DRAGONS Archives - Mindful Happiness

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!

Poem on the Wind I am quite pleased with my experience on BEING in the wind today. This poem will suggest that you allow the wind to be a metaphor – even a fantasy – that allows your pain and suffering to be swept away by the endless, gentle, blowing wind of nature. We […]

Gratitude Practices to Improve your Emotional Mood The following fourteen suggestions may improve your emotional mood. One reward from practicing gratitude is that we tend to feel a little better no matter what our causes and conditions are at the time. Here is the list. Make a habit of thanking people. “Thank you.” Appreciate […]

The Needs of Traumatized Children – Learning Activity As a means to hone in on your helping behaviors, complete this learning activity. NEEDS List a Concrete Example for Each Unmet Need. Biological _______________________________________________ Psychological ____________________________________________ Social __________________________________________________ Emotional _______________________________________________ Educational ______________________________________________ Spiritual ________________________________________________ Attachment ______________________________________________ What can YOU do to help meet […]

Meditation on Ecodharma and Buddhist Ecology Sit calmly and begin to breathe in and out deeply and slowly. Open your eyes to see and appreciate the natural environment you are in. Close your eyes now if you wish to do so. Know that this nature – the sky, clouds, stars, father sun, mother moon, […]

Cognitive Defusion in Mindfulness Psychotherapy A well-meaning therapist might ask: What is cognitive defusion. Well this practice, as used in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, is beyond cognitive restructuring of cognitive distortions and automatic negative thoughts ( I call “Red Ants”). The practice concretely de-literalizes the personal truth and meaning of unhelpful, repetitive thoughts and words. […]

Helper Self-Care is Important In the most current issue of The National Psychologist (July-August, 2019) an article linked helper effectiveness, risk management, and clinical outcomes to helper self-care. To make a long story shorter, I will simply paraphrase and re-word the suggestions. These recommendations support YOUR emotional survival and successful risk management as a helper as […]

Self-Care as Ritual Self-care for Americans is often considered a luxury. Due to our technological demands and addictions (Demons as they are), and the slow slipping of our economic structures, we are often at the mercy of the bottom line at work. Over-paid CEOs and CFOs and their many assistants eat up so, so much […]

Failure and Success: After We Fail, We Succeed Humans tend to get very discouraged when things do not go our way. This may be especially true for younger people, who have grown up attached to their instant gratification digital devices. Below I will list several highly successful people, but I will also note their many […]

The Great Mother of Gratitude Meditation Sit in silence and take a few very slow, very deep breaths in and out. Relax within your personal comfort with eyes opened or closed. If you prefer your eyes to be open, hold you head level and gently gaze down a few feet in front of you. Continue […]

Contemplative Practices – Affirmative Self-Inquiry Contemplation and affirmative self-inquiry may be helpful in improving your awareness of your better parts of self – your positive strengths and traits. Our self-critical mind often causes us to spend far too much time on critical, negative thinking about ourselves and about others. The practice below may be helpful […]

Polyvagal Interventions for Anxiety S. Porges and his Polyvagal Theory may provide innovative interventions for both anxiety and depression. Many people become trapped in ruminating about the past or worrying about the future; they cannot seem to keep their mind and body in the present moment. Some strong, fear-based, bodily defenses may not respond well to […]

Zen Buddhist Emptiness and Christian Centering Prayer Recently Ken McLeod presented “Freedom of Choice” as a way to differentiate forms of spiritual materialism and emotional escapism from serious Buddhist practice. He noted The Heart Sutra negations. There is no attainment for bodhisattvas as they pursue the perfection of wisdom. Ultimately, everything is empty. He refers […]

Setting Emotional Boundaries from Work to Life Anthony R. Quintiliani, Ph.D., LADC Sometimes setting emotional boundaries from the psychotherapy room to your life outside of work can be a difficult thing to do. Shifting from “experience near empathy” (Kohut), “unconditional positive regard” (Rogers), “hovering attention” (Freud), “the holding environment” in “intersubjective space” (Winnicott), and compassionate […]

More Psychoanalytic Gems – In an earlier post, I noted a list of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Gems, including a later post on D.W. Winnicott’s approaches to building a therapeutic alliance. My general aversion to this form of therapy has more to do with its slowness and high costs than to its effectiveness. It is effective! However, […]

Meditating in the Gap of Nothingness The Buddha taught about your four best friends, that is how the body changes physiology when you sit, stand, walk/move and every time you are lying down. Modern Western neuroscience now supports this statement of 2500+ years ago. Thich Nhat Hanh added the importance of your breath, walking meditation, […]

Are You Happier Yet? Use Practical Mindfulness Skills Two recent books offer sound advice about YOU becoming a happier person. L. Cypers Kamen (2017) Are You Happy Yet: Eight Keys to Unlocking a Joyful Life. New York: MFJ Books and D. Altman (2016) Cleansing Emotional Clutter… New York: MFJ Books offer practical ways to improve your personal level of happiness. […]

Practice: Yogi Deep Meditation on Inner Listening Carl Jung noted: Who looks outside dreams; who looks inside, awakens. The Katha Upanishads (800-400 BCE) noted: One path leads outward and the other inward. [The] way inward leads to grace. The Mind Cave Focus instructs us to close our eyes and expand your third-eye space to the back of […]

College Students – Mental Health in The US R. Quintiliani, Ph.D., LADC The Association of University and College Counseling Center Directors has released data on the mental health status of American college students. Two survey between 2016 and 2018 yielded results from as far back as 2014. Here are some selected statistics (rounded): Anxiety 47-61%; […]

Practicing Interoceptive Meditations Anthony R. Quintiliani, Ph.D., LADC The mindfulness-based process and intervention of interoception (also called neuroception) has slowly moved from meditation practice into clinical practice, now being part of the recommended MBSR, ACT, and more current CBT-based therapies. The three brief meditations below are presented to expand the use of interoceptive processes in […]

Psychological Research on the Dangers of Smartphone Abuse There is no doubt that smartphone technology bring us a great deal of advanced technological access to a world of information and communication. There is a downside. Recent research published by The American Psychological Association in March, 2017, and opinions in The Atlantic warn of potential and actual biopsychosocial […]