At a more fundamental level, we are all multiple selves. Whether we call them parts (Internal Family Systems), ego states (Watkins and Watkins), complexes (Jung), or subpersonalities (Psychosynthesis, Voice Dialogue, and others), we all have various selves that are only present under certain conditions, and these parts generally act as coping mechanisms to keep the self-system safe from trauma, fear, and other issues.
Read the whole post.Let’s Pretend and See What Comes Out: Subpersonalities
October 5th, 2012
Subpersonalities (2011) by Chris Stamboulakis
Do you know what a subpersonality is? It’s essentially a part of you or any part which can be personified. It can be the envy you feel when a peer gets the business promotion you were expecting, or the lust you feel when a beautiful stranger happens to brush past you on the sidewalk. It can be the doubt that has plagued you about your ability to perform at competition level or the athlete himself. Alternatively it could be a dogged and persistent phobia such as the fear of heights, a physical condition such as a migraine headache, an idiosyncrasy like sleeping in the nude, a desire, a temperamental quality such as shyness, or the lamentable loss of a beloved partner. A subpersonality can also be a particular doubt or worry that has been plaguing you of late, or the narcissistic fancy you feel when you catch glimpses of your terrific self in a full-length mirror. It can be a specific emotion like anger or love for a particular person, or a detrimental habit like smoking, drinking, binge eating, and gambling that has been with you since God knows when. Fascinatingly, it can even be the intangible inner sphere recognized as the real self by humanistic psychology, the soul by Jungian philosophy, and the spirit by mysticism.
Subpersonalities are usually defined by their propensity to operate on a much more rudimentary, microscopic, and simpleminded level than the individual who might express and give voice to them. The sum of innumerable subpersonalities obviously forms the psychological impulses that we perceive as our personal identity though in and of themselves they are little more than a drop of water falling into the vast and desolate breadth of the Pacific Ocean. These are in fact the same little entities that acquire a level of sentience in acute psychosis and act out independently of the total personality. (We have looked at such phenomena in detail in an earlier post on madness and hallucinations.) All these parts have a story to tell and all too often the story that they tell is one of imperfection, deficiency, imbalance, misery, and lack of insight. This is where they practice of psychotherapy comes in handy. With respect to their efficacy, subpersonalities only pose problems when they remain latent in the psyche. When one draws them out of the darkness and into the light through a conscious dialogue of some sort the subpersonality either thaws out into oblivion or it transforms into a positive and colourful sentiment able to work with the mental ego in creative and constructive ways. Psychotherapy works to disarming these little monsters by giving them a concrete and tangible form. In psychology this is known as concretization, and it allows a personal intellect unfamiliar with boundless qualities and forms to recognize their existence and begin conscious negotiations with them. Over the last century there have been many techniques pioneered to bring one into conscious communion with their subpersonalities: psychosynthesis, Voice Dialogue, fantasy play involving figurines and dolls, sand therapy, active imagination, and two-chair work.
Generally speaking, methods of inviting the unconscious into dialogue are typically broad and vary from therapist to therapist depending on the psychological school to which they adhere, though it appears their similarities far outnumber their differences because nearly all use a form of guided fantasy to inaugurate the fantastical experience. Natural settings are also vital components of the process. With respect to the latter, two of these–the ever-popular active imagination, a technique pioneered by Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961), and two-chair work–even adopt special rituals intended to prepare and prime the individual for inner work involving the conscious appropriation of imaginal contents. Even if it’s just imagined or suggested, the physical ritual of dressing in ritualistic garb and paraphernalia or carrying a specific talisman of choice every time one enters into their own inner world for mythical experience binds the whole endeavour to the earthbound realm of everyday life. In this way the individual or client involved knows that the experience is real and that it actually transpired on the physical plane.
