Subpersonality
Movie "Jeri's Game"
Subpersonalities can fight, talk, negotiate...
Film "The Story of Us"
The inner voice is the voice of our parents. A visual representation of the subpersonalities of Parents and their interactions with each other.
If you work with a psychologist, you may someday be asked to:
Talk to your inner Critic: how does it care about you?
Ask your Saboteur: what does he want? On what terms will he leave?
Turn to your inner Sage: what will he tell you in this situation?
In these cases, you are asked to turn to your Subpersonalities. What it is?
Subpersonality is a popular psychological metaphor that says that within your big personality there are many small living beings, many small personalities. Calling personal characteristics subpersonalities makes it possible to work with them as with living beings: fight with them, talk with them, negotiate... Subpersonalities are another name for personal characteristics, desires, aspirations and habits.
Personal roles usually describe the field of a person’s capabilities, subpersonalities - the field of problems. Personal roles are talked about mainly in developmental psychology, and subpersonalities are talked about in the psychotherapeutic approach. The concept of subpersonality is actively used in Psychosynthesis and sometimes in NLP, usually in combination with trance techniques.
In practice, subpersonalities are usually endowed with abilities and advantages that significantly exceed the abilities and advantages of the client. Namely, by the will of psychologists and psychotherapists, the subpersonality is a very living, active and creative being, able to run into the Past, climb deep into the Unconscious, establishing informal and active contacts with other subpersonalities, capable of knowing what the client himself does not know, able to take care of the client , who always has only positive intentions and is able (sometimes) to act according to the principle In order to, and not Because...
May we always be so talented!
Film "An Ordinary Miracle"
I am a terrible person - insidious, capricious, vindictive. And the most offensive thing is, it’s not my fault! The ancestors are to blame - they behaved like the last pigs, and now I’m disentangling their past. And I myself am kind and smart by nature.
If the client is in a trance, under the influence of the authority of the psychologist working with him, cannot object to him and accepts these assumptions, this opens up great opportunities for creativity within his psyche. Now you can both solve the client’s problems and create them for him.
Where do subpersonalities come from, who creates them? Subpersonalities are created by psychologists and psychotherapists when working with clients. If the client found it convincing and liked it, he then creates subpersonalities for himself.
“Subpersonality is a convenient model that allows us to deal with the driving forces of personality, but we must not forget that this is just a model that does not claim to be an original. When they talk about subpersonality, they mean a certain set of attitudes, behavioral stereotypes, beliefs, drives, etc., which takes on a holistic, discernible form only in our consciousness.” Roberto Assagioli
The number and characteristics of subpersonalities can be different for different people, and it depends on how from actual personal characteristics, and from a person’s imagination, a person’s readiness to assume one or another subpersonality.
The use of such a working metaphor as “subpersonality” has taken root in psychotherapeutic work. This naming of habits and personal characteristics as subpersonalities for people with developed metaphorical thinking makes it possible to briefly and succinctly describe a rich behavioral set in one word. A developed subpersonality develops its own ethics and aesthetics, as well as its own peculiarities of physiology, posture, movements, intonation and facial expressions. This creates a more serious attitude towards what is happening in the client and motivates him more. This is no longer just a habit, it is an enemy that must be fought! On the other hand, this is a convenient way to communicate with yourself and organize yourself: “Saboteur, I ask you not to disturb me today!”
As for the downsides, psychiatrists express concern - in their opinion, a person’s belief that many other living beings live inside him can provoke schizophrenia. In addition, there are often cases when people begin to justify their actions by saying that it is not they themselves who act, but the subpersonalities within them.
Remember “An Ordinary Miracle”...
How to reconcile your subpersonalities?
Author: Tatyana Sosnovskaya, teacher
Working with subpersonalities is a fairly popular and used method in psychology. The concept of subpersonalities actively entered into psychological practice thanks to the Italian psychiatrist R. Assagioli and his theory of psychosynthesis. Subpersonalities are substructures of personality that have a relatively independent existence, which are personified into internal images and elements of human behavior.
The most common subpersonalities are associated with a person’s fulfillment of social roles. These are, for example, “wife”, “mother”, “daughter”, “employee”, “grandmother”, “friend”. It is important not to confuse them in social life, because even with an adult daughter you cannot always be a friend, sometimes you need to include “mother”. And when a tired husband comes home from work, it would be good not to forget to temporarily “turn off” the “hostess” and “turn on” the “wife”.
But it is possible to identify subpersonalities that are responsible for a certain behavior and state of a person. For example, in one person the “Eternal Brake” subpersonality and the “Hustler” subpersonality can simultaneously live and contradict each other. Or, within one individual girl, “Business Woman” and “Ideal Housewife” may conflict. There are not only two subpersonalities, but many more.
