Aside from Richard Schwartz, the creator of Internal Family Systems Therapy, no one has done more to make the ideas and techniques available to therapists and lay readers than Jay Earley (along with his wife and frequent co-author, Bonnie Weiss).

On this week's episode of Shrink Rap Radio, Dr. David Van Nuys interviews Dr. Jay Earley.

Shrink Rap Radio #419 – Internal Family Systems Therapy with Jay Earley PhD

A psychology podcast by David Van Nuys, Ph.D.
Posted on September 3, 2014
Copyright 2014: David Van Nuys, Ph.D.

Jay Earley, PhD, is a psychotherapist, group leader, author, teacher, and theorist. He teaches Internal Family Systems Therapy (IFS) IFS to the general public as a practice for self-help and peer counseling. He also teaches a variety of classes and workshops applying IFS to specific psychological issues such as procrastination, communication, relationships, and the inner critic. He is the author of Self-Therapy: A Step-by-Step Guide to Inner Wholeness Using IFS, Freedom from Your Inner Critic, Resolving Inner Conflict, Working with Anger in IFS, and Negotiating for Self-Leadership in IFS. Jay Earley and Bonnie Weiss have published a series of audio products related to IFS, including IFS Courses, Guided Meditations, and Demonstration Sessions.

Jay has created the Pattern System, a method for understanding parts, behavior, healthy capacities, internal dynamics, and underlying psychological issues. It is useful for mapping the psyche, understanding how people act and relate to others, and guiding IFS work. He has published a book entitled The Pattern System, and a book Conflict, Care, and Love that helps you to understand your relationship patterns and transform them.

Jay is the creator of Self-Therapy Journey, a web application for psychological exploration and healing, which is based on IFS and the Pattern System.

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Tami Simon in Conversation with Jay Earley - Self-Therapy

 

I have had the good fortune to chat with Dr. Earley a couple of times at the annual Internal Family Systems (IFS) Conference, although it has been years now. Early is one the leading exponents of the IFS therapy model developed by Dr. Richard Schwartz (Internal Family Systems Therapy, 1997).


I use the IFS approach quite often with my clients - for everything from depression and anxiety to dissociative identity disorder. It is a central part of my integrative approach to dissociative disorders.

Dr. Early is the author of many, many books - besides those with Sounds True listed below - including Negotiating for Self-Leadership in Internal Family Systems Therapy (2012), Letting Go of Perfectionism: Gaining Perspective, Balance, and Ease (2012), Working with Anger in Internal Family Systems Therapy (2012), and Self-Therapy for Your Inner Critic: Transforming Self Criticism into Self-Confidence (2010).

Jay Earley: Self-Therapy

Tuesday, September 24, 2013



Tami Simon speaks with Dr. Jay Earley, a transformational psychologist and psychotherapist specializing in a method called Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy, an approach that recognizes our many sub-personalities and their roles in the overall health of our psyche. With Sounds True, Dr. Earley has created an audio learning course called Self-Therapy, as well as a new book with co-author Bonnie Weiss called Freedom from Your Inner Critic. In this episode, Tami speaks with Jay about how we can work with and heal the inner Exiles in ourselves, the function of the sub-personalities known as Protectors, and how awakening to our true Self is the key to successful self-therapy. (60 minutes)

 

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More from Jay Earley: 

Self-Therapy



Freedom from Your Inner Critic 

TED Blog - Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Voice Hearing (But Were Too Afraid to Ask)

Eleanor Longden is the author of Learning from the Voices in My Head, a book in which she chronicles her experience of hearing voices, struggling with a diagnosis of schizophrenia, and her eventual befriending of the voices.

This is a topic close to my heart - many of the clients I deal with hear voices and none of them are schizophrenic. As an advocate of the Internal Family Systems model of therapy, I generally attempt to bring the voices into the therapeutic alliance. This process requires the client to befriend the voices and approach them with compassion and curiosity - two of the 8 c-words indicating the client is in Self and not in a part (all 8 of the c-words: calmness, curiosity, clarity, compassion, confidence, creativity, courage, and connectedness).

Everything you ever wanted to know about voice hearing (but were too afraid to ask)

Posted by: Michelle Quint
August 8, 2013

Eleanor Longden gave a candid talk about the fact that she hears voices at TED2013. Today, we also release her TED Book, which delves further into her experience in the mental health system. Below, all the questions you’d want to ask Longden. Photo: James Duncan Davidson

During her freshman year of college, Eleanor Longden began hearing voices: a narrator describing her actions as she went about her day. Diagnosed with schizophrenia, Longden began what she describes as a “psychic civil war,” fighting to stop the voices as they became antagonistic. Eleanor Longden: The voices in my head. What helped her was something unexpected: making peace with them. By learning to see the voices as a source of insight rather than a symptom, Longden took control.

What’s it like to hear voices? Read Eleanor’s FAQ below — where she tells you everything you wanted to know about voice hearing, with her signature honesty and humor.

Want more? Longden first spoke during our Worldwide Talent Search; then told a longer version of her journey toward acceptance of her own mind on the mainstage at TED2013. And today, Longden premieres her TED Book, delving deeper into her experience. Learning from the Voices in My Head is available for the Kindle, the Nook and through the iBookstore.

Do your voices ever talk to each other (and exclude you)?

