Put the parts work down and come back to your body

Set the subpersonality work aside, feel your feet and breath, and let the observing part of you return before any part is asked anything else.

Pourquoi ça marche

Psychosynthesis asks you to observe each subpersonality from a steady centre, and that centre is hard to keep when one part is loud and frightening. Coming back to the body and the room re-establishes the ground the observer stands on, so a part can be noticed rather than obeyed. Grounding first keeps the work from turning into an argument with a part that is in pain.

Comment faire

1. Stop the parts exercise now. Do not ask the part anything else, and do not try to negotiate with it.
2. Put both feet on the floor and feel the weight of your body on the chair or bed.
3. Slowly name three things you can see and two things you can hear.
4. Let your breathing find its own pace, and let your shoulders drop.
5. If any part says it would be better if you were not here, do not stay with this exercise. Go to the next practice now and reach a person.
6. Return to the parts work only another day, when you feel steady, and ideally with a trained person beside you.

Données probantes

Treleaven (2018) and Ogden, Minton and Pain (2006) are clinical texts that describe grounding and staying within a tolerable range of arousal. Siegel (1999) describes that range as a 'window of tolerance', the zone where a person can still think and feel at once. These are clinical texts, not trials of grounding for subpersonality work. (clinical)

No source here tests this grounding step within subpersonality work. The steps are general clinical grounding practice. Grounding is not a substitute for reaching a person when a part says it would be better if you were not here; that moment calls for the next practice.

Sources

• Treleaven, D. A. (2018). Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness: Practices for Safe and Transformative Healing (foreword by Willoughby Britton). New York: W. W. Norton.
• Ogden, P., Minton, K., & Pain, C. (2006). Trauma and the Body: A Sensorimotor Approach to Psychotherapy. New York: W. W. Norton.
• Siegel, D. J. (1999). The Developing Mind: Toward a Neurobiology of Interpersonal Experience. New York: Guilford Press.

Erreur fréquente

Continuing the parts exercise because it feels unfinished, or treating a frightened part as one more voice to reason with. Stepping back is part of the practice.