Lesson 1 of 7  - free your true Self and reduce psychological wounds

Are you curious or skeptical
about personality subselves?
 p.1 of 2

By Peter K. Gerlach, MSW
Member NSRC  Experts Council

  • site intro > course outline > Lesson-1 study guide or links, search, chat, or prior page > here

The Web address of this two-page article is http://sfhelp.org/gwc/IF/letter.htm

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        This brief YouTube video previews what you'll read here:

        This is one of a  series of articles in Lesson 1 in this Web site - free your true Self to guide you in calm and conflictual times, and reduce significant false-self wounds. Lessons 2 thru 8 are founded on Lesson 1. This is written to people who are skeptical about the reality of personality subselves and psychological wounds

        This article assumes you're familiar with...

        Premise - young human brains adapt to a low-nurturance environment by forming semi-independent personality subselves or parts. In other words, normal young brains develop like a network of interactive minicomputers, each with its own rules and "program" (special function). This means that the word personality is like the terms team, group, committee, orchestra, troop, troupe, clan, gang, squad, band, class, crew, and family - a single thing made up of parts.

       Typical people are initially skeptical about (or scared by) the concepts of...

  • personality subselves, True Self, and false self;

  • psychological wounds from low-nurturance childhoods;

  • the common effects of these wounds; and...

  • the need for personal wound-reduction ("recovery").

If this describes you, I hope this article will motivate you to learn more about these concepts. For reference, almost 80% of site visitors taking this poll say that subselves are real, "without question."

        As a wounded family therapist in recovery, I've studied and worked with clients' subselves and my own for 19 years. I'm a veteran practitioner of the emerging field of inner-family therapy. It applies the proven family-systems therapy principles to harmonizing personality subselves.

         Our subselves interact below conscious awareness. Each subself is probably a discrete region in the brain which converts sensory signals into meaning, and responds to them. We're the first generation in human history to see this brain functioning real-time, via Positron Emission Tomography (PET) and other brain-scan techniques. Brain-function modularity is now medically accepted beyond debate.

        Many different parts of your brain communicate together at once to produce single sensory experiences like "I pick up the fork." Individual brain regions collect and organize special sensory information (e.g. shapes, colors, sizes, smells, motions, facial expression, tastes, etc.), synthesize them into con-scious thoughts, feelings, images, and senses, and then send programmed responses to organs and muscles ("My fingernails need trimming.") 

        The reality of human "personality splitting" (multiple personalities) has been globally documented and accepted for several decades. The false-self dominance proposed in this site is a mild version of that natural phenomenon.

        The idea that your personality is made up of a group of semi-independent subselves or parts is pro-bably new to you. If so, the premises in this Web site will require you to defend your present beliefs ("I have no personality subselves"), or to shift your beliefs, based on new information and awareness.

        Shifting requires you to accept that some beliefs you've held about yourself and other people have been mistaken. This can feel scary, specially if you're a parent or grandparent, and/or you have a profes-sional interest in human health, relationships, and behavior!

        Premise - our passive American acceptance of too little early-childhood nurturance is a (or the) ma-jor cause of most social problems.  Disputing this idea is normal, to avoid the awful implications. For ex-ample: I suspect that our denial of the lethal cycle of low-nurturance parenting appears to significantly harm more millions of people than AIDS, heart disease, and cancer.

        Notice your (subselves) reaction to this idea.

Experience Your Subselves

        I doubt that you'll adjust your beliefs about human personalities until you experience your subselves in action. That requires an open mind, focus, and patience. I propose that you've lived with evidence of personality subselves since early childhood. It's so common as to be invisible. Consider these...

Common Signs of Subselves

        Review your life experience: have you ever...

Had one or several "inner voices" (thought streams)?

Had internal conflicts like "I should do ___ but I don't want to"?

Felt ambivalent, or changed your mind about something? Had trouble making up your mind occasionally or often? Made up your mind, and then struggled with significant self doubt ("Did I make the right decision?")

Acted impulsively and later regretted it, couldn't explain it, or rejoiced?

Sent and received mixed or double messages (e.g. "I love you / you disgust me")?

Seen both sides of a dispute? - e.g. "I see why you believe that, but I don't agree."

Behaved in ways that were dangerous or harmful to you or others, even though you "knew better"? Common examples: lying to loved ones or colleagues; eating too much sugar, fat, or carbohydrates (junk food); ingesting ethyl alcohol or nicotine (poisons); not balancing work, rest, and play; and not getting appropriate health care (self neglect).

        And have you ever...

Felt opposing emotions at the same time, like excitement and fear, anger and empathy, or compassion and revulsion? Have you concurrently loved and "hated" someone, including yourself?

Had obsessive thoughts and/or compulsive behaviors (e.g. addictions, nail biting) you "couldn't control"?