Sometimes. In the old days they would talk about me a lot more, but now they usually speak to me directly. And when they do discuss me, it’s more likely to be compliments or positive encouragement. Or sometimes they’ll discuss something I’m worried about and debate possible solutions. There’s one particular voice that will repeat helpful mantras to the others. A recent one was: “If you can do something about it, there’s no need to worry. And if you can’t do anything about it, there’s no point in worrying!”

Do the voices sound like they are coming from inside your head or through your ears?

This is something else that’s changed a bit over time. They used to be more external, but now tend to be internal or outside, but very close to my ears. It can also vary depending on which voice is speaking.

What would you miss if you lost the voices? Would you be lonely?

My voices are an important part of my identity – literally, they are part of me – so yes, I would miss them if they went. I should probably insure them actually, because if they do ever go I’ll be out of a job! This seems extraordinary given how desperate I used to be to get rid of them. But they provide me with a lot of insights about myself, and they hold a very rich repertoire of different memories and emotions. They’re also very useful when I do public speaking, as they’ll often remind me if I’ve missed something. They can be helpful with general knowledge quizzes too! One of them even used to recite answers during my university exams. Peter Bullimore, a trustee of the English Hearing Voices Network, published a beautiful children’s book that was dictated to him by his voices.

Do your voices ever overlap? Could they harmonize?

They sometimes talk over each other, but don’t really say the same things in unison. I’ve met people whose voices do that though, like a chorus. Other people sometimes describe voices that sound like a football crowd, or a group talking at a party. At a recent conference, I heard a really extraordinary fact: that people who’ve been deaf from birth don’t hear voices, but see hands signing at them.

Do your voices happen all the time? Like, even during sex? Do you have to shush them during a movie?

No, not all the time! Although they’re often more active (and sometimes more negative or antagonistic) when I’m stressed. Even this can be useful though, as it’s a reminder to take some time out and look after myself. I relate to them so much better now, so if they become intrusive and I ask them to be quiet in a calm, respectful way — then 99% of the time they would.

Can you make certain voices pop up at will?

Yes, some of the time. Actually, this was something I used several years ago during therapy – my therapist would say for example, “I’d like to speak with the voice that’s very angry,” or “the voice that talks a lot about [a particular traumatic event],” and he’d dialogue with it.

Is there a time when you want to hear voices or are you always trying to get them to be quiet?

I sometimes discuss dilemmas or problems with them, or ask their opinion about decisions, although I would never let them dictate something to me that I didn’t want to do – it’s like negotiating between different parts of yourself to reach a conclusion ‘everyone’ is happy with. So, for example, maybe there’s a voice that represents a part of me that’s very insecure, which will have different needs, to a part of me that wants to go out into the world and be heard. Or the needs of very rational, intellectual voice may initially feel incompatible with those of a very emotional one. But then I can identify that conflict within myself and try to resolve it. It’s quite rare now that I have to tell them to be quiet, as they don’t intrude or impose on me in the way that they used to. If they do become invasive then it’s important for me to understand why, and there’ll always be a good reason. In general, it’ll be a sign of some sort of emotional conflict, which can then be addressed in a positive, constructive way.

Do you ever confuse your internal voice with ‘the voices’?

No, they feel quite distinct.

When you talk back to the voices, do they react differently if you speak out loud or just think your response?

I rarely respond to them out loud now, but they wouldn’t react differently to when I ‘speak’ to them internally.

What’s the difference between schizophrenia and voice hearing?

While the experiences that get labeled as symptoms of schizophrenia –and the distress associated with them — are very real, the idea that there’s a discrete, biologically-based condition called schizophrenia is increasingly being contested all over the world. While voice hearing is linked with a range of different psychiatric conditions (including many non-psychotic ones), many people with no history of mental health problems hear voices. It’s also widely recognized as part of different spiritual and cultural experiences.

Do you feel like other voice hearers understand you better?

They can appreciate what it’s like more precisely, but I’m fortunate enough to have met some really empathic, imaginative non-voice hearers who really want to understand too. In this respect, I think there’s actually more continuity between voices and everyday psychological experience then a lot of people realize. For example, everyone knows what it’s like to have intrusive thoughts. And most of us recognize the sense of having more than one part of ourselves: a part that’s very critical, a part that wants to please everyone, a part that’s preoccupied with negative events, a part that is playful and irresponsible and gets us into trouble, and so on. I think voices often feel more disowned and externalized, but represent a similar process.

What makes the voices talk more at some moments than others?

Usually emotional experiences, both positive and negative. In the early days, identifying these ‘triggers’ were very helpful in making more sense of why the voices were there and what they represented.

Do the voices ever make you laugh out loud?

Yes, sometimes! Some can be very outrageous with their humor, very daring, whereas others have a droll, Bill Hicks-like cynicism. Well, maybe not quite like Bill Hicks. Wouldn’t that be great though … having Bill Hicks in your head!

Tsultrim Allione - Feeding Your Demons

Tsultrim Allione is a former Tibetan nun and the author of Feeding Your Demons: Ancient Wisdom for Resolving Inner Conflict, from which this article is adapted. For those familiar with "parts" work in psychotherapy (working with subpersonalities or ego states), this five step process will look slightly familiar - there is some serious overlap between this ancient Buddhist practice and the contemporary shadow work process of getting to know our parts.

