subpersonality (English) subpersonality) - perceived by consciousness as something separate from itself, as well as internal image The bound to these elements. Subpersonalities arise on different stages human development and ensure his protection, the realization of his needs and allow him to live the way he lives. The base representation of the method psychological research Personality "Dialogue with voices" (eng. Voice Dialogue, authors: Sidra and Hal Stones) is the position that a person's personality is not one, but consists of many separate "I", which are called subpersonalities. (fig.1)

Subpersonalities can be at enmity, talk, negotiate, make friends...

The concept of subpersonality was introduced into scientific use within the framework of psychosynthesis (psychotherapeutic system) developed by the Italian psychiatrist and psychologist R. Assagioli. In accordance with his ideas, a subpersonality is a dynamic substructure of a personality that has a relatively independent existence. The most typical subpersonalities of a person are those associated with the social (family or professional) roles that he takes on in life, for example, with the roles of a daughter, mother, son, father, grandmother, beloved, doctor, teacher, etc.

Subpersonalities are manifested indirectly, for example, in the case when a person talks to himself, leads internal dialogue. The voices that speak at the same time ask questions and answer in inner world person, and is a manifestation of his subpersonalities. The qualities, abilities and skills of a person that he demonstrates in his life are also manifestations of his subpersonalities.

In the structure of consciousness, the creators of "Dialogue with Voices" distinguish three levels:

• The level of observation, or awareness.
• subpersonality level.
• ego level - golden mean, which lies between the "primary I" (subpersonalities) and "detached I" (observation) of a person.

Observation differs from the mind in that when perceiving the surrounding world at this level, a person does not give any assessments, does not draw any conclusions.

According to the theory of Sidra and Hal Stone, subpersonalities that have arisen in the process of maturation of the human psyche serve to protect " inner child"from vulnerability and defenselessness and allow you to achieve your goals in life. (Fig. 2)

Subpersonality is a popular psychological metaphor for what is inside your big personality there are many small living beings, many small personalities. naming personality traits subpersonalities makes it possible to work with them as with living beings: fight with them, talk with them, negotiate ... Subpersonalities are another name for personal characteristics, desires, aspirations and habits.

In therapeutic practice, subpersonalities are usually endowed with abilities and virtues that are significantly superior to the abilities and virtues of the client. Namely, by the will of psychologists and psychotherapists, the subpersonality is a very lively, active and creative being, able to run into the past, get deep into the Unconscious, establish informal and active contacts with other subpersonalities, able to know what the client himself does not know, able to take care of a client who always has only positive intentions and is able (sometimes) to act according to the principle "In order, not Because ...".

"Subpersonality is a convenient model that allows us to deal with driving forces personality, but do not forget that this is just a model that does not claim to be the original. When they talk about subpersonality, they mean a certain set of attitudes, behavioral stereotypes, beliefs, drives, etc., which takes on a holistic, distinguishable form only in our minds.

Roberto Assagioli.

The number and characteristics of subpersonalities may be different for different people, and it depends both on the actual personality traits and on the person's fantasy, the person's readiness to assume one or another subpersonality.

The use of such a working metaphor as "subpersonality" has taken root in psychotherapeutic work. Such naming of habits and personality traits as subpersonalities for people with developed metaphorical thinking makes it possible to briefly and concisely describe a rich behavioral set in one word. A developed subpersonality has its own ethics and aesthetics, as well as peculiarities of physiology, posture, movements, intonations and facial expressions peculiar only to it. This forms a more serious attitude towards what is happening in the client and is more motivating.