Felt childish, overwhelmed, lost, out of sorts, down, apathetic, confused, torn, upset, unfocused, uneasy, irritable, depressed, distracted, or moody "for no reason"?

Put off or avoided doing something, felt guilty, and then justified your avoidance?

Wrestled with perfectionism - i.e. feeling strongly that your or another person's efforts aren't good enough?

Felt periods of intense, excessive or "irrational" guilt, anxiety (worry), rage, pessimism, and/or shame?

Had frequent self-critical thoughts like "I am so stupid (ugly / fat / boring / inept / slow / lazy / uncreative / ...), and I could never succeed at _______"?

Had irrational fears of personal or family catastrophes ("I know one of us is going to get cancer and die. I just know it!"; or "I have this weird feeling I'm going to lose my job and be a street bum.")?

Had episodes of feeling unusually clear, focused, energized, aware, serene, confident, grounded, light, strong, resilient, clear, focused, compassionate, and "up"?

        and have you...

Observed these traits in many other normal adults and kids?

        After 50 adult years observing people - including 32 years experience as a  family-systems therapist working with over 1000 average Americans, I conclude:

  • average adults and kids routinely have most of these experiences, and...

  • the experiences are caused by normal inner-family (subself) behaviors below conscious awareness.

Implication: most (all?) normal people have personalities composed of semi-independent subselves, and they are not clinically "crazy," "defective," or "sick!" (Tho we may feel crazy at times.)

       Notice your thoughts and feelings now. If you feel "I am not governed by a group of personality sub-selves!," how do you explain the common experiences above? Responses like "I don't know," "I don't care," "It doesn't matter," and "That's just human nature" protect you from looking more closely at your-self and others.

        Note a stark implication: if you have experienced some or many of the traits above, I propose that you are occasionally or often ruled by a well-meaning false self. The alternative is being directed by your wise resident true Self (capital "S"), which yields significantly different experiences and behaviors.

Exercise - "Talk to" One or More Subelves

        Can you imagine having an internal conversation between your true Self and one or more of your other subselves? More than any written words or the traits above, this can help you validate the reality of personality subselves. To check this out, try rough-drafting your roster of subselves. Then experien-ce "talking" safely with one or more of them. Then return here.

        If you weren't able to do (or avoided) this experience, that suggests that one or more controlling subselves were too scared to try it. If you were able to talk with a subself, what did you learn? Option, try this safe experience several times with an open mind, and see if a pattern emerges.

        My experience is that having 15 to 25 subselves and significant conflicts among them is normal. The exception is the extreme case once called "multiple personality disorder" (MPD) by the American Psychiatric Association. The APA estimate that this condition - now called Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) - may affect up to 5% of living Americans.

        So if you have traits or experiences like those above, you may have two to six psychological wounds that you've unconsciously adapted to since early childhood. If so, these wounds steadily lower the quality of your relationships, productivity, security, and "happiness," and your wholistic health - and you don't know it.

        Unawareness and/or denial of disorganized subselves also put your minor kids at risk of acquiring the same wounds. Before self-awareness and recovery (inner-family harmonizing), we survivors of low childhood nurturance accept psychological wounds as normal. That's because we didn't know about sub-selves, and we've rarely experienced our true Self in charge. People raised in darkness will have a hard time imagining or believing in sunlight and starlight until they see them...

        Notice your thoughts now. Is there one "voice" (thought stream) or a chorus? Do you know which members of your personality team are "speaking"?

Reality Check

        See if one of these situations describes you now:

        I don't know enough yet about subselves and "psychological wounds" to agree or disagree with the concept. I'm open to learning more, even if it leads to changing some cherished beliefs about myself and human nature; or...

        I disagree that the common traits above are caused by false-self dominance as I understand it. I may be open to new information, or I need to disagree with the Lesson-1 premises in this site to protect myself (symptom: "Yes, but..." thoughts); or...

        My inner voices (thoughts) distract me now by saying things like "This is too complicated," or "...too heady;" or "This is boring, unimportant, and/or irrelevant," or "I should be doing (something other than reading this.)"  These are normal false-self reactions motivated by fear of the unknown (i.e. scary new beliefs). Your true Self will acknowledge such thoughts and seek more information.

        The rest of this article responds to the first two of these alternatives. Before continuing, reflect: why am I reading this? What specific questions do you want to answer? 

        If you accept that psychological wounds and subselves are common, and that they stress rela-tionships and inhibit effective parenting, go here (p. 2). Otherwise, let's explore the first two possibil-ities above...

1)  You're Willing to Learn More...

        If you're an "open-minded skeptic," you may seek credible answers to questions like these:

  • "If this 'false-self dominance' exists, what is it, and where does it come from?"