By the way, the paintings in this article, by Andrew Guenther, are quite cool. The article comes from Tricycle Magazine's Wisdom Collection.

Feeding Your Demons

Five steps to transforming your obstacles—your addictions, anxieties, and fears—into tranquility and wisdom, from Tsultrim Allione.

Article by Tsultrim Allione
Artwork by Andrew Guenther 

Wisdom Collection

To access the content within the Wisdom Collection, join Tricycle as a Supporting or Sustaining Member.

 

Social Group III, 2007, acrylic and oil stick on canvas, 60 x 50 inches

DEMONS are not bloodthirsty ghouls waiting for us in dark places; they are within us, the forces that we find inside ourselves, the core of which is ego-clinging. Demons are our obsessions and fears, feelings of insecurity, chronic illnesses, or common problems like depression, anxiety, and addiction. Feeding our demons rather than fighting them may seem to contradict the conventional approach of attacking and attempting to eliminate that which assails us, but it turns out to be a remarkable alternative and an effective path to liberation from all dichotomies.

In my own process of learning and applying the practice of Chöd, which was originated by the eleventh-century Tibetan yogini Machig Lapdrön , I realized that demons—or maras as they are called in Buddhism—are not exotic beings like those seen in Asian scroll paintings. They are our present fears and obsessions, the issues and emotional reactivity of our own lives. Our demons, all stemming from the root demon of ego-clinging, but manifesting in an infinite variety of ways, might come from the conflicts we have with our lover, anxiety we feel when we fly, or the discomfort we feel when we look at ourselves in the mirror. We might have a demon that makes us fear abandonment or a demon that causes us to hurt the ones we love.

Demons are ultimately generated by the mind and, as such, have no independent existence. Nonetheless, we engage with them as though they were real, and we believe in their existence—ask anyone who has fought an addiction or anxiety attacks. Demons show up in our lives whether we provoke them or not, whether we want them or not. Even common parlance refers to demons, such as a veteran who is home “battling his demons” of post-traumatic stress from the war in Iraq. I recently heard a woman say she was fighting her “jealousy demon.” Unfortunately, the habit of fighting our demons only gives them strength. By feeding, not fighting, our demons, we are integrating these energies, rather than rejecting them and attempting to distance ourselves from disowned parts of ourselves, or projecting them onto others.

The Practice of the Five Steps of Feeding Your Demons

WHEN I began to teach the Chöd practice in the West twenty-five years ago, I developed an exercise of visualizing and feeding “personal” demons so that the idea of demons would be relevant and applicable for Westerners. This exercise evolved into a five-step process, which began to be used independently of the Tibetan Chöd practice. My students told me that this method helped them greatly with chronic emotional and physical issues such as anxiety, compulsive eating, panic attacks, and illness. When they told me the five-step process also helped in dealing with upheavals such as the end of a relationship, the stress of losing a job, the death of a loved one, and interpersonal problems at work and at home, I realized that this exercise had a life of its own outside of teaching the traditional Chöd practice.

When we obsess about weight issues or become drained by a relationship or crave a cigarette, we give our demons strength, because we aren’t really paying attention to the demon. When we understand how to feed the demon’s real need with fearless generosity, the energy tied up in our demon will tend to dissolve and become an ally, like the demons that attacked Machig and subsequently became her aides.

Feeding a demon will take about half an hour. Choose a quiet place where you feel safe and comfortable. Arrange a time when you won’t be interrupted. Set up two chairs or two cushions opposite each other: one for you and one for the demon and ally. Once you’re set up you will want to keep your eyes closed until the end of the fifth step, so put the two seats (chairs or cushions) close enough to each other that you can feel the one in front of you with your eyes closed. Keeping your eyes closed will help you stay focused and present as you imagine this encounter with your demon. However, until you know the steps by heart, you may need to glance at the instructions.

Begin by generating the motivation to do the practice for the benefit of all beings. Then take nine deep abdominal breaths, which means breathing in deeply until you can feel your abdomen expand. Place your hands on your stomach and notice it rise and fall. As you inhale during the first three breaths, imagine your breath traveling to any physical tension you are holding in your body and then imagine the exhalation carrying this tension away. During the next three breaths release any emotional tension you might be carrying with the exhalation and in the last three breaths release any mental tension such as worries or concepts that are blocking you. Now you are ready for the five steps.

Social Group I, 2006, acrylic and oil stick on canvas, 48 x 48 inches

Step One: Find the Demon

In the first step you will find where in your body you hold the demon. Your demon might be an illness, an addiction, a phobia, perfectionism, anger, depression, or anything that is dragging you down, draining your energy. So first decide what you will work with. Finding the demon in your body takes you out of your head into a direct somatic experience. Think about the issue or demon you’ve decided to work with and let your awareness scan your body from head to toe, without any judgments, simply being aware of the sensations that are present. Locate where you are holding this energy by noticing where your attention goes in your body when you think about this issue. Once you find the feeling, intensify it, exaggerate it. Here are some questions to ask yourself: What color is it? What shape does it have? Does it have a texture? What is its temperature? If it emitted a sound, what would it be? If it had a smell, what would it be?

