The Web address of this
3-page article is
http://sfhelp.org/01/ifs-faq1.htm
More
common inner-family questions...
Do Your and My
Personality Parts Interact?
All the time!
My young
Vulnerable
subselves and their
Guardians
are regularly activated by perceived threats of attack or rejection by
"you" (your subselves), and vice versa. People with a history of relationship
struggles - like many
divorcing and stepfamily co-parents - may have
seldom or never experienced a steady pairing of (my Self is
in charge) and (your
Self is in charge) with a friend, lover/partner, or ex mate.
In their useful paperback
Embracing
Each Other, psychologists and inner "voice- dialog" pioneers Hal
and Sidra Stone explore this topic in depth. After
27 years' clinical study, they
propose that people with disowned (repressed or denied) parts are
compulsively drawn to successive partners who have a very active similar part.
These repressed
inner-family members (which Dr. Richard Schwartz calls "Exiles") are often
self-judged as unlikable or repulsive, selfish, profane, brazen, dishonest, preachy, lazy,
or the like. By consciously meeting and compassionately accepting
our disowned
parts and not
letting them dominate our Self, our relationship compulsions (e.g.
approach-avoid
cycles,
codependence, and over-controlling) fade.
From an inner-family
perspective, all local and repeated
relationship problems have three parts: (a) conflicts among my
subselves
(inner-family conflicts), (b) disputes among yours, and
(c) clashes between your subselves and mine. Imagine
you and your partner and/or ex mate cooperating to resolve all three
concurrent struggles - using:
Many of the stressful "automatic"
communication patterns we have with special kids and adults (e.g. ex mates) become clear
and can improve when seen via parts work. For instance: Jack is
attracted to Anita emotionally (Adult Man,
Needy Boy, and Good Father parts) and sexually
(Lusting older-teen part). Anita responds unconsciously to each
of these with four complementary parts: her Adult Woman, Good Mom, Lonely
Girl, and Sensual female parts.
If Jack seems to pull away, Anita's
Lonely
Girlgets very scared and sad (based on early real emo-tional
abandonment
by her father). One or several distrustful
Guardians
quickly activate in response. They
blend with her Self, and "make" Anita be
shaming, seductive, rejecting, abusive, controlling, and/or pitiable.
Jack can respond to these behaviors in many
ways. If Anita's Protector-part is a Guilt Tripper, Jack's sensitive
Shamed Boy will feel awful. His
People-Pleaser Guardian will spring to life, and has Jack
apologize to Anita and become attentive again. Her
Scared Girl is reassured, so the
Guilt Tripper stands down, freeing Anita's Self. His Shamed Boy
gradually feels better, and his Pleaser gives way to his Adult Man and Self.
This whole sequence might take two weeks or
five minutes.Without awareness of their parts' complex interactions and their
respective Selves being disabled, Jack and Anita's relationship goes on until the next version
of this (or another)
avoid-approach cycle repeats.
Seen this way, there is no "Jack
and Anita."
There are over 10 normal subselves interacting
together to create a complex and dynamic relationship between "two
people."
If not controlled by other subselves, true Selves are often adept at
managing all this with respect, humor, patience, and wisdom, to help each
person fill their current
primary needs
well enough.
Similar cycles occur in all
relationships: friend-friend, clerk-customer, parent-child, boss- employee,
student-teacher, and so on. Larger groups like physical families become
stunningly complex, if members' Selves aren't regularly
in charge. Few of us
are aware of the amazing interactions that happen at lightning speed within
and between us. Does this make sense to you?
Summing Up
The
Project-1 Web
articles
propose what happens to typical kids raised in a
low-nurturance
environment: they automatically developa set of
semi-independent personality subselves - a false self - to survive.
The articles introduce the idea of an
inner family of personality
parts
or subselves, which probably correspond to different brain regions.
Other researchers call these alters,
aspects, (personality) sides, ego
states, moods, character flaws, minds, subpersonalities, potentials,
and many more. Our inner-family
dynamics strongly affect our thoughts, feelings, behaviors, and often our bodily health,
moment to moment and over time. These steadily shape and affect our key relationships.Most of us
aren't aware of our resident family or team, often leaving it chaotic, leaderless, and
very ineffective - even self-harmful.
Each person's subselves are unique, yet they
perform common functions for typical people. The functions fall into three or four groups:
Regulars, young
Vulnerables, and their
Guardians - and probably
Spiritual Ones.All our parts mean us well,
though some can be misinformed, untrusting, and fiercely
rigid, until they get help. Some subselves live in the past, unaware that their
original danger is long gone.
False or Pseudo selves
Battles between our subselves can
overwhelm
our natural inner-team leader - our
Self
(capital "S") - and produce all sorts of emotional, physical,
mental, and relationship stresses and problems. Many professionals suggest that
abused and neglected children automatically create a protective
false self over
time to please their caregivers and reduce the child's pain and fear.
