Another useful parts-work technique to learn is...
Using Inner-family
Councils
To
handle complex personal problems or major decisions well (e.g. "Shall we
conceive a baby?"), some experienced parts workers call inner committee
or council
meetings. Have you ever taken part in a productive group meeting?
Shelves of books have been written on what makes an effective meeting. Here
are some key ideas:
Sites: All personality
subselves agree on comfortable, safe outer (real) and inner places to meet.
Your real site should be quiet, physically comfortable, and as undistracting
as possible. Clients who have tried inner-family councils often evolve a
preferred real location to hold their inner meetings, though such gatherings
can take place anywhere.
Some people will have their parts convene in a richly appointed (inner)
Board room. Others will be more comfortable at an imaginary custom-designed retreat
center by the water, or by a sacred rock on a mountain or shore.
What kind of a setting would help your parts meet most productively?
Empathic
leadership:
Your
Self
calls each meeting, and is clearly
in charge
of it. S/He may dele-gate portions of the meeting to another subself,
and/or ask small groups to do some of the tasks at hand. Recall the premise
that your Self is a naturally-talented group leader. For perspective on
effective leader-ship, study this after you
finish here.
Clarity and Focus:
Your Self decides who attends.
S/He helps all attending subselves understand what the specific current
objectives are, and keeps them on track throughout the meeting. Some
councils can be to brainstorm or fact-find ("does anyone know about...?").
Others can focus on evolving plans, re-balancing subselves’ responsibilities
or role changes, or evaluating complex life-decisions and options.
Respectful Order, and Rules:
Through experiment and experience, your subselves will learn that
they each have contributions to make, and have a right to be
respectfully heard by all. Your Self will have each part speak without
interruption, and balance who gets "air time" (e.g. calmly
confront
any subself who hogs the meeting). S/He will invite the opinions of quiet
parts, and genuinely care about all subselves'’ ideas, anxieties, and needs.
As
with any gathering, some rules of order need to be observed for the group to
get anything done. One key rule is that only one part talk at a time, and
that all others really listen. Other rules are to respect all different
viewpoints, and stay focused on the issues at hand, rather than on
power struggles
or critici-zing parts’ traits and character. Each part brings the potential for a
valuable contribution!
Clear Decisions and Outcomes:
Using brainstorming, empathic
listening,
respectful
assertion,
and
problem-solving
skills, your Self and other
Managers
will lead the council to clear short and long-term de-cisions. If delegations and specific responsibilities
are needed, all subselves will understand and agree enough with them.
Inner councils help all parts to know and appreciate each other, and to
build trust in the leadership skills of your Self and other Managers.
Periodic meetings nourish inner-family morale and coherence, and ensure that
all personality parts feel informed, important, and appreciated. Can you
imagine a successful sports team, acting troupe, church, or business enterprise that
didn’t have regular well-led staff meetings?
Parts’ councils can provide
unexpected opportunities. One of my clients would lie on her couch in
the evening dark for 20" - 40" to conduct inner meetings. Soon afterwards,
she wrote meeting minutes, and la-ter read them to me in our work together.
These became a kind of diary for her. Besides being of great mutual help in
our ongoing work, her series of council meetings provided an important new
role for a young part ("Little Curly") who had pre-viously been a vexing
Saboteur.
As
her inner team's coherence grew, this
Guardian
part agreed (with relief) to refocus her energy. The woman’s inner council
decided that they needed a Prayer Director to bless each gathering.
Little Curly en-thusiastically took the job. The woman later reported that
things were going "better" at work and in her so-cial life.
Use these parts-work techniques to...
Build Inner-family Teamwork
Have you ever experienced being part of a team of individuals who shared a
common purpose and an effective leader? Can you describe the differences
between an effective, high-nurturance team and a dys-functional team?
Recall that parts work aims to...
free your true Self to guide you (all),
reduce psychological wounds, and...
increase your serenity, wholistic health,
and productivity over time, and...
help you identify and pursue your life
purpose.
These happen naturally as you
build teamwork, respect, and cooperation among your subselves via internal
dialogs and negotiations. How can you judge the degree of teamwork among
your personality parts? Use this checklist to
identify and affirm your inner-family strengths
and areas to improve:
_ 1) each subself knows all
the other subselves, and is living in the present time;
_ 2) all subselves maintain a
clear vision of, and genuinely desire, common goals (e.g. those above);
_ 3) each subself stays clear on
its own and others’ skills and roles.