The task of the psychologist is to identify the most relevant and conflicting subpersonalities at the moment and make them work together. After all, the problem is that all these internal entities constantly quarrel, interfere with each other, appear in the wrong place and at the wrong time. To stop the internal conflict, it is necessary to reconcile the subpersonalities within a person, to show their importance and necessity. Make sure that they do not interfere, but help a person in realizing his life, appear at the right time in the right place, and do not waste all his energy on useless internal dialogue and exhausting struggle with each other.
But who in this theory will have to coordinate this internal crowd of uncontrollable individualists, who will manage the “negotiations” of subpersonalities? This difficult task is called upon to be solved by the True (or Integrated, or Higher) Self, which must be found in the process of working with subpersonalities.
True Self - where are you? - Mission Impossible!
How to find it and what is it, my True Self? Where is it located? And which of these strange creatures living inside me has anything to do with my True Self? The theory of psychosynthesis states that it is important to understand that I am not my subpersonalities (the technique of disidentification has been developed for this).
But if I am not my subpersonalities, then what am I?
The theory of psychosynthesis gives a vague and completely incomprehensible answer:
“I” is you yourself in all the fullness of your potential. It is your inner being that is the driving force behind all your actions.”
What is my inner essence? What is my potential? The circle is closed: again the same questions, and again without an answer.
Not subpersonalities, but vectors!
The theory of psychosynthesis was one of the first in psychology not to typify personality, but began to work with the diversity of human manifestations, calling them subpersonalities. But the reasons for multidirectional desires within one person remained unclear.
The explanation was found by the system-vector psychology of Yuri Burlan, who discovered that a person’s psychological manifestations depend on a set of properties and desires given from birth (called vectors), which, depending on the development and implementation in each individual person, are expressed in a strictly defined way. There are eight vectors in total, and each of them has its own characteristics. A person can be the carrier of any number of vectors (on average from three to five), and depending on their combination, certain desires and personality traits will manifest themselves in him.
As an example, let's look at some internal contradictions caused by the presence of different vectors in a person.
Business Woman and Ideal Hostess
The desire for a career, the desire to earn money are the desires of the skin vector, aimed at achieving property and social superiority. A woman with a skin vector is bored sitting at home, she is drawn to work. Such women are excellent at doing business; they are cold-blooded, logical and calculating. And this does not always fit into traditional concepts of “female behavior.”
Women with an anal vector, as a rule, are ideal housewives. They always have first, second and compote, the linen is ironed, the floor is washed, the closets are in perfect order. Home and family always come first.
In the right combination, these vectors allow a woman to keep up both at home with three children, a husband and a dog, and at work with subordinates, plans and reports. And there is still a little time left for rest and friends. In the wrong way, you don’t get anything done at work, you rush between hundreds of things you have started, and at home there is dirt, disorder and a dissatisfied husband, if you have one. The result is anger, irritation and guilt. Understanding your vectors, their characteristics, manifestations and methods of implementation in life helps to reconcile these two forces.
Eternal Brake and Shustryak
Another well-observed contradiction between the skin and anal vectors within one person is observed in the ways of responding to a situation and the speed of decision-making.
The peculiarity of the skin vector is high adaptability, variability, mobility, adaptability to new conditions, the need for novelty, quick reaction, flexibility in decision making, good logic.
The anal vector is characterized by perseverance, meticulousness, consistency, the need for stability, perseverance to the point of stubbornness, a cautious attitude towards everything new, delaying decision-making, perfectionism, analytical abilities, rigidity of the psyche, its focus on the past.
Obviously, this is more than a contradictory combination. If both of these vectors are present in one person, then they often come into conflict. Instead of reacting to a situation that requires making a quick decision “in a skin way,” a person falls into a stupor and begins to “slow down” (reacts with the properties of the anal vector), and when the work needs to be done efficiently and thoroughly (in an anal way), he rushes and fusses uselessly (skin-like).
The knowledge of system-vector psychology of Yuri Burlan not only helps you understand your conflicting desires, but also allows you to learn how to “use” your vectors for their intended purpose: cutaneous for making quick decisions and laconic answers, anal for thorough and high-quality work. In this case, the productivity of any activity and the feeling of satisfaction from life increases many times.
Inner Woman and Inner Man
These are one of the most popular subpersonalities that both men and women want to reconcile. System-vector psychology of Yuri Burlan shows that what is called the Inner Woman is provided by a cutaneous-visual combination of vectors, which manifests itself in special sensuality and emotionality, the ability to appreciate and create beauty, the inability to cause pain (and therefore to defend oneself), the need for protection .
