EMPTY CHAIR SYNDROME

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

Many years ago, when I started my career as a coach, the issue of cancellation and rescheduling of sessions by clients did not bother me as much with its uncertainty as it does today, when I supplemented my work as a coach with psychoanalytic techniques.

The more you immerse yourself in the essence of the processes occurring between the client and the consultant during the session, the more you pay attention to the nuances of your own emotional state. The ability to “listen to yourself in the moment with the client” is another skill that the psychoanalytic paradigm gave me to the coach.

What has become different? I think first of all I started to pay more attention to the nuances of what happens or does not happen in the sessions. That is why the issue of interpreting lateness, cancellation and rescheduling of sessions has become as important to me as focusing on the client's request.

In general, many processes in coaching are much more dynamic and intense than in any other therapeutic work. And, consequently, resistances appear brighter, sharper and tougher. Therefore, the coach is required to have a greater internal readiness to cope with his experiences of "the client's absence from the session." I called this condition "empty chair syndrome."

I am sitting in the office. In front of me is an empty chair. The client, having warned in advance, did not come to the session. There is exactly one hour before the next one, and I have to spend it alone with myself, with my thoughts and feelings in front of an empty chair.

I type the word "syndrome" in a search engine. Wikipedia informs me that "a syndrome is a combination of symptoms characteristic of a phenomenon." I am immersed in my thoughts about what this state of "empty chair syndrome" means for me personally.

I think that every coach at least once in his practice faced the situation of an "empty chair" standing in front of him. What are you thinking about at such a moment? How are you getting along with the absence of a client?

Sitting in front of an empty chair, I recall the last session, reflecting on why the client found it easier not to come than to come and share his feelings. What did he lack in the space of the session, what experiences were too difficult?

What does the client tell his coach by not coming to the session?

Easy questions can be difficult enough, and the first thing that comes up as an answer is resistance to the coaching process. Paradoxically, the closer the client comes to achieving his goal in his work with a coach, the stronger this resistance is developed in the coach-client relationship. The darkest time of day is before dawn, but when something is not spoken out during the session, it is easier to experience something outside of its framework.

It is especially important in situations of "absence" to maintain the coach-client relationship - the coach is the first to start talking about misses, transfers and lateness with his client. Give a place in the space of the session to the client himself to talk about their reasons, as well as about him, the client, fears, doubts and worries. And behind the streams of rationalization, anger and misunderstanding that the client pours on the coach's head in the first minutes, hear the reasons for these worries, accept his client as vulnerable, confused, support his adult part that wants to move forward. Teach this adult part to cope with their own vulnerability. Emotionally respond to the client's internal request "can I accurately express my thoughts in this space, will they understand me here?" After all, no one is perfect - no one …

The psychoanalytic paradigm added several more important concepts to my coach's work, such as frame and setting, which made it more stable even before starting work, agreeing on the conditions for transferring sessions is like knowing in advance about when and on what conditions you will be left alone with empty chair.