Boundaries between
them and between the team and the "outside world" are
consistently clear enough to all;
_ 4) each Inner Child, Guardian,
and Manager subself feels
steadily recognized, respected, trusted, and valued "enough" by
all other subselves;
_ 5) each personality part is clear
enough on, and willingly abides by,
the team’s key rules;
_ 6) all subselves communicate
and problem-solve
effectively with each other;
_ 7) each subself steadily
(a) respects the true Self and other Managers, and (b) trusts them to
consistently...
provide clear focus,
vision, goals and explanations; guidance; believable optimism; and steady
inspiration and encouragements;
resolve major conflicts,
and adapt creatively to unexpected life conditions;
recognize achievements, and
forgive mistakes;
get effective help and
protection when needed;
delegate responsibilities
wisely and fairly;
set and adjust paces,
balances, boundaries and limits, when needed; and...
stay fully committed to the
team, the job, and the objectives, no matter what.
_ 8) each subself stays clear on
their group’s identity (We are Juanita's inner family"), and feels satisfaction and
pride in belonging.
Reflect and edit this list to fit your experience and beliefs. Does your
list fairly characterize the "ideal" team you thought of before? Does it describe your present
physical family? The family you
grew up in? The schools and church/es you went to? Your work situation?
Notice
your thoughts and feelings. Does this checklist honestly
describe your inner team now? If not (yet), can you envision all your
subselves closely fitting this list "sometime"? What would have to
happen? Who’s responsible to see that it does? (I propose: your unhindered Self).
What if your inner family never becomes a truly effective
team?
What if it does?
If these
inner-family
teamwork traits seem attractive, what priority do you
assign to achieving them? What do you typically do each day instead of
working towards these personal objectives? By the way: which subselves
set your daily
priorities and goals these days?
As a natural leader,
your true Self is skilled at guiding the communications among your
subselves
into effective discussions and problem-solving. S/He can also
improve this skill, and teach it to other sub-selves. Doing so is a key to
successful inner teambuilding, for many parts were never taught to
communi-cate effectively. Evidence: our times of inner confusion and chaos.
I suspect you've experienced what happens when two or more people
ruled by conflicted false selves try to problem-solve...
See Dr. M. Scott Peck’s book
The Different Drumfor thought-provoking
stories and ideas on the process of building a truly harmonious group. Though
his book focuses on groups of people, I feel that
most of his ideas apply to inner communities, too. See what you think.
Pause and reflect - how do you feel about committing to develop teamwork
and harmony among your talented subselves over time? Option - try
it to see what you experience...
What to
Expect from Parts Work
This YouTube video previews what you'll tread here:
Typical inner-family work ("recovery") is organic. It evolves at it’s own pace, and
-
like embryo development and grieving, can’t be rushed. Inner-family harmonizing can be divided into a beginning, middle, and end.
You’ll develop your own profile of these. Here are some common stages I’ve
seen my clients experience:
Beginning Phase
Initially study the Internal Family System
(IFS) concept, and...
have a protective
false self reject it as
"stupid," "ridiculous," "too weird," "dangerous New Age silliness," or
"for other people"; or...
Start exploring and experimenting slowly, skeptically, and
intellectually; or...
Start quickly, with intuitive, complete acceptance of the inner crew,
or...
Start somewhere in between.
A
few women or men with overly
"male brains" may not get into parts work
because they’re too lo-gical and intellectual to feel or sense their
subselves' communications and reactions. Other kinds of personal-growth work
can be effective for them.
Typical people who are self-motivated for personal growth have accumulated
years of frustrations, confusions, and pain. They have often experienced
disappointing "trial
(pseudo) bottoms,''
and may have found conventional counseling or therapy to be little help.
For some people, parts work provides a new way to understand their chronic
unhappiness, and provides initial hope for real relief and a better
life. That may include hope for improving chronic marital stress, and/or for
understanding and grieving relationship failures. Parents can see parts-work
as a viable way to help guard their descendents against
iinheriting
psychological wounds.
Here's what
one parent wrote about experiencing the
early phase of parts work.
Middle Phase
"Catch on," and put moderate to
intense energy into exploring and meeting your subselves. Begin
to experience individual inner energies and/or voices (i.e. parts) as
real. Start to "see" and intuit the personal implications and
possibilities of this work. Tell other people of the concept, and get
various responses.
At this
point, some
other-focused people stop their inner team-building work because of social disbelief
or disapproval. Others continue privately - perhaps with some added
anxiety, skepticism, guilt, and/or
ambivalence. Self-led ("centered") people feel less of these.