So what are subpersonalities? In some simplified sense, this is “a person’s inner community of selves”, which can be translated as follows: “the many inner “I” of a person”.
It is still difficult for me to detect them in myself, but (as usual) it is easy in others. In general, everything is seen more clearly from the outside. You can notice the drastic changes that occur with a person. I was just a Modest, and now an Exhibitionist, subpersonalities are rapidly replacing one another.
The concept of subpersonality was introduced into scientific use within the framework of psychosynthesis (psychotherapeutic system), which was developed by psychiatrist R. Assagioli. According to his theory, a subpersonality is a substructure of a personality that has an independent existence.
Here is an example of how different subpersonalities manifest: when I wake up, I think about how good it would be to get up early. But the next day, the alarm rings, and I understand that the person who is now deciding whether to get up or not to get up has a different attitude to this. He has a different life.
If you use the theory of subpersonalities, you can find your own approach to others. Roughly speaking, instead of "he is a boor" - "he is in this moment treats me like a boor."
One psychologist explains the phenomenon of subpersonalities this way: “I agree that the term “subpersonalities” sounds somewhat confusing. That is, it looks like some strange anthill from the devil knows who lives inside you. In fact, all these subpersonalities are neural networks that operate in the usual mode. How many such schemes do we have? It's impossible to say. Presumably, every skill we have, and even new insight, is a new schema.”
In general, each person has his own set of subpersonalities that differ from the subpersonalities of other people. It is important to name each subpersonality, for example: Adventurer, Prudent, Defenseless Girl, Smart Guy, Lone Wolf, "What will people think", Critic, Wrecker, Accountant and so on.

An example of internal confusion and disagreement of subpersonalities in the internal dialogue:
VOICE FIRST: - Sasha, you have to work today. Do you want to receive an award?
VOICE SECOND: — Spending the whole evening on work?! Yes, I'd better call Lenka, chat or hang out! I haven't had fun in such a long time.
VOICE THREE: — I don't want to see this Lenka! She teases me all the time and “gracefully” humiliates me. I feel humiliated next to her.

Since the psyche is not its own enemy (in most cases), it can be assumed that each subpersonality has its own desires, its own goals, even its own mission. For example, to protect a person from something that the subpersonality considers dangerous. You can conduct such a dialogue with subpersonalities (having previously found them and given names).

Parent, Adult or Child
American psychologist and psychiatrist Eric Berne singled out three subpersonalities - three states of "I", which in turn interact with the same members of the triad of other people. These subpersonalities - Parent, Child and Adult, according to Bern, are in everyone, and everyone behaves in a similar way.
The Child is desires and emotions, its sphere includes joy and sincerity, spontaneous creativity and at the same time impulsive crimes, because the power of desires of the Child is difficult to resist. The parent, on the contrary, is duty, morality, norms and rules. He is responsible for himself and for others, knows how to do it, but does not think why, evaluates and demands. Both are opposed by the Adult who separates personal opinion and surrounding reality. The Adult works with facts, thinks logically, knows how to restrain the impulses of the Child and question the prejudices and memorized rules of the Parent.

Naturally, each of the subpersonalities can have a specific character (the Child can be both cheerful and aggressive, the Parent can be both caring and punishing). Subpersonalities can be different strength and expression, and each of them may try to seize complete power over a person.
In this concept, subpersonalities are important not by themselves, but, first of all, by their communicative function - therefore, the method that works with them is called transactional analysis. When two people meet, in fact, not two, but as many as six personalities are talking, that is, two sets of Parents, Children and Adults, and success or failure in communication will depend on who they choose as their representatives. So, for example, when serious conversation It will be difficult for an adult of one person with his logical layouts with the Parent of another, who can only reproach and punish, or with a Child who is capricious or fooling around. Normally, the owner of three subpersonalities easily switches between them for effective business or personal communication. And all failures happen either when stuck in only one role, or when the combination of “representatives” chosen for communication is unsuccessful.

Between Persona and Shadow
A much greater variety of inner inhabitants is found in the theory of Carl Gustav Jung and his followers. In this concept, everyone has not only a personal, but also a collective unconscious, which is made up of universal mental structures - archetypes. Jung himself spoke about the fact that everyone has a Persona, a subpersonality that is shown to the world; Shadow, consisting of shameful and rejected qualities; divine baby, Wise old man, as well as Animus and Anima, the inner man in a woman and inner woman at the man.

