April 10, 2015 By Admin

Modified Empty Chair Technique

Finding Your Seat with Your Demons and Dragons: Resolutions

You may think the creation of the Gestalt-like therapy activity of sitting in different chairs and acting “as if” the you in that personality-chair is the source of your responses is a relatively new psychotherapy intervention. However, some roots of this process may go back as far as certain practices of eleventh century Tibetan yoga and meditation. Earlier Buddhist and Chod practices included finding deities and demons had some subtle relationship to being in your seat and becoming one with that personification. The “empty chair” technique as modified below comes from the work of Tsultrim Allione about transforming your demons.

In this post I will use the word “dragon” to replace the word “demon.” Several years ago I wrote a format for transforming your dragons – to become one with them as a means to subdue their negative energies. Here the use of words like demons and dragons is purely therapeutic metaphor. I will depend more on my earlier version of this intervention. Let’s begin.

Set up four chairs or cushions, and place them so you can move to each with your eyes closed. Best to seat yourself in the middle, and place the Ally to your right and the Dragon to your left. The last cushion or chair is directly in front of you – it is an a metaphor for observation. With your eyes open, sit in each place to see what you feel like being there.

1) Sitting in your place – first experience a period of mindfulness meditation. Just be with yourself and note whatever comes into awareness without evaluating it. Breathe calmly, slowly, and deeply. Once you feel you are in a calm abiding meditation state, begin to think about which dragon you want to transform. It is wise-minded to select a dragon that is NOT one of your most ferocious emotionally. Common dragons may represent anxiety, fear, depression, trauma, addictions, other compulsions, relationship problems, etc. Think about it, and slowly and with ease make an image of your dragon in your imagination. Be sure you can tolerate the emotional reaction to the image. If not, alter the image until you can do so. If you cannot find some ease with any of the images, stop doing this activity. Just continue to meditate on your gratitude for being alive as a precious human being.

2) Still sitting in your place – if you can tolerate the image, please close your eyes. This intervention works better with eyes closed. Visualize the metaphor of “feeding” your dragon so it is more content, thus less troubling for you. Here “feeding” does not mean giving the dragon what it craves as self-medication; rather, feeding refers to what it needs but is not getting from you – thus its continued craving for other things. Generate some emotional energy to become one with the dragon. It is already part of you in your mind, so this step simply presents what already exists. Be aware of your feeling state at this time.

3) Move to your dragon’s place with your eyes still closed. Be one with it. Ask your dragon metaphor what it needs but is not receiving from you. Wait! Ask again if necessary, and again. Sometimes it takes a brief period of dissociation in the mind (from your ego to the dragon metaphor) for the answers to begin. The dragon is your dragon, and it is alive in your mind and body. Sit calmly and wait until you begin to hear something from inside of you. Listen!!!! Listen very carefully. Remember what you heard. Try to narrow down what your dragon needs from you.

4) Move to your ally’s place. Be still inside. Breathe calmly. Ask your ally metaphor how you can do what the dragon needs. What can you do? How can you do it? Can you do it alone? Will you need help? Listen carefully to the advice of your ally – on inner self-helper as many people call it. Remember what you heard. Your inner self-helper is always looking out for your best interests.

5) Go back to the dragon’s place, and simply vow that you will do your best to deliver what needs to be delivered. Make a real vow. Get the feel of the dragon metaphor at this time. Use my CABS-VAKGO-IS-Rels system here. Use thoughts, emotions, specific behaviors, visual memory and future projection, auditory memory and future projection, kinesthetic/sensation memory and future projection, intuition, spirituality and helpful relationships to carry out your plan. Really contemplate it. See it in your imagination.

6) Go back to your personal place. Take a few minutes to rest, then contemplate the meaning of what you have learned from both your dragon and your inner self-helper. Note privately what your emotional state is now. Write down some details on your plan to satisfy your dragon so it will be able to transform. Remember it is all about mind-body transformation. This is the path to improvement.

7) The last step – Move to the observer metaphor place and seek any other information and support that may be helpful. Now go back to your own place and just rest in inner peace and silence.

For another far more detailed version of this intervention see Allione, T. (March 26, 2015). Feeding Your Demons…www.tricycle.com,

By Anthony R. Quintiliani, PhD., LADC

From the Eleanor R. Liebman Center for Secular Meditation in Monkton, Vermont

Author of Mindful Happiness

CLICK HERE to Order!