This false self
(small "s") is one or more Vulnerable and Guardian parts who have protectively
taken over because they didn't trust the trueSelf and Regular subselves to
keep the child (and later the adult) safe. Many co-parents have lived from their
false self most of their lives, and can't conceive what life would feel like if
their true Self were in charge...
High-nurturance ("functional")
outer families minimize inner-family
discord, and promote unfettered true Selves in their kids. This happens partly
because the adult-caregivers' subselves shield their kids from excessive
shame, guilt, pain, confusion, and fear
rather than cause them.
Do
you "know" your true Self? Do you show others who you really
are? Most people doing
parts work report feeling increasingly calm, light, serene,
grounded, focused, strong, purposeful, clear, compassionate,
alert, awake, aware, together, and peaceful when their
Self is trusted by, and guides, their very real dynamic team of
subselves.
We all were hurt and frightened as
children - many of us more severely than we know.
"Finding one's Self" is
the rewarding task of gradually learning which protective subselves have
governed us all our
lives, helping them relax, and freeing our trueSelf and wise advisor-parts to
guide us safely and serenely through each situation and day. That's every true Self's natural
talent and goal.
Options
To make this inner-family information relevant
to your life: I
recommend that you...
Learnmore: read about
Grown Wounded Children (GWCs), what false-self
dominance usually
means, and an
overview of
recovery from
false-self wounds. Option:
also read one or more of these books and
discuss them with key people in your life. Then...
Assess yourself for false-self dominance and
related wounds: fill out the 12 self-assessment
checklists for you and
any co-parenting partners;Next...
Decide if any
of you or your kids need some form of psycho-spiritual
healing (i.e.
freeing your true Self to harmonize and lead your inner family)
using parts work
or some other strategy.
If you do ...
Act: evolve and work patiently at a high-priority self-healing program, with
appropriate support and help. After
27 years' clinical experience,
I believe
this keystone co-parent
Project is essential
to your long-term
wholistic health
and relationship and parenting success!
Inner-Family
Resources
If you're interested in safely meeting your inner crew and discovering
who's coaching them,
see the
Project-1
guidebook
Who's
Really Running Your Life?,or this series of Web pages on
inner-family therapy ("parts work").
Option:
download this free 14-page
booklet introducing the idea of an inner-family of personality
subselves.
So far, there are relatively few lay
publications on our inner family. One excellent, clear paperback is "Embracing Our
Selves" by Hal Stone, Ph.D. and Sidra Winkleman, Ph.D. (New World Library,
1989). It gives clear, thorough, absorbing descriptions of "voice dialog" work
with our inner parts - and those in important other people in your life. An early
classic about personality subselves is "I'm OK - You're
OK," by Dr. Thomas Harris.
A powerful true
chronicle of extreme false-self dominance - true
multiple personality disorder - is in Truddi Chase's
extraordinary paperback "When Rabbit
Howls" (Jove Books, New York, 1987). Not for the faint hearted ...
For more serious
readers, I highly recommend Dr. Richard Schwartz's pioneering works "Internal Family
Systems Therapy" (Guilford Press, New York, 1995); and "The Mosaic Mind
- Empowering The Tormented Selves of Child Abuse Survivors" (with Regina A. Goulding
- W.W. Norton, & Co., New York, 1995). Schwartz's
latest book for lay readers is very clear and reader-friendly: "Introduction
to the Internal Family Systems Model;" Trailhead Publications,
Oak Park, lL; 2001;
John Rowan
provides a compelling historical look at how many researchers and
therapists, including Carl Jung, have concluded modular personalities and parts are common, in "Subpersonalities
- the People Within Us." (Routledge, London and New York,1990).
He also gives us "Discover
Your Personalities - Our Inner World, and the People in It" (Routledge,
1993). Rowan documents 25
different clinical terms for what Schwartz calls "parts."
Another
authoritative book is The
Search for Our Real Self - Unmasking the Personality Disorders of Our
Age, by James F. Masterson, MD (Free Press, reprinted 1990).
Note
that most of these
books have been published since 1990.
These and other recommended titles are listed
here
and here.
If your true Self isn't
usually directing your Life… ? How do you like the results, so far?
If you've reviewed these
slides and read and digested
Project-1 pages 1-1 through 1-17, you're well
pre-pared for the next step
- honestly
assess yourself and other key
people
for significant false-self dominance and wounding to see if personal recovery is
merited. The best time to do this is before
making major relationship commitments!
The Web address of this
3-page article is
http://sfhelp.org/01/ifs-faq1.htm
Do Your and My
Personality Parts Interact?
Summing Up
For ideas on preventing
false-self wounds from a low-nurturance childhood, see