Step Two: Personify the Demon and Ask It What It Needs

In the second step you invite the demon to move from being simply a collection of sensations, colors, and textures that you’ve identified inside your body to becoming a living entity sitting right in front of you. As a personified form appears, a figure or a monster, notice its color, size, expression and especially the look in its eyes. Don’t try to control or decide what it will look like; let your unconscious mind produce the image. If something comes up that seems silly, like a cliché or a cartoon character, don’t dismiss it or try to change it. Work with whatever form shows up without editing it. Then ask three questions aloud in the following order: What do you want from me? What do you need from me? How will you feel if you get what you need? Once you have asked these questions, immediately change places with the demon. You need to become the demon to know the answers.

Step Three: Become the Demon

In the third step, you will discover what the demon needs by putting yourself in the demon’s place, actually changing places and allowing yourself to see things from the demon’s point of view. With your eyes still closed, move to the seat you have set up in front of you, facing your original seat, and imagine yourself as the demon. Take a deep breath or two and feel yourself becoming this demon. Vividly recall the being that was personified in front of you and imagine you are “in the demon’s shoes.” Take a moment to adjust to your new identity before answering the three questions.

Then answer the three questions aloud in the first person, looking at an imagined form of your ordinary self in front of you, like this: “What I want from you is . . . What I need from you is . . . When my need is met, I will feel . . .”

It’s very important that these questions make the distinction between wants and needs, because many demons will want your life force, or everything good in your life, or to control you, but that’s not what they need. Often what they need is hidden beneath what they say they want, which is why we ask the second question, probing a little deeper. The demon of alcoholism might want alcohol but need something quite different, like safety or relaxation. Until we get to the need underlying the craving, the craving will continue.

In response to the question “What do you need?” the stress demon might respond: “What I actually need is to feel secure.”

Having learned that beneath the stress demon’s desire to hurry and do more lies a need to feel secure, you still must find out how the demon will feel if it gets what it needs. This will tell you what to feed the demon. Thus, having been asked “How will you feel if you get what you need?” the stress demon might answer: “I will feel like I can let go and finally relax.” Now you know to feed this demon relaxation. By feeding the demon the emotional feeling that underlies the desire for the substance, we address the core issue instead of just the symptoms.

I! WANT! WHAT! HE’S! HAVING!, 

2004, acrylic and oil stick on canvas, 24 x 22 inches

Step Four: Feed the Demon and Meet the Ally

Now we’ve reached the crucial moment when we actually feed the demon. Return to your original position and face the demon. Take a moment to settle back into your own body before you envision the demon in front of you again.

Begin by imagining that your consciousness is separating from your body so that it is as if your consciousness is outside your body and just an observer of this process. Then imagine your body melting into nectar that consists of whatever the demon has told you it ultimately will feel if it gets what it needs, so the nectar consists of the answer to the third question in step three. For example, the demon might have said it will feel powerful, or loved, or accepted when it gets what it needs. So the nectar should be just that: You offer nectar of the feeling of power, love, or acceptance.

Now feed the demon this nectar, give free rein to your imagination in seeing how the nectar will be absorbed by the demon. See the demon drinking in your offering of nectar through its mouth or through the pores of its skin, or taking it in some other way. Continue imagining the nectar flowing into the demon; imagine that there is an infinite supply of this nectar, and that you are offering it with a feeling of limitless generosity. While you feed your demon, watch it carefully, as it is likely to begin to change. Does it look different in any way? Does it morph into a new being altogether?

At the moment of total satiation, its appearance usually changes significantly. It may become something completely new or disappear into smoke or mist. What happens when the demon is completely satisfied? There’s nothing it’s “supposed” to do, so just observe what happens; let the process unfold without trying to create a certain outcome. Whatever develops will arise spontaneously when the demon is fed to its complete satisfaction. It is important that the demon be fed to complete satisfaction. If your demon seems insatiable, just imagine how it would look if it were completely satisfied; this bypasses our tendency to hold on to our demons.

The next part of step four is the appearance of an ally. A satisfied demon may transform directly into a benevolent figure, which may be the ally. The ally could be an animal, a bird, a human, a mythic god or bodhisattva, a child, or a familiar person. Ask this figure if it is the ally. If it replies it is not, then invite an ally to appear. Or the demon may have disappeared, leaving no figure behind. If so, you can still meet the ally by inviting an ally to appear in front of you. Once you clearly see the ally, ask it the following questions: How will you serve me? What pledge or commitment will you make to me? How will you protect me? How can I gain access to you?

Then change places and become the ally, just as you became the demon in step three. Having become the ally, take a moment to fully inhabit this body. Notice how it feels to be the protective guardian. Then, speaking as the ally, answer the questions above. Try to be as specific as possible in your answers.

Once the ally has articulated how it will serve and protect you, and how you can summon it, return to your original place. Take a moment to settle back into yourself, seeing the ally in front of you. Then imagine you are receiving the help and the commitment the ally has pledged. Feel this supportive energy enter you and take effect.

Finally, imagine the ally itself melting into you and feel its deeply nurturing essence integrating with you. Notice how you feel when the ally has dissolved into you. Realize that the ally is actually an inseparable part of you, and then allow yourself to dissolve into emptiness, which will naturally take you to the fifth and final step.

