Chess therapy

Domain VIII · Creative & expressive arts therapies · Fleming, Strong, Fadul · 1943

What it is

Chess therapy uses chess, played between therapist and client(s), to build the relationship, support assessment and help healing. Some sources class it as a creative therapy. Other sources describe it as using the game to build trust, gain insight and change behaviour, mostly in children and adults…

Format

• Strand A: individual relational chess. No published phase model was found. The outline below is a working structure:
• Engagement (about sessions 1–3). Goal: alliance, and a sense of the client's play style. Criterion to move on: the client comes willingly and some talk happens around the game.

Who practises it, and how they are trained or regulated

• Work on emotional self-regulation dynamics.
• Version followed: this guide uses two versions side by side, because "chess therapy" is a loose label rather than one manualised therapy. Strand A is relational/psychodynamic chess in individual therapy: the therapist plays chess with the client, as in the Fleming and Strong adolescent case (Psychoanalytic Review 30, 1943) and the case-study book Chess Therapy by Fadul and Canlas (2009; 2nd ed. 2010). Strand B is…
• Professional frame. No regulated profession, protected title, registration body or credential exists for "chess therapy". Use it only within your existing licensed scope, for example as a registered psychologist, counsellor or psychotherapist, or within APT/BAPT/PTUK play-therapy training when the clients are children.

Evidence status, as the guide reports it

• Format: usually one board within an ordinary 50-minute session. Chess may fill part of the session or alternate with talk. One author keeps a travel set in the office and uses it alongside evidence-based treatment, not as a standalone intervention.

Questions to explore with your client

• What drew you to it, and what are you hoping it will change?
• Is there physical contact? Was it explained beforehand, and do you feel free to say no or stop at any point?
• Does it involve any substance, plant preparation, remedy or supplement? Has your doctor or prescriber been told, especially about any medication you take?
• Is it a group, retreat or community? How do they respond if someone wants to leave or raises a concern?
• How do you and the practitioner understand what is happening, in spiritual or cultural terms? Is that a source of comfort, worry, or both?
• Who runs it, and what training or registration do they hold?
• What actually happens in a session or meeting, and how often?
• What does it cost, and is there pressure to commit to more?
• How do you feel afterwards, in the hours and days that follow?
• Does it fit with, or clash with, the work we do here?

What practitioners of it watch for

• people who vote instantly. Praise the pause.
• spontaneous use of named strategies in later sessions.
• pitch difficulty so that most people succeed with effort.
• participants who can repeat the link back in their own words.
• socially anxious members. Let them present in pairs at first.

When to involve someone else

• New or worsening physical symptoms, or advice to stop or change prescribed medication: involve the client's doctor or prescriber.
• Signs of coercion, isolation from family and friends, escalating costs or secrecy: discuss openly and consider safeguarding.
• A crisis or thoughts of suicide: follow your crisis protocol. In the US, call or text 988; in the UK and Ireland, Samaritans on 116 123.

Drawn automatically from the guide's own sections. Stay curious: neither endorse nor dismiss what the client values, and check anything that matters against the full guide and its sources. Not medical advice.