Looking at Early Judeo-Chrsitian Meditation Practice An early description of enlightened liberation in Buddhist meditation practice reads like this: Birth is destroyed, the spiritual life has been lived, what had to be done has been done. There is no more coming back to any state of being. Ignorance was banished and true knowledge arose, darkness […]

How We Make Habits – An Understanding Twenty-five hundred years ago the Buddha reportedly taught how humans make habits. The insights of this earliest Buddhist Psychology sheds shame on the West, with its almost-the-same version of this view in the 20th century. One must wonder if B. F. Skinner or N. Chomsky knew about Buddhist […]

Mindfulness Expands the Art of Journal Writing T. Merton, J. Kerouc, I. Progoff, J. Upton, and others have helped to expand the art or journal writing practice. This type of practice can become your mindfulness practice. You will need to write on a daily basis (even if briefly), and you will need to be highly […]

Making Boundless Space for Your Emotional Dragons In the past I have offered posts about radical acceptance and ways of dealing with your personal dragons or demons. Here I will offer a more advanced perspective on how directly engaging your emotional dragons is a very important part of your spiritual path – your spiritual journey […]

Secular Meditation and Addictions Treatment Today we have ample research evidence (NIH, NIDA, SAMHSA, etc.) that mindfulness, meditation, yoga, and mind training all have some effectiveness in improving addiction disorders. In recent meta-analyses the primary effect was through improved emotion regulations, whereas there was a more direct positive impact on chronic pain, depression, and anxiety. […]

Showing Deep Love & Respect Loved Ones Lost This is a very brief post about love and respect for “lost loved ones” – those special people who have left their human body and mind behind. Two Rituals 1) Loving Kindness Meditation for Lost Loved Ones After breathing slowly and deeply for a few minutes in silence, […]

“The Other Shore” to Happiness and Enlightenment Thich Nhat Hanh’s book, The Other Shore: A New Translation of The Heart Sutra…Berkeley, CA: Palm Leaves Press brings us on an inner journey toward a happier, more peaceful and enlightened life. Wisdom implies that we understand that life is made up of mental formations, no-self (more clarifications later), […]

The Meaning of the Present Moment in Mindfulness & Meditation Many mindfulness and meditation experts have commented on the meaning of the present moment. Below I have noted some of the ideas presented by Eckhart Tolle. In some cases I have added my own interpretations. What is the Present Moment? What is the experience about? […]

More on Yoga Nidra Yoga nidra is sometimes called yoga sleep or yoga relaxation. It is a very powerful mindfulness technique that allows one to relax the body and limbic brain area, while holding mental control for deeper relaxation and projective practices without falling asleep. For some it may be like lucid dreaming, but a […]

Self-Care to Reduce Compassion Fatigue First let’s begin with what some people do to counteract the stressors of living in a hurried,“over-technologized” world. Technically, “technologize” is not a popularly accepted word, but it is a sad reality. We live in a time when texting while driving may become the new addiction-based cause for many, many […]

Mindfulness, Movement, and Meditation Practices Meditation Master Thich Nhat Hanh offers some of the most helpful mindfulness, movement, and meditation instructions available today. His themes here are about reducing your suffering, increasing your satisfactions, and expanding your happiness as a result. Please do not note that “I do not have time to do these things!” […]

My blog site mindfulhappiness.org has many posts on meditation, Buddhism, education, clinical practices and self-activated emotional health practices. Perhaps you may wish to initiate a Reflective Journal practice after you do practices presented on the site. There are many benefits from maintaining a written journal about personal experiences and practices. Not only does a […]

Building Healthy Intimate Relationships: Intimate relationships are often the source of many years of happiness and satisfaction, and sometimes the cause of great pain and suffering. It depends! I will list various realities of initiating and maintaining a positive intimate relationship. After reading these, ask yourself: Where is my relationship? If you are unhappy, do […]

Inner Workings of Self-Medication Process To continue our discussion about the self-medication process we will first turn to the human brain. The human brain is the most complex system known to science. Here, my comments will be basic. Self-medication often has roots in the quality of our earliest childhood experiences (attachment and object relations with […]

Enhancing Hope in Psychotherapy The enhancement of personal hope is a key part of successful psychotherapy practice. Some view this requirement as a foundational aspect of the therapeutic alliance; others do not hold the same view. In the case of serious co-occurring disorders, especially trauma and substance misuse, initiating, developing, and sustaining a hopeful future-view […]

Insights – Vipassana Mediation There will be future, more advanced vipassana meditations posted on the site. For now, however, we will end this series with a final post about the insights often experienced via vipassana meditation. We learn via experience about impermanence, suffering and its causes, no-self, emptiness and many other things – or, perhaps, […]

Building Emotional Resilience On a personal note, right now I am suffering. Its April 15th and I have a terrible viral infection (sore throat, chest congestion, and fever). I feel weak and miserable. Perhaps all that frigid air we endured in New England this Winter also kept infectious “stuff” under control for a while. However, […]

Calming Your Self-Critical Self with Mindfulness A core problem for many people is their incessant self (or other) criticism. This is a major part of our psychological mind suffering today. In the past life for most people was more difficult, so human basic needs were the energized priorities; today so many of us have been […]

Interoception and Your Inner Self-Helper Interoception (sometimes called neuroception) is a sensory experience, in which you feel sensations in your body (viscera, heart, throat, etc.) that may be warning signs of limbic surveillance or inner continuity of your inner self-helper – that part of you and your brain that hopes to help you in whatever […]

Mindful Solidarity with Standing Rock Sioux Earth Protectors The Standing Rock Sioux earth protectors are fighting earth destruction, environmental degradation, oil profiteering, and corporate greed. Yes, I suppose finding huge reserves of crude helps many people become employed in the Dakotas. This is important. But other earth-wise activity (more solar for example) would be far […]