What if the idea that we each have a single personality is entirely wrong? Instead of the one-mind view, maybe you, I, and everyone else have multiple personalities. Perhaps as a diagnosis for a disorder it is completely off base and it would be more productive to see most with or without behavioural issues as multi faceted rather than locking them into labels and boxes more comfy for others.
Richard Schwartz (2021), the creator of the Internal Family Systems (IFS) Therapy model, suggests we have all been born with many sub-minds interacting with one another. Haven’t we all heard conflicting inner voices saying “Go for it” and “Don’t you dare”. This may seem less a revelation than something we know about ourselves but maybe don't allow for with others. In families there is no 'I treat all my kids the same' and nor is there 'I love all my kids the same.' These two falsehoods can be an umbrella for discontent in families where one child sees different treatment for another as a competitive element in the family and may feel marginalized because their sub personality, feelings and interactions with one sibling is different with another and they aren't taught how normal this is. The 'group' mentality of families may be a grounding for dysfunction disabling the child from moving away from toxicity or living via guilt in adult relationships.
We all develop a variety of coping mechanisms for feelings that we largely don't understand. It is your first response when things are upsetting or there is dissention. Understanding that response allows you to manage it and yourself in family situations that intrinsically are weighted on the side of emotion and feelings along with history and experience. Family goes forward to become the family you create not just the family you developed an understanding of relationships with.
According to Schwartz (2021), thinking involves parts “talking to each other and to you constantly about things you have to do or debating the best course of action, and so on.”
Each part has its own beliefs, feelings, and characteristics and a distinct role in the overall system. They are clustered into the following three groups (Sweezy & Ziskind, 2013; IFS Institute, n.d.):
• Managers
Managers are a protective group of parts that attempt to keep us organized and safe, running our day-to-day lives. Over time, they may push for perfectionism and even inflict harm in their pursuit of safety.
• Exiles
Exiles are the injured parts of us and have typically experienced trauma. Exiled by the managers, they can become increasingly extreme, ultimately overriding the managers to become who we are.
• Firefighters
Firefighters are another form of protection that “put out the emotional fire at any cost,” often starting backfires. They do so in several ways, including unhealthy or unhelpful behaviour, such as alcohol and drug abuse and eating disorders (Sweezy & Ziskind, 2013, p. xviii).
Parts therapy is well established with regards one's mind, IFS takes it a step further aligning it with relationships beyond the mind and self. Parts therapy applies a lot of awareness to how one's mind works, it is a new name for an older style therapy but IFS may be the first that takes it out into the world recognizing the first responder is different with different people, even if the situation is the same or similar. Here we recognize that we aren't the same with everyone in every situation or relationship. We can accommodate someone for doing the very same thing we dislike in another.
An example would be Ms X who has an alochol and weed affected relationship with her husband, She has two children with him but substance infused dissension built up and she decided to divorce him due to his drinking habit as soon as she started to manage her own. After a period of healing and recovery she engaged a new relationship. This man was also an alcoholic and stayed that way. She had become almost completely teetotal by this time but they are together after 30 years.
If substance abuse is a reason for ending one relationship, what goes on in the mind to make it okay in a new relationship before there is any history or emotional investment. By her own admission over the years, she could control and tell this second partner what she would put up with and what she wouldn't. If she was stressed he would literally distance himself until it was over. Perhaps the difference isn't falling in love, but finding the personality one prefers to engage daily. They key would be non combative because the other person didn't want to engage in this case. Her relationship with her own children was fractious with her daughter but accommodating with her son.
Believing that you have a mono-minded persona may lead many to dislike themselves or even fear their own responses when they don't understand them. What is the aim of IFS? With this in mind, IFS Therapy has four goals: To encourage the client to become;
- increasingly self led in their interactions with the world.
- To liberate parts from the roles they have been forced into, freeing them to be who they were designed to be.
- To restore faith in the self and in self-leadership.
- To re-harmonize the inner system.
Understanding your own relationship and what purpose each part serves in relationships and, if healing specific relationships, how these affect relationship dynamics. After identifying a part of the self, clients can explore it in greater detail to better understand whether it is doing its job. Is your subconscious working to help you or protect you, there is a world of difference. Clients take notes and are fully interactive while hypnotherapy is used as a revelation or relaxing tool to eliminate resistance when exploring self.
Ask Dorothy about this program to improve relationship dynamics within a family or with partners and coworkers. Would you like to become a facilitator? This is a six part training program that can be used in one on one or group sessions with worksheets and a various styles of exploring parts therapies that can be fun and highly productive in groups.
Single session including documentation and scripts $200USD Certification on completion.
Full program $900USD including all documentation and certification.