Step Five: Rest in Awareness

When you have finished feeding the demon to complete satisfaction and the ally has been integrated, you and the ally dissolve into emptiness. Then you just rest. When the thinking mind takes a break for even a few seconds, a kind of relaxed awareness replaces the usual stream of thoughts. We need to encourage this and not fill this space with anything else; just let it be. Some people describe the fifth step as peace, others as freedom, and yet others as a great vastness. I like calling it “the gap,” or the space between thoughts. Usually when we experience the gap we have a tendency to want to fill it up immediately; we are uncomfortable with empty space. In the fifth step, rather than filling this space, rest there. Even if this open awareness only occurs for a moment, it’s the beginning of knowing your true nature.

Although the method of personifying a fear or neurosis is not unfamiliar in Western psychology, the value of the five-step practice of feeding your demons is quite different, beginning with the generation of an altruistic motivation, followed by the body offering (which works directly with ego-clinging) and finally the experience of nondual meditative awareness in the final step of the process. This state of relaxed awareness, free from our usual fixation of “self” versus “other,” takes us beyond the place where normal psychotherapeutic methods end.

Direct Liberation of Demons

Once we have practiced feeding the demons for some time, we begin to become aware of demons as they form. We learn to see them coming: “Ah, here comes my self-hatred demon.” This makes it possible—with some practice—to liberate demons as they arise without going through the five steps, by using what is called “direct liberation.” This most immediate and simple route to liberating demons takes you straight to the fifth step, but it is also the most difficult to do effectively.

Direct liberation is deceptively simple. It involves noticing the arising energy or thoughts and then turning your awareness directly toward it without giving it form as we do in the five steps. This is the energetic equivalent of turning a boat directly into the wind when sailing; the boat travels because of its resistance to the wind and stops when its power source has been neutralized. Similarly, if you turn your awareness directly into an emotion it stops developing. This doesn’t mean you are analyzing it or thinking about it but rather turning toward it with clear awareness. At this point, if you are able to do it correctly, the demon will instantly be liberated and vanish on the spot. The technique of direct liberation is comparable to being afraid of a monster in the dark and then turning on the light. When the light goes on we see that there never was a monster in the first place, that it was just a projection of our own mind.

Let’s take the example of a demon of jealousy. I notice, “Ah, I’m getting jealous, my heart rate is increasing. My body is tensing.” If at that moment I turn toward the energy of jealousy and bring my full awareness to it, the jealousy will pop like a balloon. When we feed a demon using the five steps, by the time you get to the fifth step both you and the demon have dissolved into emptiness and there is just vast awareness. Here we are short-circuiting the demon as it arises by meeting its energy consciously as soon as it surfaces, going directly to the fifth step.

Another example of a situation in which you might practice direct liberation would be an interaction with other people. You might be sitting with your lover, for instance, when you discover that something he committed to doing has not even been started. You feel irritation welling up. But then if you turn your awareness to this sensation of irritation, looking right at it, it disappears.

One way I explain direct liberation at my retreats is through an experiment. You might try it. Consciously generate a strong emotion—anger, sadness, disappointment, or desire. When you get this feeling, intensify it, and then turn your awareness directly to that emotion and rest in the experience that follows. Liberation of the demon can be so simple and instantaneous that you will distrust the result, but check back on it, and, if you have done it correctly, the emotion will have dissolved.

With considerable practice the next stage becomes possible: Here immediate awareness, clear and unmodified, is already stable, not something you just glimpse periodically. At this stage, you don’t have to “do” anything; awareness simply meets emotions as they arise so that they are naturally liberated. Emptiness, clarity, and awareness are spontaneously present. Emotions don’t get hold of you; they arise and are liberated simultaneously. This is called instant liberation. An emotion arises but finds no foothold and dissolves. At this point we have no need for feeding demons, because we are governed by awareness, rather than by our emotions.

The process of acknowledging our collective demons begins with our personal demons—universal fears, paranoia, prejudices, arrogance, and other weaknesses. Families, groups, nations, and even society as a whole can create demons that are the sum of unresolved individual demons. If we do not acknowledge these personal demons, our weaknesses and fears can join those of others to become something monstrous.

Through shifting our perspective away from attacking our enemies and defending our territory to feeding our demons, we can learn to stay in dialogue with the enemy and find peaceful solutions. In this way we begin a quiet revolution. Drawing on the inspiration of the teachings of an eleventh-century yogini, we can change our world.

The Story of Chöd Practice

The great eleventh-century Tibetan yogini Machig Labdrön (1055–1145) received empowerment from her teacher, Kyotön Sonam Lama, with several other women practitioners. At the key moment when the wisdom beings descended, Machig magically rose up from where she was sitting, passed through the wall of the temple, and flew into a tree above a pond.

This pond was the residence of a powerful naga, or water spirit. These capricious beings can cause disruption and disease but can also act as treasure holders or protectors. This particular naga was so terrifying that the local people did not even dare to look at the pond, never mind approach it. But Machig landed in the tree above the pond and stayed there in a state of profound, unshakable meditation.

Young Machig’s arrival in this lone tree above the pond was a direct confrontation for the water spirit. He approached her threateningly, but she remained in meditation, unafraid. This infuriated him, so he gathered a huge army of nagas from the region in an attempt to intimidate her. They approached her as a mass of terrifying magical apparitions. When she saw them coming, Machig instantly transformed her body into a food offering, and, as her biography states, “They could not devour her because she was egoless.”

