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.
Why it works
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.
How to do it
- Stop the parts exercise now. Do not ask the part anything else, and do not try to negotiate with it.
- Put both feet on the floor and feel the weight of your body on the chair or bed.
- Slowly name three things you can see and two things you can hear.
- Let your breathing find its own pace, and let your shoulders drop.
- 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.
- Return to the parts work only another day, when you feel steady, and ideally with a trained person beside you.
Evidence
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.
Common mistake
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.
Practice this with IX Coach
More practices for Psychosynthesis: Subpersonalities, Disidentification and the Observing "I"
- Reach a person now when a part says you would be better off not here
A part that says you would be better off not here is a reason to call or text a person now, not a voice to bargain with alone.
- Say "there is in me a part that…" instead of "I am…"
When one part of you takes over, name it as something in you rather than all of you.
- Recognize your subpersonalities through the roles you play
Describe how you think, feel and behave in each of your main roles, and notice how different those people are.
- Let a subpersonality appear as an image, then name it
Pick one trait or motive, close your eyes, let an image of it arise on its own, then talk with it and give it a name.
- Accept a subpersonality before you try to change it
Find the part of you that is rejecting another part, step back from both, and let the rejected one be there as it is.
- Find what a subpersonality needs, not just what it wants
Look past a part's demands to the need underneath, then look for an acceptable way to meet that need.
- Help two conflicting subpersonalities cooperate
From the observer's seat, let two opposed parts each state their need, then work out a shared arrangement.
- Train your will with small tasks that have no other purpose
Choose one small, ordinary task you would rather not do, and do it the same way each day for about a week.
Related concepts
- Shadow Work
Meeting the parts of yourself you have been ignoring
- Internal Family Systems (IFS), Made Practical
The parts model, the mechanisms behind it, and an honest read on an emerging evidence base
- Voice Dialogue: Meeting the Selves That Run Your Life
Hearing the pusher, the pleaser and the critic in their own voices, so they stop running you unnoticed
- Self-as-Context (Observing Self), Made Practical
Stepping back from self-stories to the perspective that is always already there
- Inner Relationship Focusing: Being With the Parts of You That Feel
Saying "something in me", keeping it company, and hearing what it does not want
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