The Adult Chair model is an integrated approach that will help you recognize how all of your life experiences have shaped you — and then use that awareness to regain control, discover your most authentic self and transform your life! By looking at all of the parts that make up who we are today, we are able to gain greater awareness of why we do what we do, identify conscious and unconscious wounds that hold us back and transform the way these wounds impact our lives.
We are all made up of three distinct parts: the inner child, the adolescent and the adult. Each part developed separately through our lives and serves an important role in our overall emotional well-being. The Adult Chair Model uses three chairs to represent these perspectives.
Your inner child forms between ages zero and seven, and it is the foundation of your true feelings and needs. The inner child is deeply vulnerable, which makes it the source of deep, connected relationships. It is also where early wounding can occur, which shapes our view of the world as we grow up. When seated in the Child Chair, we find creativity, passion, spontaneity, trust and intimacy.
In adolescence, you begin to develop your own identity and realize that you are separate and unique from the world around you. As the ego forms, so does the desire to protect yourself, whether the dangers are real or imagined. When seated in the Adolescent Chair, we become perfectionistic, judgmental and controlling, and we develop a mask to hide our authentic selves from a world that seems cold and rejecting. Most of us live from this place until we awaken and decide we are ready to change.
The Adult Chair represents your highest self: living in the present moment, dealing with facts and truth over stories and assumptions and being able to set boundaries from a place of patience and compassion. While seated in the Adult Chair, we can deeply connect with our inner child’s needs and feelings and objectively observe our adolescent’s behaviors. It is here, and only here, that we can become aware of—and overcome—the emotional triggers and negative patterns that hold us back.