Not only did the aggression of the nagas evaporate but also they developed faith in her and offered her their “life essence,” committing not to harm other beings and vowing to protect her. By meeting the demons without fear, compassionately offering her body as food rather than fighting against them, Machig turned the demons into allies.

There is a story, also about a water creature, in Western mythology that stands in stark contrast to the story of Machig Labdrön and the naga. The myth of Hercules exemplifies the heroic quest in Western culture. Accompanied by his nephew Iolaus, Hercules goes to the lake of Lerna, where the Hydra, a nine-headed water serpent, has been attacking innocent passersby. Hercules and Iolaus fire flaming arrows at the beast to draw it from its lair. After it emerges, Hercules discovers that every time he destroys one of the Hydra’s heads, two more grow back in its place.

Iolaus uses a burning branch to cauterize the necks at the base of the heads as Hercules lops them off, successfully preventing the Hydra from growing more. Eventually only one head remains. This head is immortal, but Hercules cuts through the mortal neck that supports it. The head lies before him, hissing. Finally, he buries the immortal head under a large boulder, considering the monster vanquished.

But what kind of victory has Hercules achieved? Has he actually eliminated the enemy, or merely suppressed it? The Hydra’s immortal head, the governing force of its energy, is still seething under the boulder and could reemerge if circumstances permitted. What does this say about the monster-slaying heroic mentality that so enthralls and permeates our society?

Although the positive aspects of the myth can lead to important battles against hatred, disease, and poverty, it also poses terrible and largely unacknowledged dangers. Among these is the ego inflation of those who identify themselves with the role of the dragon-slaying warrior hero. Another is projecting evil onto our opponents, demonizing them, and justifying their murder, while we claim to be wholly identified with good. The tendency to kill—rather than engage—the monster prevents us from knowing our own monsters and transforming them into allies.

For more on Chöd, the Tibetan practice that inspired "Feeding Your Demons," check out "The Most Generous Cut" by Alejandro Chaoul.

Tsultrim Allione is a former Tibetan Buddhist nun and author of Women of Wisdom. She is the founder of the Tara Mandala retreat center in Colorado (taramandala.org). This article has been adapted from her new book Feeding Your Demons, © 2008. Reprinted by permission of Little, Brown and Company, New York, NY.

Images: © ANDREW GUENTHER

Internal Family Systems Therapy: The Technique that Silicon Valley Geeks are Using to Hack the Voices Inside Their Heads

io9 ran an article (back in June, 2012) about how Richard Schwartz's Internal Family Systems Therapy model is being used in Silicon Valley to hack the voices in the heads of technology geeks. One of the books Dvorsky mentions is Self-Therapy: A Step-By-Step Guide to Creating Wholeness and Healing Your Inner Child Using IFS, A New, Cutting-Edge Psychotherapy, by Jay Earley, who certainly knows the model inside and out. This article (and the book) serves as a nice introduction to IFS for those who have never heard of it before.

I also highly recommend the original book by Richard Schwartz, Internal Family Systems Therapy, for someone who wants to see more of the clinical side of the model.

Thanks to my friend Charlotte at Facebook for the heads up on this article.

The Technique that Silicon Valley Geeks are Using to Hack the Voices Inside Their Heads

BY George Dvorsky
June 20, 2012

Self-help schemes come and go, but a new framework has attracted the attention of a number of Silicon Valley techies — especially computer scientists and programmers. Called Internal Family Systems (IFS), it's an integrated approach to individual psychotherapy that breaks conscious thoughts into individual, manageable parts that can be reprogrammed. And given its systematic methodology, it's no surprise that geeks have quickly latched on. But is there anything to this notion, or is it just another self-help fad?

To better understand how it works, and to get a sense as to why it's so appealing to such a niche group of thinkers, we spoke to Divia Eden, a practitioner and facilitator of the IFS system.

Developed by the psychologist Richard. C. Schwartz, the Internal Family Systems Model works by categorizing the competing voices in our head into relatively discrete subpersonalities — each with its own perspectives, tendencies, and quirks. Inspired by the Family Therapy model, which is used by psychotherapists to facilitate healthier inter-family relationships, IFS helps a person understand how his or her individual collection of subpersonalities are organized — and how they can better work together to create a well-adjusted, consistent self.

A fundamental understanding of IFS is that every subpersonality has a positive intent for the person — even if it might not seem that way. The system suggests that every single voice inside your head that's telling you to do or not do something is still looking out for your best interests. Your job, as the overarching self, is to get these voices harmonized — without internal conflict and hostility — so that you can live in peace and take the appropriate course of action.

"IFS works because it provides a systematic framework for looking inside your head with curiosity and compassion," Eden tells io9. "Looking at it from a meta perspective, it's simply the best set of questions I've found for diffusing internal tensions and conflict." It's one thing to ask a person to be kind or compassionate to his or her own self, she notes, but this approach helps to untangle and direct a person's thoughts in a powerful way.

Managers, exiles, and firefighters

Subpersonalities, also called parts, can have either "extreme roles" or healthy roles. IFS tends to focus on parts in extreme roles because they, like the needy and cantankerous members of a family, are in need of transformation through therapy. IFS divides these "loud" parts into three types: managers, exiles, and firefighters.

