What is "empty chair"

n. 1 (context psychotherapy English) A chair which is used to personify the client's object of conflict 2 (context debating English) Providing an empty podium in the case of a participants withdrawal or absence from a debate.

Empty chair may refer to:

• Empty chair (law), a non-party to a lawsuit
• Empty chair crisis, a 1966 diplomatic crisis involving Charles de Gaulle
• Empty chair debating, a political technique involving a feigned lecturing of or debate with an absent person
• Empty-chair technique used in Gestalt therapy
• The Empty Chair, a crime novel by Jeffery Deaver
• "Empty chair speech", see Clint Eastwood at the 2012 Republican National Convention

The empty chair is a non-party to a civil lawsuit who might also be blamed for the damages. To the defendant, the advantage of shifting blame to the empty chair, a strategy called the empty chair defense, is that the empty chair is not there to defend itself, forcing the plaintiff to defend it. This is why plaintiffs try to name all possible parties that might be blamed when filing a lawsuit. In interrogatories, plaintiffs will typically follow up by asking defendants to confirm that everyone who might be blamed has been named as a defendant. Sometimes, that is not possible, for example, if a party is immune to suit.