Inducing a meeting with a chosen subpersonality of choice is not as difficult as it might sound. Firstly, set up two comfortable armchairs equipped with airy and bulbous pillows so that they’re facing one another. One is for you; the other for one of your subpersonalities. If you wish to conjure an earthier, homely, and more personal atmosphere, you might wish to strategically position a small coffee table between the two chairs. Once you have finished setting up, recline yourself onto one of the chairs and start taking deep, oxygen-rich breaths. Ensure that you are completely relaxed and that all the weighty and hefty commitments that keep your mind chained to ironclad problems and worries during the day have spontaneously evaporated like water vapours. Contents gravitating about the unconscious are much more likely to rise to the surface of one’s mind when sentiments inhibiting sensory transaction between the tiers of consciousness like worry, nervousness, angst, and anxiety are completely absent. Allow your chosen subpersonality to come to mind; try visualizing it by giving it some concrete form. Enmity, for instance, might be visualized as a little red demon with a long, forked tail, reptilian skin, ambient red eyes, crooked teeth and stumpy horns. Narcissism might be a handsome blue-eyed youth with blond curls hanging to his shoulders or an animate and lifelike version of Michelangelo’s David. On the other hand grief and loss might be personified as a haggard and ravaged old crone with red puffy eyes and fairly rigid facial expressions that denote withdrawal from conscious participation in the game of life. My own preference is to materialize a physical replica of myself and imbue it with the requisite characteristics of the subpersonality I wish to converse. It tends to work well if you’ve been doing it for a while but for beginners who have little to no experience with this psychotherapeutic technique visualization of one’s entire physiognomy rouses inhibition because image and sentiment are incongruent.
Perhaps the most effective way of initiating a session is to put forth questions like, “I sense that you’re my anger”, “I feel completely disenchanted with you”, or “Why are you the one that’s sitting on the chair and not anyone else?” Naturally the style and manner of the prompts depend entirely on what the circumstances call for. Don’t try to force the dialogue; let it come out naturally as it would if you were speaking to an old friend or colleague. After the dynamic of the situation becomes crystal-clear, invert the process by clambering over to the other chair and usurping it from your subpersonality. Now imagine that you are that inferior personality. Without any inhibitions or reservations, respond to the question or questions posed by your total personality or self. Do it actively, spontaneously, and with little thought. Allow a lengthy dialogue to unfold between your total self and its subordinate personality by moving back and forth between them. Pay close attention to specific gesticulations; facial expressions; the pitch, amplitude, and quality of the voice; and any other physiognomic cues that help form a comprehensive picture of what that subpersonality is about. If you enact the exercise correctly, you should be able to discern an acute contrast between the higher entity which is the integrated “you” and the subpersonality under scrutiny.
There are many things to like about this form of psychotherapy. The technique provides voluntary entrance into an active-passive mode of being recognized as a higher state of consciousness by many religious and philosophical traditions around the world. If the theoretical fruits put forth by practicing transpersonal psychotherapists are to be believed, the insights that become apparent in this state can be used in a practical manner to enrich one’s life. Moreover the gamut of consciousness that experience of this sort is likely to garner tutors mediating therapists in the scientific art of phenomenological objectivity. How exactly might that be? Practicing psychotherapists usually have a wide scope of past experiences and practices they reflect upon in discerning the etiology of problems and neuroses. As helpful as these may be, they become a trap when religiously and rigidly heeded to. In practice, the psychotherapist must always remember that the psychic anatomy of each individual is unique; a therapeutic technique that works on one individual might not necessarily work on another with identical circumstances. By taking note of to the impermanence of everything and the wisdom of insecurity, the psychotherapist’s chance of making diagnostic blunders and mistakes is reduced drastically. Engaging inner work with subpersonalities cultivates a deeper, wiser, and comprehensive form of scientific objectivity.
1 comment:
This entire view of subpersonalities seems to rest on the flawed assumption that there is an “I” that is independent of the subpersonalities, and which can examine them through various psychological techniques. Thus it is stated “One is for you; the other for one of your subpersonalities.”
This is total, 100% bullshit. There is NOTHING EXCEPT these personalities (no need to call them “sub”, since that word implies, again, an “I” that transcends them). Very few people ever make this discovery because it can only be realized through the enormous effort and suffering of increased awareness, not through mind games like introspection or the various psychological techniques discussed. The latter all start with the assumption of an independent I, never challenge this idea, and so can only view one personality through another, without ever realizing that this “I” is just another personality, not on a different level from any of the others.
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