Post-Jungians began to "populate" the personality of a person with everything large quantity characters and talk about their positive and negative qualities. Robert Johnson, in He, She, and Us, described the danger that people in romantic relationships actually love not real person, but his inner man or a woman. Marie-Louise von Franz devoted her research to “The Eternal Youth. Puer Aeternus" to modern young men, captured by the beautiful and infantile archetype of the Eternal Boy. And Clarissa Pinkola Estes in the book "Running with the Wolves" in more poetically than scientifically substantiated the urgent need to actualize the archetype of the Wild Woman.

Escape from oneself: what is a dissociative fugue?
Due to the infinite extensibility of the collective unconscious, some authors have created entire systems of role archetypes that make up a person's personality. In the Russian school of fairy tale therapy, it is believed that depersonalized characters of fairy tales live in everyone - the Tsar / Queen, Peasant / Peasant Woman, Warrior / Warrior Woman, and so on, strengths which a person needs to learn how to use correctly. So, the peasant needs to be “turned on” for patient work, the Warrior for healthy aggression, the Tsar for management and responsibility, the Merchant for making money for pleasure, and the Monk for self-immersion and reflection. The collective of subpersonalities is organized in a similar way by Jin Shinoda Bolen and Galina Bednenko, who showed the inner world of a person inhabited by images of gods and goddesses. ancient Greek mythology. Apollo and Athena, Poseidon or Hera in all their variety of qualities and functions can different strength appear in man and equally lead him to success or failure.

Similar visualization human qualities, aspirations and needs are quite convenient way understand your feelings and desires. For example, if you notice perfectionism and snobbery in yourself - the properties of Apollo, you can immediately remember his opposite Dionysus and think about how to bring more spontaneity and fun into your life. Bohlen compares the system of role archetypes with a committee, where normally everyone is allowed to speak and where the process is led by a healthy ego. That is, normally a person sees all the wealth of his social roles, motivations and characteristics, and also knows how to manage them: let someone go ahead, hold someone back, reconcile someone. However, when weak ego- the chairman of the committee (you can think of him as a will or as awareness) can start endless conflicts or there will be a sole seizure of power. Therefore, a person who in all situations behaves, for example, like a Warrior (speaking in terms of fairy tale therapy), for the most part will act to the detriment of himself and others, despite the certainly bright image.

How do you deal with your inner critic?
Finally, a separate direction of psychotherapy is even devoted to the subpersonalities of a person. Richard K. Schwartz in System family therapy subpersonalities” tells about the Personality Center (somewhat similar to Jung’s Self), which is always healthy and must manage subpersonalities, and gives his classification of subpersonalities that can be traumatized and with which you can work in the process of therapy. This is the Manager and the Exile, the Protector and the Pessimist, the Critic and, again, the Child. These subpersonalities can fight for power, interfere with each other, and also take care or help. Schwartz looks at subpersonalities as a family whose members are connected shared memory and pretty difficult relationship. Each member of the family is needed and useful, if he does not seize power or simply does not begin to behave unconstructively. For example, for a traumatized Child, that is, for a wounded creative and sincere component of the personality, the Protector can stand up, but this protection can be expressed in the erection of boundaries and a ban on further active actions and new contacts. At the human level, this will be expressed in creative stagnation and impoverishment of emotions, therefore, during psychotherapy or even during simple introspection, you will have to negotiate with the Defender to let the Child go free.

