You are a multitude

Each one of us consists of many parts.

A very effective way to do therapy is to consider yourself as a collection of parts. These parts can be based on roles you play in life, such as child, parent, baseball player, or they may be based on traits, such as the happy one, or the one who criticizes. Some parts are based on age – such as the five year old, the teenager, the grown up.

Sometimes these parts get along well with each other, and work as a team. But if they do not, as is often the case, you can experience a lot of inner conflict.

Parts have qualities of consciousness. Some parts are aware of each other, can remember each other, and other parts are walled off. They may not want to get along, or even to know each other. We have attitudes and beliefs about different parts. Some we approve of for public presentation. Others are kept away from sight. One of the goals of therapy is to create a harmonic whole, so that parts work together in harmony, rather than against each other.

What about the part of you that can look at all the various parts? It makes sense after all, doesn’t it, that in order to recognize a part as such that there must be someone doing the recognizing?

While parts are identifiably different from each other, they are also fluid.

So, who are you, after all? Are you this cast of characters? As I see it, you are more like the unfolding play, the process of becoming, than you are a set of parts. But it’s also important to get to know the various personalities.