Managers are the voices that take preemptive roles to protect you. They're the parts of your inner dialogue that are working to prevent you from being hurt by people — and they also try to prevent traumatic feelings and experiences from creeping to the surface.

Your exiled thoughts are those parts of you that are in pain, shame, fear, or trauma. Managers and firefighters tend to exile these parts from working consciousness to prevent the pain from coming to the surface.

And firefighters are those parts that emerge when exiles break out and demand attention. They try to distract a person's attention from the hurt or shame experienced by the exile. It's your firefighter thoughts that are the ones that get you to engage in impulsive behaviors — like overeating, drinking too much alcohol, taking drugs, fighting, or having inappropriate sex. It can even manifest as overworking or over-medicating.

It's through therapy or active introspective that a person learns to recognize these inner thoughts and categorize them as such. The rest is facilitation, whether it be self-directed, or with a counsellor.

Debugging the brain

Like many other people who come into contact with IFS, Eden was skeptical at first. She thought it just sounded weird. It was recommended to her by a number of computer programmers, including physicist and computer scientist Steve Omohundro; and as someone with a computer background herself, she trusted their judgement. After looking into it a bit further, she started to find tremendous value in it.

"It definitely clicked with me right away," she says, "it seemed to be describing something that really resonated with how my mind worked that I had not heard before."

After reading Jay Earley's book, Self Therapy, she started to organize meet-ups, do facilitations with friends, and apply the approach to all facets of her life, including her relationships. "I would get really surprising answers from myself," she says, "it's provided me with insights worth paying attention to."

Like a software engineer debugging a troublesome program, Eden started to identify the patterns that were causing her the most problems. When she became emotionally triggered by something, she took pause and thought more carefully about the conflicting interests in her consciousness. She started to see the benefits of IFS and began to apply it to her relationship problems — and it worked. Eden, who is recently married, credits IFS for laying the foundation for a more honest and emotionally intimate relationship.

Her husband, Will, a recent convert to IFS, has also experienced positive results. One issue in particular that troubled him was his sense of shame around his tendency to stutter. Will says that IFS provided him with a enhanced visual sense of what was going on in his head — he could actually visualize and compartmentalize all the parts of his mind that were feeding into his feelings of shame. He subsequently dealt with it internally, and hasn't looked back.

Others who have engaged in IFS have had similar experiences. A colleague of Eden's, who was formally trained as a life coach under a different modality, decided to give IFS a shot. She started to get quicker results from her clients, so she's made the switch in her practice.

Eden also tells the story of her friend, Adam. He initially met IFS with extreme skepticism, but wanted to give it a try. He felt awful whenever he had to talk to strangers. By working with Eden, he was able to reframe his thoughts and trace them all the way back to kindergarten. He was able to access a particular part of his mind that wanted him to avoid taking social risks (i.e. a manager thought), and by virtue of that, was able to make an immediate change.

Effectiveness for geeks

When asked why so many computer scientists and programmers find value in IFS, Eden suggests that the framework appeals to those who are highly systemizing and analytical thinkers. "Part of its appeal," she says, "is that it's low on the woo-woo factor." There's no supernatural, New Age, or mystical aspect to it, claims Eden, and that's something this demographic finds particularly appealing and non-threatening.

But not everyone is convinced by the powers of IFS. Critics, like Clan Denari, complain that the system is too basic, that our "pushy" internal thoughts are more than just managers, exiles, and firefighters. The general complaint from some psychotherapists is that the system is too rigid. As Denari notes:

Such a cast is too simplistic to describe most real multiple systems, for a few reasons. First, many plurals have [parts] that do none of these things; in some cases, the Insider has almost no interaction with Outside issues at all. Second, the way [facilitators define] their behavior...is so arbitrary as to be meaningless. From a biological point of view, there's very little difference between an addiction to a substance, an obsession with an idea, and a compulsion to cut oneself; and clearly any of those can spark or be sparked by depression.

Clearly, not everyone's buying in. But Eden, like many other IFS converts, sticks with it because it works for them. "Other psychological frameworks seem to be trying to fit people into general categories rather than their thoughts," she says. "I like that this didn't seem to make any assumptions about how my mind works — it considers you as a person, along with your individuality and uniqueness."

Looking to the future, Eden hopes to continue to apply IFS to her own internal states, and as a way to keep her marriage going strong. "It has definitely become a lifestyle thing for us," she says.

Image via Shutterstock.com/Bruce Rolff. Inset images via Divia Eden and Shutterstock.com TFoxFoto.

Paul Kiritsis - Let’s Pretend and See What Comes Out: Subpersonalities

Followers of this blog know that I have long been a fan of shadow work with subpersonalities. It's a been a while since I have posted anything, but this is a good introductory article by Dr. Paul Kiritsis from his blog, Down the Rabbit Hole.

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.

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.

Read the whole post.

Dennis Palumbo - Dealing with Your "Inner Critic"

This is a rather shallow article on working with the inner critic, but it does offer some useful advice so I thought I'd share it here. At one point he mentions, briefly, having some self-compassion around this issue, which is really central to the ability to harmonize with the inner critic. The key is that we also must feel calmness, curiosity, clarity, compassion, confidence, creativity, courage, and connectedness with and toward that part of ourselves.

