The empty chair
You address someone who isn't in the room as if they were sitting opposite — and answer from their seat too.
The empty chair is an exercise in which you place a chair opposite you and imagine that the person you owe something to, or need something from, is sitting in it. You say what has remained unsaid, out loud and in the second person. Then you swap places: you sit in their chair and answer with your own mouth, as if you were them. It sounds strange, and for the first thirty seconds it is. Then something often happens that thinking alone cannot reach — a sentence appears in the answer that you did not plan.
When to use it
With what has gone unsaid — to someone who has died, to a parent, to a former partner, to a part of yourself. The exercise is powerful and is better done for the first time in a session, not alone.
How it goes
- Put an empty chair opposite you and picture the person there.
- Tell them what you never did. Out loud, not in your head.
- Move to their chair and answer from their seat.
- Return to your own and answer back.
- Finish by saying what you need.
Why it works
What goes unsaid circles until it finds an addressee. Changing seats often brings an insight that thinking alone doesn’t reach.
