The Adult Chair: Get Unstuck, Claim Your Power, and Transform Your Life

by Michelle Chalfant

Take a seat and let this be your guide to living an emotionally healthy life, with real-world examples and easy-to-understand tools to help you create lasting change—from the therapist behind the popular podcast The Adult Chair.

Through decades of working with countless clients, Michelle Chalfant found that most forms of therapy, while well-meaning, help with the symptoms but rarely address the root cause. That's why she developed a new model called The Adult Chair.

The Adult Chair model works by first helping you gain awareness of how you developed into who you are today by walking through the stages of your early life. Take, for example, a client named Sara, who had trouble staying in relationships. As Chalfant guided her through the model, it looked

• The Child Chair, from age 0-6. Sitting here, Sara recalled her father's strong temper, and realized this was when she learned to suppress her negative emotions.
• The Adolescent Chair, from age 7-24. At this stage, Sara turned to survival mechanisms of numbing her first with food, then later with substances.
• The Adult Chair, after age 25. Sara realizes that even though she’s an adult, she’s still acting from her Adolescent by numbing herself, and as she works to activate her emotions, she can more often live out of her Adult Chair and enter relationships more open hearted.

The Adult Chair walks you through each of the chairs in your life, giving a foundation to understand who you are today and how you got this way. Chalfant then provides the “five pillars of healthy adults” that serve as fundamental building blocks of living in your healthiest adult self. Along the way, she offers processes, tools, exercises, and journal prompts that you can plug into your life to get unstuck and transform your life each day.

Revolutionizing the way you understand yourself and others, The Adult Chair will help you break unhealthy patterns and live with greater balance and peace.

Genres: Nonfiction

256 pages, Hardcover

Published May 6, 2025

Reviews

[ChillCassie]

This is a great thought provoking tool to guide you through the work. Great prompts and exercises to take your time with

[Lia K Cook]

I found Michelle through a friend and then went down a rabbit hole with her podcast The Michelle Chalfant Show. The show dives into the topic of this book, which is Michelle‘s Adult Chair model that she uses with her clients. I immediately knew I wanted to read this book, especially since the book promises to provide tools to release negative beliefs and patterns of behaviors that hold us back from becoming our highest self. The book held true to its promise. I found the structure and writing easy to follow, and the tools invaluable. I highly recommend this book.

[Karen Prive]

My therapist highly recommended Michelle Chalfant's podcast, and eventually I listened. The Adult Chair model made so much sense - that there are three primary chairs we sit in when dealing with life - the Child Chair (where most of our emotions live), the Adolescent Chair (where most of our maladaptive behaviors come from) and the Adult Chair (where we live as healthy adults). Some of us never find our Adult Chair.

Then the book! My therapist showed it to me and I immediately got myself a copy. This book is simple - not easy. Halfway through, at my next appointment I complained to my therapist that while the writing was very accessible, some of the concepts were going over my head. They are presented in an easy manner, but my inner adolescent was screaming "NO! We're not going to do this!" Ah - but from my Adult Chair, I've decided this is my new study book. I will give myself time to work through the questions and exercises designed to help the reader identify their personal shortcomings while offering a compassionate path to healing and making more intentional choices from our Adult Chair.

The first half of the book discusses each of the three chairs - how they naturally develop, and how important it is to access all three of them, but to have your adult self drive the bus. The second half offers a framework for consciously developing a stronger Adult Chair - offering step by step directions for becoming the healthy adult you always wanted to be. Face it: we're human, and we aren't perfect. There's room for improvement.

Best personal growth book I've encountered in a long time.

[Maureen Dolan]

I recently discovered Michelle Chalfant’s podcast, also called The Adult Chair. The book gives a more general overview of her philosophy including specific advice on living an authentic life while she often has guests on her podcast. Both are good.

[Enya Medero]

I enjoyed this book so much I'm going to purchase it. Made me think of all the times my parents gaslight me and other negative things.

This book is a work of art and I'm so glad I've listen to it, it hits different when is in the audiobook than the book itself!

I give it 5 stars! 🌟

[Arcanum]

Won this book in a Goodreads giveaway. Thank you to the organisers!

Will update once I receive the book.

[Amanda B]

3.5

[Chris]

one of the best books personally and professionally to help lead myself and others to healing

[Miguel Baptista Alves]

4.25/5 get out of your adolescent chair… damn. Well done.

[Alex Campbell]

Generally very good with very good advice. Chalfant loses me a little bit with her broad strokes claims, but there’s no doubt this is a valuable book that can help countless readers

[Rebecca Sullivan]

Highly Recommend this book. Helps you connect and understand yourself and why you are and act the way you do. I will definitely do a re read of this at some point!

[Kandace Bustle]

Therapy in the form and comfort of a book!