Moreover, the cutaneous-visual ligament can occur in both women and men, but it will manifest itself slightly differently - depending on the degree of realization of innate properties. From dancers in strip bars to great actors. From hysteria and panic attacks to selflessness and the highest manifestations of love.
The inner Man in a woman can be called manifestations of a variety of vectors. These can be manifestations of the urethral vector (female leader), and anal (criticism), and skin (the ability to logic and earn money), and sound (abstract thinking and detachment from everything earthly). They will be expressed in completely different ways and therefore there is not and cannot be a single recipe - “how to accept the Inner Man within yourself”.
You need to understand your internal structure and the question will disappear by itself.
Shirt Guy and Gloomy Introvert
Another combination of vectors, not so rare in one person. If a person has an oral vector, then it is impossible not to notice it, or rather, not to hear it. He is a joker and toastmaster, a loudmouth and a brawler, a wonderful storyteller and the best party host in the world.
The sound vector in the same person will make him thoughtful, silent and distant. He was just having fun with friends and suddenly, leaving everything behind, he goes off into the snowstorm to think about the meaning of life and death.
It is impossible to resist these multidirectional desires, and only a deep awareness of the needs that underlie them can reconcile.
What about the Inner Self and the True Self?
System-vector psychology of Yuri Burlan states that every person is born to perform a specific task in society. This task is determined by its features through a vector set given from birth. If he fulfills his task, then through a complex biochemical mechanism he receives a reward in the form of pleasure from life, a feeling of happiness and fulfillment. If he does “not his job” or “does not do his job,” then he suffers, feels “out of place,” feels the emptiness and meaninglessness of life.
You can understand who you are only by realizing your inner structure and your place among other people. Looking for your “Higher” or “True Self” in isolation from society and your role in it is an absolutely meaningless and empty exercise.
System-vector psychology of Yuri Burlan provides mathematically accurate tools in knowing oneself and knowing others, helps to realize oneself in society not at the expense of people, but for people. You can sign up for free introductory lectures using this link.
The article was written using training materials on system-vector psychology by Yuri Burlan
Tatyana Sosnovskaya, teacher Section: Psychology
December 18, 2020 Comments: Views: 5157 Tags: Self-knowledge psychology
Independent work with subpersonalities
Imagine that you have lost your wallet. Some experience childish annoyance and regret and even guilt, as if a strict parent will punish them for this, others hear how, after the voice of an internal accuser, an internal lawyer comes in, justifying your action. At some point, you become an arena in which a discussion takes place between parts of your personality.
Have you noticed similar dialogues in yourself, when many voices appear in your mind at the same time? Often they come into conflict with each other, and you find yourself in a situation of internal conflict that causes you some inconvenience. You can hear within yourself the voice of a whole crowd of voices inhabiting your inner space. But who are they, these voices, independent from us, defending their interests and proving their point of view? They are called subpersonalities. These are projections of reflections of parts of your personality that inhabit your subconscious. They are subjective reflections in our psyche of people, animals, objects and phenomena that inhabit your inner world.
Subpersonalities have their own opinions, their own fears, their own goals, their own vision of methods for achieving these goals, their own attitude to certain events, to certain people, and in general behave as separate individuals.
In each of us there is a crowd. Here there can be a rebel and a thinker, a seducer and a housewife, a saboteur and an esthete, an organizer and a good-natured person - each with his own mythology, and all of them are more or less safely squeezed into one person. We create these projections and subconscious minds ourselves, in different situations creating a certain corresponding image of ourselves, a system of postures and gestures, feelings and actions, words, habits and opinions, or mirroring into our subconscious images of people significant in your life.
The most typical subpersonalities of a person reflect projections of his ideas about the social (family or professional) roles that he plays in life, for example: parental selves, maternal selves, paternal selves, child selves, your inner critic, sage, rational, etc. Woven into them are projections of images of your inner child, parent and adult.
As you understand, every person carries subpersonalities within himself, which are a reflection of his ideas about parents, friends, neighbors; those. a reflection of his perception of people significant to him. These ideas may not significantly coincide with the real person, since the subpersonality is just a reflection based on the subjective perception of these people.
From time to time, in corresponding situations, one or another subpersonality is activated, comes to the fore, as if taking control; and then the person outwardly behaves as if he were this subpersonality, that is, a switching of subpersonalities occurs. Subpersonalities may be in a suppressed or inactive state. There is a special subpersonality called the Administrator or Ego, which is responsible for ensuring that other subpersonalities come out or remain suppressed by it. It is with it that the outputs of subpersonalities and their switching depending on the situation are coordinated. If the subpersonality with its desires and interests is suppressed for a long time, tension accumulates in its energy charge, due to which an internal conflict may arise. However, all conflicts between subpersonalities can be resolved by establishing a connection with them and harmonizing them. In the next meditation you will learn how to do this.