If we can befriend it instead of doing battle with it, we discover that it is there to help us, and it has always had that single goal in mind. When we were children (which is when these types of parts develop) it may have been the best option for feeling safe, to anticipate criticism before it comes from the parent and act accordingly. But as adults, these behaviors and beliefs limit our options, inhibit our creativity and joy, and are no longer useful in our lives in quite the same way.

When we befriend the critic, and learn about its needs and concerns, we may over time free it up to assume a more supportive role in our lives - in the end, it only wants our safety and happiness.

Dealing with Your "Inner Critic"

Self-criticism is a two-edged sword

Published on May 19, 2012 

by Dennis Palumbo in Hollywood on the Couch

Among the majority of my creative patients---TV and film writers, directors, actors, etc.---a primary concern is the struggle against their “inner critic.” By that I mean the persistent, sometimes harsh and almost always shaming “voice” that belittles or invalidates their work.

Indeed, the term “inner critic” is such a well-known concept in our culture that millions of dollars are spent on books, DVD’s, online classes and seminars promising to silence---or even banish altogether---this punishing element of most people’s inner world.

There’re two problems with this approach: first, the goal of killing off the self-critical, judgmental part of your psyche confirms the idea that there’s something wrong with you that needs to be fixed. It suggests that there’s a perfectable “you” in the future who’s unencumbered by such conflicts.

Not to mention my second objection, which is that it isn’t even possible.

Unquestionably, there’s nothing more painful about the creative process than struggling against feelings of self-doubt, even self-loathing. I’ve worked with patients who literally hate everything they create---it’s not good enough, funny enough, smart enough, commercial enough. Even those with a more balanced view of their output acknowledge the stress of continually having to keep deeply critical inner voices at bay just to get through the damn thing.

"Killing off” your inner critic won’t work; it isn’t even desirable. It’s part of who you are. A necessary part. As much as your enthusiasm, your work habits, your loves and hates, your joys and regrets. Because, like these other aspects of your emotional life, an inner critic is a two-edged sword.

Think of it this way: the same inner critic that judges our work so severely provides us with the ability to discern our likes and dislikes, to form opinions, to make decisions. It reinforces the faith in our subjective experience that allows us to choose this rather than that.

We need a sense of judgment to navigate in the world. The amount and intensity of that judgment, as with most things, lies along a continuum. Hopefully, we possess neither too much, nor too little.

Imagine waiting to cross the street at a busy intersection: With too little judgment, you might ignore the “Don’t Walk” sign and get run over; with too much judgment, you stand frozen even when the sign reads “Walk,” and therefore never get anywhere.

What I’m trying to suggest here is that we don’t judge our having an inner judge too harshly. Doing creative work in the face of a persistent inner critic is draining enough. To compound the problem by blaming yourself for being engaged in the struggle is ridiculous.

Remember, too, what I said about your inner critic being a two-edged sword. Because if we can accept with self-compassion this troubling aspect of ourselves, we might even learn something.

I’m thinking of an example from my own experience as a patient in therapy. This was many years ago, when I was struggling with some very painful issues, specifically a rather profound fear of failure that seemed unaffected by my outward success. The sessions were so gut-wrenching, I thought about quitting therapy.

Yet I kept coming, week after week, much to my own surprise. When I mentioned this to my therapist, he suggested that while the issues underlying my fear of failure were indeed painful and difficult, it was this same fear of failure that kept me coming back to therapy every week. In other words, the same thing that was causing the problem was providing the determination to keep slugging away at it. I just wouldn’t quit.

That’s when I realized what a two-edged sword my particular problem was. Like the ancient concept of yin and yang, almost every aspect of our emotional life has both an affirming and an invalidating component. Our job, then, is to examine an issue that troubles us---a harsh inner critic, for example---and learn what is both positive and negative about it, in terms of our work and our life.

If we approach our inner critic from this perspective, that of a life-long process of examination, we can co-exist with it. That along with feeling the pain of its intense scrutiny, we also develop the courage to challenge the self-defeating meanings we give to that pain. This has always been the artist’s struggle. What Rollo May calls “the courage to create.”

Or, to put it bluntly: You’re an artist. Which means, you’re your own worst critic. Join the club.

Conquer Your Critical Inner Voice: Webinar Recording with Dr. Lisa Firestone

We all have an inner critic who tells us we are screwing things up, that we are not good enough, that no one will ever really care about or love us, and so on. That critical voice can be brutal, depending more or less on the parenting and support we received as children. But all of us wanted to please our parents, and we experienced their anger, frustration, neglect, or criticism as threatening to our own existence. This is where the critic comes from, to make sure we do not disappoint important others by criticizing ourselves before someone else can do so. In that sense, it was created to keep us safe and to protect us from rejection.

As adults, however, that voice is no longer healthy when it limits what we can do and how we can be in the world. In this video lecture, Dr. Lisa Firestone talks about how we can free ourselves from an unhealthy inner critic.

Conquer Your Critical Inner Voice: Webinar Recording with Dr. Lisa Firestone

Each of us has an "inner critic" judging our every action and instructing us on how to live our lives. But how much are we letting this inner critic control us? Are we living the lives we were destined to live or are we living someone else's life? Are our actions based on what we really feel and believe or on negative programming from our past? This webinar recording with Dr. Lisa Firestone can help you counter negative thinking and live free from imagined limitations.