One or more "Aha!" or "Wow!"
experiences occur along the early way. In them, people experience
clear physical, emotional, and/or behavioral changes unmistakably
related to their parts work. Am-bivalence shrinks or vanishes. Inner
family enthusiasm may spurt, then settle back. People at this stage may
try enthusiastically "selling" others on parts work (go easy on this!);
Begin to notice evidences of
people's subselves at work in the media and real life. Become
aware of how often our English language refers directly or indirectly to
normal subselves (e.g. "Marta tends to be two faced.").
Experience and skill grow
with inner
communications,
re-doing,
rescuing,
conflict resolution, and
learning to recognize
blended vs. non-blended Self-states. Initial enthusiasm and wonder mellows, and
the work becomes more methodical. Expectations become increasingly
realistic. Patience, self-awareness, and compassion grow.
Depending on their goals and experience,
people may elect (i.e. their Self chooses) other forms of therapy
instead of, or along with, inner-family work. These might include
massage or group therapy, chiropractic treatments, meditation and
retreats, exercise and/or dietary programs, changing or joining a
church, and attending a 12-step or other
type of support group.
Periods of inner calm, balance,
and productive serenity gradually increase. Other-focused people
(e.g.
codependents) become more equally self-focused without crippling guilt. Habitual self
abuse and
neglect, and reflexive
blending become conscious and noticeably fade. Physical and emotional symptoms
related to these may decrease. Calm, naturalassertiveness and boundary-setting and enforcing grow.
Spontaneous self-care,
acceptance, and
self love replace life-long attitudes of shame and self- ne-glect. Old anxieties
subside to normal, and personal peacefulness grows in many settings and
re-lationships. Stressful obsessions and compulsions gradually dwindle.
Parts-workers may grow towards
calm vocal or written
confrontations with people who’s actions were traumatic recently or earlier in
life. The outcome of such events is (usually) a marked release of old
resentments,
guilts, and
frustrations, and an increasing focus on the present, vs. obsessing about - or
avoiding - the past. Ripples from these confrontations may extend to other
similar rela-tionships.
Genuine compassion and
forgiveness of yourself and
others grows. Some of these rela-tionships improve, others decline.
Former
criticism,
scorn, or bigotry toward some people (e.g. harsh, critical,
disinterested, or neglectful parents)
shift toward genuine acceptance
and empathy. ("Now I see how
wounded and unaware Chris is.")
Other people may comment on "the
new you," "something’s different about you," or question "what’s gotten
into you?" Patterns of impulsive conflicts with or avoidances of
certain other people shift. Sleep, eating, worship, meditation, and/or
dream patterns may change subtly or obviously as your work progresses.
Parts-work slows and integrates
comfortably into a larger personal-growth process. Parts-work
ha-bits, rituals, and reflexes develop. Language may shift (e.g. saying
"we (subselves)" increases, and "I" shifts toward "a part of me...";
The word "Self" takes on new
meaning. Inner-family terminology weaves naturally into normal thinking
and conversation ("I took several excited subselves with me on vacation,
and left the an-xious ones at home.") For many people,
spirituality (the awareness, appreciation, and attention to one or more
spiritual parts and a
Higher Power)
deepens as inner harmony grows;
Some personal
behaviors and traits shift naturally, as
true-Self personality guidance increases. If wound-recoverers put in
equal effort on practicing
Lesson-2 skills, their thinking and communication effectiveness - and daily satisfactions
- improve significantly.
Inner-family workers’ human relationships alter gradually or suddenly,
as they meet others who share their interest in (or are powerfully
threatened by) this work. Informal or formal parts work sharing-groups
may form for a while. Key relationships often become more or less
stressful, as awareness of the dynamic interplay between "my parts and
yours" grows.
Key
relationships often improve if both partners are self-motivated to (vs.
"have to") try out their own inner-family explorations. Family
relationships can be enhanced, if kids are encouraged to meet their
inner families, and members become comfortable talking about everyone’s
subselves. Some recoverers experience a new capacity to love other
people.
Ending Phase of Parts
Work
People end (vs. pause) parts work at any point along their path. If they
work to "completion" (a relative term), some normal occurrences are:
If a person has been using a professional parts-work coach or Guide,
they eventually phase out and continue or stop parts work on their own.
They may return for a brush-up or consultation on a spe-cial situation.
They may or may not refer special others to their Guide.
Parts work becomes automatic, like tying shoe laces. It becomes
integrated into normal living patterns, and dwindles as a distinct
conscious activity. Veterans of this work become selective teachers and
facilitators for others who are ready to
empower their true Self and harmonize their inner families.