Every time you sleep, you are immersed in the environment of your inner world, inhabited by these same projections, in a theater where in every act of your dream, subpersonalities play roles according to the script of your subconscious, transmitting its messages to you. If you want to learn to understand the language of the subconscious, learn to decipher the symbolic meaning of each subpersonality and its message, since each subpersonality carries the imprint of a certain charge, experience associated with its origin. When you learn to do this, you will be able to communicate with your subconscious during a dream, without losing consciousness, managing subpersonalities, then from the unconscious level of dreams, you will rise to the level of lucid dreams, and new opportunities will open up for you.
Transformation of subpersonality
Working with a subpersonality is a process of its awareness, acceptance and transformation, aimed at harmonizing relationships in a person’s inner world. The task of transformation is to change negative subpersonalities that create internal conflict. Remember the rule of the inner world: “Death does not exist” - which means that the subpersonality cannot be destroyed, but you can change its purpose by transforming it, giving it a new role. Let her be reborn and appear in a new quality. To do this, remember the basic tools of transformation and the rules of the inner world.
The transformation of subpersonalities is carried out by the power of your intention through acceptance and Love.
To work with a subpersonality, you need to get in touch with it, find out its essence and tasks, understand it and accept it, recognizing it as a part of yourself and then, with the power of intention, direct a ray of love emanating from your heart chakra into it and fill it with bright light. In your inner world, you are the Creator and can carry out any transformation. The energy that subpersonalities are made of is like plasticine, you can create anything from it, but remember, changing the subpersonality will entail changes in your inner world. Not a single subpersonality in you dies, but when transformed, it changes its properties and tasks. A person goes through these transformations constantly. The training will teach you the basics of transformation and allow you to identify your main subpersonalities. You will have to get to know yourself from the inside, not what you think about yourself, but what you really are.
Two sides of the same coin (mirror subpersonalities)
Each subpersonality has its own opposite aspect. Thomas Aquinas also said: “There is exactly as much good in a person as there is just as much evil, light and dark, devilish and divine.” Each of our qualities, each subpersonality has its own shadow side, regardless of whether we realize it or not. What is commonly called “good” and “evil” is just a reflection of two extremes of opposites, and it is precisely going to extremes that leads to a loss of balance. If you begin to overdevelop one of your aspects in opposition to another, disharmony occurs, but your inner world strives for balance, therefore a strong deviation of the pendulum in one direction will entail a deviation in the opposite direction, until a golden mean is established. The unity of internal harmony and the complete release of internal potential occurs only in the zone of the golden mean. Unfortunately, sometimes people go through life without realizing it, struggling with the extremes of their “I”.
In order to know oneself, a person must realize and accept both sides of himself, thereby realizing their integration. You are not one-sided, one-sided beings with one expressed quality, not white and not black - you are a spectrum of colors created by life and woven into your individuality. You are the border between light and shadow, the scales of universal harmony with the cups in equal weight. The energies of two opposing qualities provide a spark and encourage you to choose and thereby discover yourself. Everything inside you is sacred: sacred is light and sacred is darkness, both of them constitute the unity of opposites of the One Creator, in whom there is nothing good or bad, right or wrong, there is only expediency.
Look at nature, there is neither negative nor positive in it, there is only balance. Each person is a sacred child of the cosmos, combining the energies of his two sacred parents. It is darkness (the female Yin energy in the form of Eve) that makes us doubt and choose not blind faith, but knowledge, it is light (the male aspect of Yang, reason and logic, that forces us to act. Their union gives birth to life and its new beginnings, is an act of creativity and the birth of new universes within you.
But as soon as you go into one aspect, its opposite immediately begins to act on you, trying to restore the lost harmony. The word Satan means opposite (adversary): as soon as the harmony is broken, your own Satan interacts with you and only balance, and not force, ardent prayers, faith and pressure can defeat him. Imagine the scales and the subpersonality that you think needs energy balancing. Divide its opposite energies into bowls and weigh them, and then balance the bowls. You may have to give up something or, on the contrary, intensify your work on yourself in order to balance your forces. One way or another, with such work, balance is restored and inner harmony is found. This Harmony has a healing effect, it is capable of healing the inner world, endowing a person with new strength, the power of the Creator, in whose service there are two opposites.
Author: Evgenia Beinarovich
