About the Saboteur Personality Subself

     A saboteur causes covert trouble for someone "for a good cause." Many shame-based kids and adults have a subself who seems to focus on interfering with that person's success or welfare by "making mistakes." Because Guardian personality subselves are often misinformed and solely focused on protecting vulnerable young subselves their "good cause" can seem irrational and alien.

      Inner-family therapy usually reveals that typical protective Saboteur sub-selves believe if they don't interfere, a Shamed Child and/or Guilty Child will suf-fer because they believe "I'm bad - I deserve punishment, not success!" A Sa-boteur may relentlessly hinder the person's work and/or social success be-cause of a Catastrophizer subself who shrills "If you (succeed and) get a swelled head, people will shun you and you'll spend your miserable life alone!"  

      Before wound-recovery progress, a Saboteur subself doesn't trust the wise true Self and other Manager subselves to guard the Inner Kids and host person from major agonies and doom. Most Guardian subselves also fear losing their "jobs" if they relax. A Saboteur can work with other well-meaning Guardians like the Inner Critic ("You're bad if you seek or enjoy praise!"), the Cynic / Doubter, and/or the clever Magician ["They don't really think you're good at (whatever), they're just being polite."], the tireless Perfectionist ("Good enough is not accep-table!"), and the devoted Pessimist, ["If you (take some safe risk) you'll probably fail again, so don't make waves!"]

      In effective Lesson-1 recovery from false-self dominance, Guardian subsel-ves learn to trust the Self and other Managers, a benign Higher Power, and se-lected people, to keep the Inner Children and host person safe and contented enough. Then they get interested in shifting to a new "job" with their team of subselves, and self-sabotaging thoughts and behaviors dwindle.    More detail