Frequently Asked Questions
about Personality Subselves
p. 3 of  3

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        More common inner-family questions...

  Do Your and My Personality Parts Interact?

       All the time! My young subselves and their Guardians are regularly activated by perceived threats of attack or rejection by "you" (your subselves), and vice versa. People with a history of relationship struggles may have seldom or never experienced a steady pairing of (my Self is in charge) and (your Self is in charge) with a friend, lover/partner, or ex mate.

       In their useful paperback Embracing Each Other, psychologists and inner "voice- dialog" pioneers Hal and Sidra Stone explore this topic in depth. After 29 years' clinical study, they propose that people with disowned (repressed or denied) parts are compulsively drawn to successive partners who have a very ac-tive similar part. 

        These repressed inner-family members are often self-judged as unlikable or repulsive, selfish, pro-fane, brazen, dishonest, preachy, lazy, or the like. By consciously meeting and compassionately accep-ting our disowned parts and not letting them dominate our Self, our relationship compulsions (e.g. ap-proach-avoid cycles, coddependence, and over-controlling) fade.

        From an inner-family perspective, all local and repeated relationship problems have three parts: (a) conflicts among my subselves (inner-family conflicts), (b) disputes among yours, and (c) clashes between your subselves and mine. Imagine you and other people cooperating to resolve all three concurrent strug-gles using...

• true-Self leadership and

• mutual respect, and...

• inner-family awareness and acceptance, and...

• the seven communication skills in Lesson 2. 

Notice your self-talk (thoughts and feelings) now...           

        Many of the stressful "automatic" communication patterns we have with special kids and adults be-come clear and can improve when seen via parts work. For instance: Jack is attracted to Anita emotionally (Adult Man, Needy Boy, and Good Father parts) and sexually (Lusting older-teen part). Anita responds un-consciously to each of these with four complementary parts: her Adult Woman, Good Mom, Lonely Girl, and Sensual female parts.

       If Jack seems to pull away, Anita's Lonely Girl gets scared and sad (based on early real emotional abandonment by her father). One or several distrustful Guardians quickly activate in response. They blend with her Self, and "make" Anita be shaming, seductive, rejecting, abusive, controlling, and/or pitiable.

       Jack can respond to these behaviors in many ways. If Anita's Protector-part is a Guilt Tripper, Jack's sensitive Shamed Boy will feel awful. His People-Pleaser Guardian will spring to life, and has Jack apolo-gize to Anita and become attentive again. Her Scared Girl is reassured, so the Guilt Tripper stands down, freeing Anita's Self. His Shamed Boy gradually feels better, and his Pleaser gives way to his Adult Man and Self.

       Similar cycles occur in all relationships: friend-friend, clerk-customer, parent-child, boss-employee, student-teacher, and so on. Larger groups like physical families become stunningly complex, if members' Selves aren't regularly in charge. Few of us are aware of the amazing interactions that happen at lightning speed within and between us. Does this make sense to you?

  Summing up

       The lesson-1 Web articles propose what happens to typical kids raised in a low-nurturance environ-ment: they automatically develop a set of semi-independent personality subselves - a false self - to survive. The articles introduce the idea of an inner family of personality parts or subselves, which probably corres-pond to different brain regions. 

        Other researchers call these alters, aspects, (personality) sides, ego states, moods, character flaws, minds, subpersonalities, potentials, and many more. Our inner-family dynamics strongly affect our thoughts, feelings, behaviors, and often our bodily health, moment to moment and over time. These stea-dily shape and affect our key relationships. Most of us aren't aware of our resident family or team, often leaving it chaotic, leaderless, and very ineffective - even self-harmful.

       Each person's subselves are unique, yet they perform common functions for typical people. The func-tions fall into three or four groups: Managers, Inner Kids and their Guardians - and probably Spiritual Ones. All our parts mean us well, though some can be misinformed, untrusting, and fiercely rigid, until they get help. Some subselves live in the past, unaware that their original danger is long gone.

