Chairwork is an intense, experiential psychotherapeutic method that involves: (a) inviting a patient to sit in one chair in order to have an imaginal encounter with someone from the past, the present, or the future in the chair opposite; and/or (b) using several chairs to create dialogues among different parts of the self. The Four Dialogues are Giving Voice, Telling the Story, Internal Dialogues, and Relationships and Encounters, and they serve as the foundation and the core components of all chair-centered dialogues. Giving Voice involves amplifying and giving expression to a feeling, interviewing a part to better understand it, and/or empowering people to claim personal authority and affirm the decisions that they are making in their lives; Telling the Story is centered on working with people to express and integrate difficult, painful, or secret narratives; Internal Dialogues involves working with the patient's inner parts, modes, or schemas; and Relationships and Encounters dialogues are rooted in the interpersonal world, and it utilizes the cycle of emotions-or the expression of love, anger, fear, and grief. This paper will show how these four dialogue structures can be used in the treatment of depression, anxiety disorders, interpersonal mistreatment, grief, personality disorders, and socially induced trauma and oppression. Clinical Impact StatementChairwork is an experiential psychotherapeutic method that is currently growing in popularity. The Four Dialogues is a framework for helping therapists to gain greater clarity about the approach and to use it in ways that are much more healing and effective.
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