Two other ambiguous sub-personalities, the inner Censor and the inner Critic, Special attention creative self-help icons Julia Cameron (“The Artist's Way”), Barbara Sher (“It's Good to Dream”) and Ann Lamott (“Bird to Bird”) are giving. Normally, they, like other subpersonalities, allow a person to be more adaptive and better cope with life tasks. The censor allows you to control what, where and to whom you can say and what not; and the Critic shows where you can improve your results, and does not stop there. However, having received too much power (here hello to the Bernese Parent of our entire culture, pointing to problematic, not successful moments), the Critic and the Censor do not give creative process even start, all the time upsetting and finding fault. And if at least some business is brought to an end, then it will instantly depreciate. So useful skills of self-control and self-criticism can only lead to neurosis and procrastination, because why start a business if it is impossible to do it perfectly. However, it is possible to negotiate with subpersonalities, as well as with living people, and if it doesn’t work out, then deceive them. So, to interact with the Critic, you can use special techniques, for example, set yourself the task of writing or drawing as much as possible in a limited time - during such a time the Critic does not have time to “wake up”. By the way, the painful topic of work in the most last moment before the deadline can be turned for good and used to combat this subpersonality.

It is important to remember that "the deception of the inner critic", "the revival inner hero” or a simple desire to reason aloud on different voices should not be considered as a light version of dissociative disorder. With it, subpersonalities often do not know about each other, and, in addition, quite a serious trauma is necessary for its development, most likely in childhood, and possibly an initial predisposition. And letters to yourself-Child or leadership of a team of internal fairy tale characters — understandable ways self-help through working metaphors.

Subpersonality is a term in psychology that denotes the internal images of the elements of behavior that are perceived by the consciousness of each individual as parts separate from the individual itself. The concept of subpersonality was introduced into the world of science by the Italian psychiatrist, psychologist Roberto Assagioli as part of a new psychotherapeutic method - psychosynthesis. The subpersonalities of an individual are tied to his family, social, professional roles. For example, the roles of parents, daughter, son, boss, unpleasant colleague, school teacher, attending doctor, etc. As Osho, the great philosopher, said: a whole crowd lives inside us. And all these people inside at times pretend to be us.

The manifestation of a person's subpersonalities exists indirectly when he conducts his internal dialogue. The personal qualities of a person, his abilities, habits, skills that he shows while living his life, is also a manifestation of parts of his whole "I".

Subpersonalities in psychology

The concept of subpersonality is such a metaphor in psychology, which means that inside each there are several small creatures that you can really work with, deciding various problems. Miscellaneous conditions life, circumstances, worldview do not equally affect the way of life of a person, his understanding of difficult situations, relationships. Often unconsciously, obeying one circumstance or another, we choose our own style of behavior, develop external image, actions, set of gestures, postures, thoughts, habits. Assagioli called all this subpersonalities, this is something that resembles a miniature personality. Each part is like living creature that takes place in the psyche, leads an existence with its own values, which may not correspond at all and differ greatly from the values, motives for the existence of other parts. Their number and characteristics depend on the awareness of a person, his fantasy, on his real personal qualities, the readiness of a person to see one or another subpersonality in himself.

Subpersonalities develop by repeating the same acquired reactions, then in the process, having their own desires and needs, they try to realize them, conflicting with each other. This process is unconscious. These parts of the personality express themselves through the body, feelings, thoughts, behavior. At the same time, each subpersonality, declaring their needs, their desires, speaks on behalf of the whole personality. Often we systematically make ineffective decisions, do inadequate actions that we didn’t want to do, but it seems impossible for us to change something, because it is accompanied by a struggle. inner voices, parts of personality. But the man in the best option accepts these decisions as his own, from the whole personality, at worst, he will blame other people for his problems.

Working with human subpersonalities is effectively used in psychotherapy, more often in psychosynthesis and. When the client designates one of his parts, they individual qualities, ways of behavior, then with the help of a psychologist he can contact her, find out the reasons for his non-adaptive behavior, reactions, and physiology.

