connecting with the next, ask them to stand up. The act of standing up helps to ‘shake off’ the previous mode before sitting back down again into the next mode. This is useful when clients have only one chair and they’re changing the angle or position of the chair to denote a different mode.


2. Keep the Critic Mode Chair in the Room with You

When working with the critic mode in chairs, ‘transfer’ the critic chair into the room with you. To explain, you start by interviewing the client in the critic mode chair in their room. When the client has moved out of the critic chair and you start to challenge the critic, use a chair in your room to represent the critic. You can then challenge the critic and remove the chair from your room. That way, the client isn’t left at the end of the session with a chair representing the critic mode in their space.


3. Use Objects to Represent Coping Modes

If you are working with more than one coping mode in your chair work exercise, use different objects to represent the coping modes. These objects can be in your room or in your client's room. Holding day to day objects can help to denote the change in mode (a mug or a pen to represent a mode), or to bring more power, the objects can be meaningful such as an ostrich toy (head in the sand) to represent the avoidant protector. Either you or your client holds or points to the object when interacting with that mode.


4. Connect with the Vulnerable Child with your Voice and Posture

You want to have a close connection to the vulnerable child mode, so ask your client to sit central to the camera and lean towards them/the camera, talking in a soft tone of voice.


5. Connect with the Healthy Adult Mode using Posture

Instead of introducing an additional chair for the healthy adult mode, you can ask your client to stand up (you stand up with them) or ask them to change their body posture. Using a few moments to sit up straight, ground the feet on the floor and take a few long, slow breaths can be a very effective way of connecting with the healthy adult.



Would you like to feel confident to deliver chair work online?

Do you want to know how to facilitate chair work smoothly online?

Would you like your online clients to benefit from the power of chair work?


I have a workshop for you!


Workshop: Chair Work Online. Schema Therapy Works.


I would love to share and demonstrate all I have learnt about facilitating chair work online, so you can feel confident and skilful with this experiential work.


I have packed this workshop full of practical tips and demonstrations of how to do chair work online. You will leave feeling confident that you can help your online clients benefit from the emotional shifts chair work has the power to facilitate.


In this workshop you will learn:


  • Technical tips and tricks to smoothly facilitate chair work online

  • Chair work with a coping mode online

  • Chair work with the critic mode online

  • Connecting with the healthy adult mode online

  • Connecting with the vulnerable child mode online

  • Mode mapping with ‘chairs’ online


You’ll come away with a resource booklet covering everything you have learned.




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