Answer from the other chair with what you feel and need

Move to the criticized side's chair and tell the critic how its words land, then what you need from it.

Pourquoi ça marche

The second component Greenberg identified is the criticized side expressing its feelings and wants. At first this side often collapses or agrees with the critic; the work is to stay with how it feels to be spoken to that way until a deeper feeling arrives, such as sadness, hurt or anger, and then to state a need ("I need you to back me, not attack me"). A recent study of self-critical clients found that moving through an old painful feeling to a more adaptive one during chair work predicted reductions in self-criticism.

Comment faire

1. Move to the second chair. Before answering, notice what happens in your body as you recall the critic's words.
2. Tell the critic directly how it feels to be spoken to like that ("When you say that, I feel small and hopeless").
3. If you start agreeing with the critic or defending yourself with arguments, pause and come back to what you feel.
4. When the feeling has been said, tell the critic what you need from it, as plainly as you can.

Données probantes

Expressing feelings and wants is the second resolution component in Greenberg and Webster's 31-client study. Delatraba and colleagues coded chair work with 19 highly self-critical clients over 10 to 12 sessions: experiencing a painful maladaptive emotion followed by an adaptive one predicted lower self-criticism after therapy, and the sequence also predicted improvement at three-month follow-up. (observational)

Both studies are correlational and took place inside therapy with a trained therapist guiding the sequence. Reaching old, painful feelings can bring up more than expected; if you feel flooded, lose track of where you are, or images will not settle, stop and continue with a trained therapist.

Sources

• Greenberg, L. S., & Webster, M. C. (1982). Resolving decisional conflict by Gestalt two-chair dialogue: Relating process to outcome. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 29(5), 468-477.
• Delatraba, A., Jódar, R., López-Cavada, C., & Pascual-Leone, A. (2026; online 2025). Emotion cascade: Harnessing emotional sequences to enhance chair work interventions and reduce self-criticism. Psychotherapy Research, 36(1), 10-24.
• Greenberg, L. S. (2002). Emotion-focused therapy: Coaching clients to work through their feelings. American Psychological Association.

Erreur fréquente

Arguing back with evidence ("but I did finish the project"). Debate keeps the exchange in the critic's terms; what shifts the dialogue in Greenberg's account is the feeling and the need, not a better counter-argument.