Working with subpersonalities allows the client to see and fully appreciate what is happening in life, what is going wrong, change attitudes and have the opportunity to change behavior. Basically, a subpersonality in psychology is a part of a personality that has its own characteristics and abilities of an individual, can go far into the subconscious, into the past, can establish contacts and relationships with its subpersonalities, and negotiate with them. A priori, these are such parts of a person’s personality, the existence of which helps him look for ways out of problem situations, protects the psyche and plays exclusively positive function for his personality. Such parts have positive intentions.

In therapeutic work with subpersonalities, it is proposed to consider them according to the principle of the structure of the psyche - this, and superconsciousness.

Working with subpersonalities in therapy goes like this:

- recognition of parts of the personality, awareness of them;

- Adoption;

- coordination, transformation of subpersonality;

— integration;

- synthesis of parts of the whole "I"

The main task for a psychologist is to single out and combine individual and independently acting subpersonalities of a person into a single harmonious whole “I”, and teach a person to manage them consciously, and not hide them in the unconscious.

Schwartz subpersonality therapy

The idea of ​​plurality and parts of personality is not fresh and not new: id, ego, Freud's superego, Animus, Anima, Shadow, Jung's Person, adult, parent, child of E. Bern - all these parts live in a person.

The subpersonality therapy of R. Schwartz is one of the directions in the current psychotherapy, the main concept of which is to accept that many personalities live in the human inner world, and that this phenomenon is the norm.

Richard Schwartz created a system of hierarchy of human subpersonality, their therapy. The scientist said that all the inner inhabitants of our psyche have feelings, desires, thoughts, needs, personal characteristics. Also, these subpersonalities are different ages, male or female. They appear within each under the conditions necessary for them, when their time comes.

R. Schwartz states that a person lives in different subpersonalities in different, dissimilar moments and situations. This is manifested in behavior, action, experience of feelings, thoughts, which is significantly different when he resides in different subpersonalities. The main idea of ​​the psychotherapist R. Schwartz is that the internally main “I” of the personality does not split, but remains integral, but in difficult moments, under the influence of traumatic experience, it gives way to other subpersonalities. Then it becomes like a disease, although, in reality, the separation of the individual's inner world and psychotherapeutic work with his subpersonalities is extremely important and necessary for his survival and recovery.

How do human subpersonalities arise?

Schwartz claims that in a situation that is traumatic for a person, his psyche tries to protect him from experiencing feelings such as pain, guilt. These feelings, not being able to express themselves, are, figuratively speaking, “locked up”. These are the "exiles" - oppressed, repressed, with a sense of guilt, an understanding of their unworthiness and inferiority, they will be in search of how to escape, who would save them, give them freedom. They reveal themselves in a person through pain, fear, nightmares, flashbacks, uncontrolled traumatic memories, controlling behavior, . In search of even the slightest love and protection, they create such circumstances in which their actions will be aimed at attracting someone who is similar to the first offender, they will endure violence and humiliation in the hope of obtaining the illusion of protection. Thus, they create repeated situations for a person in which he becomes a victim.

Another group of parts of the personality behind Schwartz are "managers". These are such subpersonalities that are designed to protect the "exiles" so that no one else offends them. Some “managers”, who control, seek help from people, but at the same time they know that the “exiles” will not receive it, they will be rejected; at the same time they are watching so that they do not escape from custody; others do not trust others, try to limit contacts, prevent emotional intimacy, this is as a way to protect themselves from the repetition of pain; appraisers make sure that others like them, their own appearance; addicts make a person helpless, offended, in the role of a victim, so that others will regret; a pessimist undermines confidence so that a person does not act, is passive; the denier distorts the person's understanding of the situation, the perception of insecurity; the worryer talks about anxiety, worst case scenario, etc. "Managers" are conservative and tough, have a lot of responsibility for human safety. They, like "exiles", seek acceptance and love, but feel they must hide their needs because the system requires it.

The third type is "firemen". They serve to dampen those emotions and feelings that exiles express when "managers" fail to control. "Firefighters" are called upon to urgently dull the pain, to separate from reality. Methods of "firefighters" are all kinds of addictions, self-damaging and suicidal behavior, sexual promiscuity, rage, unhealthy cravings for material goods, .

