Not every conversation gets a chance to happen, and that silence can be hard to carry. At Andrew’s Compassionate Legacy, board-certified nurse practitioner Dr. Gina Hardage-Athetis, MSc, FNP-CB, PsyD, PhD, uses the Gestalt empty chair technique via telehealth or office based care to help individuals across Washington state process unresolved emotions and break through internal conflict. If you’re ready to move forward, schedule your appointment online or by phone today.
The Gestalt empty chair technique is an experiential therapy approach rooted in Gestalt therapy, which emphasizes self-awareness, personal responsibility, and present-moment experience.
During a session, you sit across from an empty chair and speak to it as though it holds another person or a part of yourself, a conversation that may have never happened, or one that simply couldn’t.
Dr. Hardage-Athetis guides this process with care and intentionality, ensuring you feel supported throughout.
Dr. Hardage-Athetis uses this technique to address a range of emotional challenges, including:
If you’re carrying words that were never spoken to someone no longer present, the empty chair gives you a space to finally say them and begin releasing what has been weighing on you.
Difficult feelings from past relationships or painful events don’t have to stay buried. This technique helps you bring those emotions to the surface and work through them in a structured, supported setting.
Substance use is often an internal battle between the part of you that wants to heal and the part still struggling to break the cycle. Voicing that conflict out loud, with Dr. Hardage-Athetis guiding the process, can help you understand it and begin to work through it.
Trauma responses can make direct confrontation feel unsafe. Speaking to a chair rather than a person creates enough distance to process difficult memories and emotions without triggering an overwhelming stress response.
When negative self-talk or fear feels relentless, this technique helps you step outside your usual thought patterns, look at them differently, and begin building some room for self-compassion.
Because addiction and mental health challenges are so closely connected, this technique fits naturally alongside other approaches Dr. Hardage-Athetis uses, including cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), motivational interviewing, and trauma-informed care.
This technique works well for people who feel like they’ve talked about something endlessly without actually moving through it. It can stand alone or fit into a broader treatment plan.
At Andrew’s Compassionate Legacy, every session starts from a place of empathy and respect for what you’ve been through. Call the office or book your telehealth appointment online today to get started.