People my become clearer on, and/or increase
the priority of, their
life purpose. Some recoverers change professions and/or locations, and seek a simpler,
slower, quieter lifestyle.
Serenity, appreciation and reverence of Life
and Nature, and compassion for living things, increase; and an "attitude
of gratitude" becomes automatic.
How Long Does Parts Work Take?
Early in her parts work, one client’s young
subself kept asking us anxiously "How long will this take?" She was
frustrated by my saying "Sounds like you’d feel better knowing you’d be done
with this work by a certain time. All I can say is ‘It
take as long as it takes.’" Two years later, we both smile as we
recall that Anxious One. Feeling far safer, she’s stopped asking
awhile ago.
Some people use parts work for a particular situation, or for a few months.
Others find it helpful for several years. Generally, it seems the more
trauma people experienced as kids, the greater their inner-family chaos and
wounds as adults, the higher their
denials and protections
(distrust), and the longer their work toward
increasing inner harmony takes.
A
key time-factor is how motivated and successful you are in at least
stabilizing current external stressors (e.g. work, money, relationships,
health). Until our outer life is consistently calm "enough," it’s hard to
find time and opportunity to get quiet, and do meaningful inner focusing,
calming, and healing. Growth towards inner and outer harmony seems to be
interrelated, and to happen for most of us in small, irregular steps.
Measuring Your Progress
As
with any personal-growth work, the
yardstick for deciding "Is parts work working for me?" is in noticeable,
persistent, desired
change. I see clients try out parts work because some aspects of their life
don’t feel good enough, despite attempts at improvement.
These aspects range from chronic physical problems (like head or body aches,
sleep or digestive problems, and
addictions) to the gamut of emotional discomforts:
depression; anxiety; emptiness; confusion; excessive
shame; recurrent "failures;" and cyclical relationship, security, or work troubles.
Like other therapies,
parts work does not help everyone.
Some people do find (in my experience) that the stressors that caused them
to start exploring clearly do shrink (and stay shrunk), over time. Feeling
worthless shifts towards self appreciation, acceptance, and even
self-love.
Primitive terror of
abandonment shifts toward peacefulness, as lonely
Inner Kids
leave the past and hesitantly accept the glad care of
Nurturing and
Spiritual subselves.
"Victim" thoughts and actions dwin-dle, and effective
assertions (vs. aggression or submission) and resulting satisfactions increase.
The best measure of parts-work effectiveness is in how often seekers
experience their true Self as being
in charge of their current life. The symptoms of such
times are common: unmistakable periods of clarity, groundedness,
"lightness," relaxed energy, calmness, optimism, focus, and
peacefulness. In other words, episodes of deep serenity, contentment,
and productivity.
Veteran parts workers come to know immediately if their unblended Self is in
charge of a unified, purposeful inner family at the moment. If s/he's not,
they find ways to unblend, resolve
inner conflicts,
and regain their "symptoms of Self."
You can do this, if you wish to...
See the
guidebook for Lesson 1and these books
for more perspective and wound-recovery resources. Also see the Internal
Family Systems (IFS) Web site,
these ques-tions and answers on
subselves and
psychological wounds, and this introduction to
wound-recovery. Foir a systematic way to assess and reduce false-self
dominance and psy-chological wounds, study online
Lesson 1 in this nonprofit Web site..
If
some protective part of you remains skeptical or
cynical
about personality subselves, try this safe, interesting
experience, read my letter
to you, and mull this true example
of parts in action. Then see how you feel.
Recap
This 6-page article outlines concepts and techniques for meeting
and harmonizing your talented personality subselves - your inner
family. A vital aspect of this "parts work" is
assessing
for possible false-self dominance and related
psychological
wounds,
and patiently
reducing
those to regain control of your life decisions, relationships, health, and
achievements.
This article is based on 19 years of professional study and clinical
experience in guiding scores of women and men (and some kids) to do versions
of this "parts work." A growing number of international mental-health
professionals are learning to use these systemic ideas and techniques with
adults and kids to replace and supplement older traditional therapies.
Internal Family Systems
therapy is still new, as fam-ily therapy was 60 years ago.
Stay tuned!
Please tell me your reaction to parts work
with this 1-question
anonymlous poll.
Pause, breathe, and reflect - why did you read this article? Did you get
what you needed? If not, what do you need? Who's
answering
these questions - your
true Self,
or
someone else?
Using Inner-family 
Beginning Phase