False or Pseudo selves

       Battles between our subselves can overwhelm our natural inner-team leader - our Self (capital "S") - and produce all sorts of emotional, physical, mental, and relationship stresses and problems. Many pro-fessionals suggest that abused and neglected children automatically create a protective false self over time to please their caregivers and reduce the child's pain and fear. 

        This false self (small "s") is one or more Young and Guardian parts who have protectively taken over because they didn't trust the true Self and Manager subselves to keep the child (and later the adult) safe. Many men and women have been ruled by a false self most of their lives, and can't conceive what life would feel like if their true Self were in charge...

High-nurturance ("functional") outer families minimize inner-family discord, and promote unfettered true Selves in their kids. This happens partly because the adult-caregivers' subselves shield their kids from excessive shame, guilt, pain, confusion, and fear rather than cause them.

       Do you "know" your true Self? Do you show others who you really are? Most people doing parts work report feeling increasingly calm, light, serene, grounded, focused, strong, purposeful, clear, compas-sionate, alert, awake, aware, together, and peaceful when their Self is trusted by, and guides, their very real dynamic team of subselves.

       We all were hurt and frightened as children - many of us more severely than we know. "Finding one's Self" is the rewarding task of gradually learning which protective subselves have governed us all our lives, helping them relax, and freeing our true Self and wise advisor-parts to guide us safely and serenely through each situation and day. That's every true Self's natural talent and goal.

Selected Resources

      If you're interested in safely meeting your inner crew and discovering who's coaching them, see the Lesson-1 guidebook Who's Really Running Your Life?, or this series of Web pages on inner-family therapy ("parts work").

       So far, there are relatively few lay publications on our inner family. One excellent, clear paperback is "Embracing Our Selves" by Hal Stone, Ph.D. and Sidra Winkleman, Ph.D. (New World Library, 1989). It gives clear, thorough, absorbing descriptions of "voice dialog" work with our inner parts - and those in important other people in your life. An early classic about personality subselves is "I'm OK - You're OK," by Dr. Thomas Harris.

       Another helpful, more basic paperback is "Healing The Family Within," by Robert Subby (1990). See also the 1992 paperback "How To Love Yourself When You Don't Know How - Healing All Your Inner Children," by Jacqui Bishop and Mary Grunte.

        A powerful true chronicle of extreme false-self dominance - true multiple personality disorder - is in Truddi Chase's extraordinary paperback "When Rabbit Howls" (Jove Books, New York, 1987). Not for the faint hearted ...

        For more serious readers, I highly recommend Dr. Richard Schwartz's pioneering works "Internal Family Systems Therapy" (Guilford Press, New York, 1995); and "The Mosaic Mind - Empowering The Tormented Selves of Child Abuse Survivors" (with Regina A. Goulding - W.W. Norton, & Co., New York, 1995). Schwartz's latest book for lay readers is very clear and reader-friendly: "Introduction to the Internal Family Systems Model;" Trailhead Publications, Oak Park, lL; 2001;

       John Rowan provides a compelling historical look at how many researchers and therapists, including Carl Jung, have concluded modular personalities and parts are common, in "Subpersonalities - the People Within Us." (Routledge, London and New York,1990). He also gives us "Discover Your Personalities - Our Inner World, and the People in It" (Routledge, 1993). Rowan documents 25 different clinical terms for what Schwartz calls "parts." 

        Another authoritative book is The Search for Our Real Self - Unmasking the Personality Disorders of Our Age, by James F. Masterson, MD (Free Press, reprinted 1990).

        Note that most of these books have been published since 1990.

        These and other recommended titles are listed here and here.

If your true Self isn't usually directing your Life… who IS?

How do you like the results, so far?

         If you want to meet and harmonize your amazing team of subselves, invest time and energy in self-study Lesson 1 in this nonprofit site. Also see these (a) options for relating well-enough to significantly-wounded adults and kids, and (b) these related questions and answers.

For ideas on preventing false-self wounds from a low-nurturance childhood, see Lesson 8.

        Pause, breathe, and reflect - why did you read this article? Did you get what you needed? If not, what do you need? Who's answering these questions - your true Self, or someone else?

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Updated  August 30, 2010