  • "What credible research findings indicate that  false-self control is widespread, so that I should let go of the (one brain, one monolithic personality) belief society has taught me?"

  • "Why does this author believe what he proposes?  What are his credentials? Can I trust his reasoning and judgment? Is he selling something here? What are his motives?"

  • "If 'false-self wounding' is real, what does that mean to me and others I care about?"

  • "Why do 'I' (my governing subselves) resist accepting that too little early-childhood nurturance causes psychological wounds that may have major effects on my life? What would it mean to me if these premises are true? What do (my ruling subselves) fear? 

        For example - accepting subselves and related inner wounds probably means some core beliefs about human nature and you are partially wrong. Most of us are reluctant to ac-cept that any basic beliefs about our world are distorted or not true ("I tell you the Earth is flat - just look!") Is this true of you? Can you recall the last core belief you changed? What does it take to adjust your explanation of "human nature?"

  What Are "psychological wounds," and Where Do They Come From?

        To start answering these questions, locate your current attitude about personality "subselves" on this 1-to-10 range...

(1) highly skeptical <-----------------> (10) totally accept

If you haven't reviewed these overview and FAQ pages recently, do so now, and return. Option: print those articles and read them offline. If you're uninterested or unwilling to read these four Web pages now, con-tinue here. Did you get preliminary answers to the first two questions above? Did your position on the 1-to-10 scale shift? Do you need a stretch break now before learning more?

  What Credible Research Exists?

        Research on the long-term impacts of low-nurturance childhoods is growing. For a sobering sum-mary, see this after you finish reading this article. Clinical research on brain modularity is relatively new, as is thermal and radiographic brain-scan technology. The research falls into two categories:

extreme personality dis-integration, or Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) - formerly called "Multiple Personality Disorder" (MPD); and...

other "dissociative" and "personality disorder" phenomena. A widely accepted clinical stan-dard on these is the American Psychiatric Association's "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM), 4th edition (1994). It lists ~15 dissociative and personality disorders that have iden-tifiably different behavioral traits, onsets, and treatments. 

        At least five factors make replicatable research in these two areas difficult and controversial:

Lack of standard definitions and terminology. For example, opinions and definitions vary widely on questions like these: "What is the human mind?" "What is personality and nor-mal behavior?" "What is reality distortion?'' and "What is 'wholistic' and 'mental' health?"

Incomplete knowledge of how the human mind/brain works and affects human personality development, behavior, and "wholistic health;" 

The complex, poorly-understood interaction between genes, childhood family environment (nurturing to toxic), and cultural socialization; and how this interaction affects normal per-sonality formation and functioning;

Cultural variations on what "normal" behavior is. For instance, some Asian and African so-cieties see some behavior from altered states of consciousness as normal or prized, where other cultures would define such behavior as "paranoid," "hysterical," and "psychotic;" and...

The role of personal spirituality and Higher Power/s in human growth, health, and behavior. For instance, evidence is accumulating that concerted prayer can reduce or heal some physiological illnesses or conditions. Many veteran practitioners of internal-family systems and other therapies independently report experiences that suggest the reality of spirituality as a wholistic healing factor. The healing power of faith is largely unexplored, and inquiry and debate continue.

        Despite these factors, there is a wealth of credible research and reference material to consider. I refer you to five of many rich sources of research and theorizing on personality splitting ("multiplicity"), dissociation, subselves, and personality-splitting recovery:

  • Chapter II (p. 107) in The Plural Self - Multiplicity in Everyday Life, edited by John Rowan and Mick Cooper; Sage, 1999;

  • The 12-page bibliography (pp. 223 - 234) in Subpersonalities - The People Inside Us, by John Rowan; Routledge, 1995 - first published in 1990;

  • The 9-page bibliography (pp. 345 - 353) in The Mosaic Mind, by Regina Goulding and Richard Schwartz; W.W. Norton, 1995'. and...

  • Embracing Our Selves, by Hal Stone, Ph.D. and Sidra Winkleman, Ph.D.; (New World Library, 1989).

  • The Search for the Real Self - Unmasking the Personality Disorders of Our Age; by Dr. James F. Masterson (The Free Press, New York, NY; paperback, 1988).

  • Other titles on personality subselves that have influenced me are here and here.

        Unless you've had a prior interest in "personality disorders," you've probably never heard of these titles or their authors. I believe that they and the scores of professional researchers and authors they cite are serious, reputable, credible scholars and reporters. Note the recent publication dates.

        Three informative Websites are...

  • The Center for Self Leadership (CSL), founded in 1995;

  • http://mentalhelp.net. This site will lead you to a wealth or articles and Web links; and...

  • http://www.isst-d.org/ - the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation. In the non-profit site you're visiting now, dissociation means "significant distrust and conflict among subselves which disables the resident true Self." 

Concluded on page 2...