I was led to The Adult Chair at a very pivotal time in my life.
I was seeing a therapist that I hoped had experience with severe psychological, coercive control, and child abuse (trauma) recovery as her information advertised. She didn’t. The therapy was centered around victim blaming and quite frankly was nothing but retraumatizing. I was sitting in a room weekly begging to be seen and heard and to be given tools to navigate out of the darkness. As I became aware that this therapist was not experienced or equipped to help me I started researching on my own as I did in the past. I found a podcast of a local therapist who did Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) and who also had extensive experience with abusive incarcerated males. One night while listening to his podcast he mentioned Michelle Chalfant. So, I did what I always do, I researched her. I began listening to her podcasts and absolutely loved how she simplified all the complex psychological theories that I had learned in undergrad and how she integrated spirituality, another love of mine, into her model. I began using her techniques and tools and began seeing the light at the end of the tunnel as a beacon and not an oncoming freight train. Once I saw change in myself I started using the techniques and tools with my child, who also started to transform. The phenomenal thing about The Adult Chair is that it can be used with all age groups from at least preteen and up in my experience.
The Adult Chair Model
The Adult Chair® is a manual for your life. It’s a tool that helps you feel empowered, confident, and equipped with a clear roadmap to your healthiest, most authentic self. Through The Adult Chair®, you will understand how your life experiences have shaped you, give a voice to the different parts of who you are, gain greater self-awareness, and respond to life in a healthy way.
Child Chair
The Child Chair encompasses experiences from in-utero until roughly age 6. There is extensive research that a child absorbs their environment at this time without any discernment. Meaning what they experience is their truth. If the child has loving healthy parents and environment the child internalizes love, self-worth and secure attachment.
If the child has abusive or unhealthy parents or environment the child internalizes this as they the child is bad, unlovable, the world is not safe, and etc.
Adolescent Chair
The Adolescent Chair is roughly between the ages of 6 and 25. This time in life is when an individual gains autonomy, but if The Child Chair has not been a safe place then certain personality adaptations start to form. We can call these adaptations “masks”. To delve deeper these adaptations are formed because for life itself an individual wants to be part of the “Tribe” and be able to stay alive, feel safe, and be accepted. If this individual’s “Tribe” isn’t safe or accepting then the Child/Adolescent must change themselves to be safe and be accepted. This is the beginning of personality adaptations like codependency, substance abuse, anxiety, depression, controller, victim, bully, perfectionist, and the list goes on.
The Adult Chair®
The Adult Chair is roughly from age 25 forward. This is the highest version of ourselves. This is where we live in the present moment, in fact and truth without any stories or assumptions about people or experiences. This is a higher awareness of our Child Chair (unconscious/ true feelings, emotions, and needs) and our Adolescent Chair (ego/ personality adaptations) where we interpret the two and decide to act from a higher consciousness of fact and truth. A caveat to this is that most (90% of chronological adults) do not operate or live their lives in their Adult Chair, but instead in their Adolescent Chair.
