Step Nine Professional Help
  1. Working with your therapist, try to give expression to all of the different roles you play. You cannot learn how to strengthen or reduce the parts without first giving each of them a voice and perhaps even a name. As you experience and express each part or role, try to relate it to specific memories, images and dialogues from your past. What were the conflicts in these situations? What about each part made you feel good? Which of your roles comes out most frequently with your therapist? Does it help you to get what you want from your therapist? If not, talk with your therapist about what role(s) might be more effective in getting you what you want and need.
  2. This is a crucial time in your therapy because it can be tricky to enhance the healthy parts of your personality and at the same time increase your control of the maladaptive parts. Your therapist is well qualified to help you strengthen those parts that promise change and hope.
  3. In this section we have been talking about parts or roles that are similar to character traits or tendencies. While distinct, they form part of the coherent and unified personality that is you. If you are aware of having antagonistic or aggressive sub-personalities or multiple personalities that are more autonomous than this, you will need strong guidance from your therapist to decide how best to reduce their impact on and intrusion into your life. A discussion of true multiple personalities and ways of working with persons who exhibit them is beyond the scope of this manual. Briefly stated, however, the predominant therapeutic approach today is to ask you to speak to the various sub-personalities within yourself and negotiate a sort of truce that will reduce the power of these persecutory parts and help you to regain full control over your primary personality.
Previous Manual Page | Print This Page | Next Manual Page

Survivor to Thriver, Page 88
© 2007 THE MORRIS CENTER, Revised 11/06