In this way, the "managers" try to hide, protect the "exiles", and the "firefighters" look for opportunities to calm and satiate them. Therefore, according to the idea of ​​Schwartz, we all have all three types of subpersonalities. And, based on the symptom manifested by a person, it is possible to designate which group of parts prevails. For example, when a person suffers from any addictions, then he is in the power of "firefighters"; if he has depression, phobias, somatics, he is in the power of "managers"; tormented by sadness, guilt, fear - in the power of "exiles". And these parts of the personality perform positive role in the inner world of man.

The usefulness and positive result of this method of working with subpersonalities lies in the fact that a person must be perceived as one who has resources, but in some circumstances is limited in their use through a state of tension inside and outside. The essence of the therapist's work lies in isolating these parts of a person, getting to know them, loosening restrictions, finding opportunities, and most importantly, returning power over all parts to the integral "I".

Today I will try to draw the attention of readers to another angle from which the drama of a person bogged down in the evidence of his right to recognition and respect is displayed relatively clearly.

For friends and relatives, our person can be loved, for the boss - petty, for an offended partner - bad, for outsiders from the next street - nothing significant. Is she some "general" outside the narrow relationship? And what is this (so-called) “General” substance?

Rationalization

Miscalculations, mistakes and other people's opinions hurt when they resonate with negative identities from the unconscious, as if forced to admit what a nonentity you are. In this vein, even neutral observations at someone else's expense can suddenly evoke simply because they touch old wounds.

Positive assessments are pleasing for a similar reason - when they give a chance to wake up and come into force to subpersonalities, confident in their right to recognition and love.

Resonance with the situation connects specific role, which seems to be inherent in the occurring behavior. Failure connects the inner loser, success is the darling of fate. At the same time, the next subpersonality initially functions in complete isolation from the actions that it ascribes to itself, and arises as a subsequent mental reaction to these actions - a rationalization of what has already happened. That is, first the behavior is realized, and only after that, an image of oneself arises in the mind, which this behavior takes into account.

Imagine a writer who created two independent stories - in one he draws a self-satisfied "sinner" who considers himself a righteous man, in the next - a repentant righteous man who suddenly realized himself as a sinner from the first story. Both personalities are fake and miss the point - own source- space creative mind in which they originated.

Thus, the appearance of false unity is maintained. contradictory friend of subpersonalities. They are united only by the "canvas" on which they replace each other.

Self-confidence

As false identities are exposed, there is a growing understanding that any qualitative assessment own "I" at the level of "good" - "bad" - one big self-deception. Can only be assessed outward behavior inherent in the next subpersonality - and that is subjective.

Here on the site I often talk about the value of self-knowledge. When you know what you are and what you can really count on in this life with your qualities, then someone else's opinion is perceived without any bayonets and festive euphoria - just an opinion - sometimes frankly biased.

That is, real self-confidence is not increased self-esteem, but such a thorough and solid knowledge self, which ceases to depend on criticism, praise, private failures and successes.

And this is not some capricious individualism, but a sober courage to "judge" oneself on one's own. For the sake of this alone, it is expedient to clarify one's own consciousness in order to rely confidently, first of all, on one's own realistic feelings about what is happening.

Otherwise, it turns out to be a strange situation. For one appraiser, our "I" is a lousy hindrance, for the second - a divine gift. And then self-esteem starts free flight, it storms and throws it to extremes - from pitch horror to happy relief, as if in search of the final truth about oneself.

Therefore, when the situation nevertheless prompts you to doubt yourself again and again and worry about something, this is a clear sign of avoided fear at your own expense. In this vein, it is advisable to stop calming yourself and look your fear openly in the eye.

Finally " stardust There is nothing to worry about - it just is.

In the next article, I will probably try to describe one simple practice of humility with my subpersonalities, which I offer to most clients at different stages.