Chairwork

23/02/2026

23/02/2026

A big thank you to all the therapists and coaches who joined our three-day intensive Chairwork training from around the world. We’ve been blown away by your feedback.

If you’d like to bring bespoke Chairwork training to your team, service, or organisation, get in touch. We offer practical, hands-on workshops tailored to your setting, such as:

Chairwork in different contexts:
• Therapy
• Coaching
• Supervision

Chairwork across modalities, including:
• Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)
• Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT)
• Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
• Schema Therapy

Using Chairwork for specific difficulties:
• Depression
• Anxiety disorders (including social anxiety and GAD)
• Eating disorders
• Perfectionism
• Self-criticism and worry
• Stuck or “resistant” core beliefs
• Impostor syndrome

If you’re interested, email us at info@chairwork.co.uk.

31/12/2025

The year is almost over… So before we put the chairs away for 2025, we wanted to say a big, big thank you to everyone who has supported www.chairwork.co.uk over the last 12 months.

It’s been a very busy year for us, working with therapists, coaches, and researchers around the world. We’ve met some great people, learned a huge amount, and had plenty of laughs too. Just a few of our 2025 training highlights include:

· Using chairwork in ACT - Advanced skills (thank you, Contextual Consulting)
· Chairwork for depression and anxiety (thank you, PsySimple)
· Using chairwork in coaching (thank you, Henley Business School)
· Chairwork for self-criticism (thank you, BABCP)
· An Introduction to Chairwork (University College London)

We’re also proud to have supported a bunch of chairwork-related research and writing projects, including:

· “Experiences of voice dialogue for self-criticism” (published in Psychology and Psychotherapy), congratulations Dr Sarmini Indramohan
· “Therapists’ experiences of chairwork with children and adolescents” (published in Psychotherapy Research), congratulations Abigail Ng
· “Bringing CBT to life through chairwork” – (published in Becoming a CBT Therapist), congratulations on the awesome book, Jason Roscoe

And we’ve got lots more planned for 2026, including our annual three-day intensive training, bespoke in-house workshops, and many more research projects.

So, if you, your team, or your organisation want to put your training budget to good use, or if you’re interested in a chairwork research collaboration, we ‘d love to hear from you (but soon – our diary is filling up fast!).

But now – a very well-deserved rest!

Wishing you all a very happy and peaceful end to the year.

Matt and Tobyn

(Credit to Julia Kutsenko @ Unsplash for the festive photo).

21/11/2024

We're sorry to announce that the November CRG has been cancelled due to unforeseen circumstances. We will confirm our next speaker in early 2025 soon. Watch this space!

23/09/2024

Therapists’ experiences of using with minoritised ethnic clients...

We are looking for therapists who have used hashtag with minoritised ethnic clients to take part in an important study. If you are interested and eligible, we will invite you for an online 30-60 minute interview.

Hearing from you would be invaluable, and we hope it will help improve access to therapy. As a thank you for participating, £20 will be donated to the charity Mind.

If you would like to learn more or participate, please email fatema.kassamali.22@ucl.ac.uk.

09/09/2024

Looking forward to the next Chairwork Research Group meeting on 30 September (1300 UK time)!

We will be hosting Kate Lucre (Consultant Psychotherapist) who will be presenting a qualitative evaluation of a 12-month Compassion Focused Group Psychotherapy programme (CFGP), including participants’ experience of chairwork and working in action within a group psychotherapy context.

If you'd like a Zoom invite, please email: m.pugh@ucl.ac.uk

22/07/2024

Seven years ago, Matt wrote an article on for the British Psychological Society (BPS). The editors recently asked for an update on the state of chairwork as it still gets quite a lot of reads. Here is a link to the article along with his update on the latest developments in chairwork towards the end - hope you enjoy it!

Matthew Pugh on the use and potential of chairwork; with a 2024 update.

02/07/2024

We're excited to share the results of a recent case series based on our single session therapy (SSCT) (delivered over three sessions). The findings are promising, showing significant improvements in depressive symptoms, self-criticism, self-esteem, and self-compassion. Participants also gave positive feedback on their experience of the treatment.

What's even more exciting is this therapy is now being tested in a randomized controlled trial (RCT). Huge congratulations to all the authors on their brilliant work! Another step toward an evidence-based chairwork therapy...

You can find links to all the papers mentioned below:
New case series: https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychiatry/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2024.1397925/full

Development of SSCT: https://chairwork.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Pugh-2021-single-session-chairwork.pdf.

Forthcoming RCT: https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/13/10/e073128.abstract

Introduction Self-criticism is a key feature in people diagnosed with depression, resulting in significant psychological distress. Despite the fact that cognitive–behavioural treatments are readily available, a significant number of patients report experiencing cognitive, but not emotional, change...

23/05/2024

🎉Huge congratulations to Sarah Burnett-Stuart for her publication in the Journal of Constructivist Psychology! 📚✨We're super excited to see her thesis in print as its one of the very first times that has been used as a research method.

The study explores how the 'anorexic voice' contributes to the development and maintenance of anorexia nervosa from the perspective of the voice itself. Check out the open-access article below:

Although prevalent among those given a diagnosis of anorexia nervosa (AN), the internal anorexic voice (AV) is little understood. This study aimed to explore the AV’s role in the development and ma...

20/05/2024

Huge thanks to Eleanor Longden for her inspiring talk at the Research Group earlier today, exploring the Talking with Voices approach. Here's a video demo of TwV in action:

15/05/2024

The next CRG will be held on Monday 20 May (1300 – 1400, UK time). We're excited to be joined by Eleanor Longden, who will be discussing the Talking with Voices (TwV) approach, including the intervention’s clinical and conceptual background, and a recent randomised control trial which aimed to establish the feasibility and acceptability of using dialogue and psychological formulation to attempt to create a more peaceful, constructive relationship between hearer and voice.

If you would like to come along to the talk, please email m.pugh@ucl.ac.uk and we will send you the Zoom link.

What is the CRG? The CRG is a friendly and informal space where clinicians and researchers can learn about the latest developments in chairwork. The meeting runs every two months with a special guest speaker each time. It’s free to join and everyone is welcome! We hope you can make it.

19/04/2024

A great day of training with our friends in Italy.