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Originally Posted by griffinp
For those of you who work with parts in therapy, what does that mean? How do you give different parts space and a voice? What does that look like?
Like, do you walk in the room and say "I want my child part to talk today?" Or does that part just emerge as you are talking?
She said she also wants me to get in touch with what my parts need and she will help meet those needs. That sounds nice, but how do I do that??
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I work with parts a lot. I have names for them, and I also have dolls that represent them (I have 4). I see them as clusters of needs but I find it easier to call them by name than by their description. It helps me to deal with contradicting needs and strategies that I have, and also to develop an adult, caring part that oversees them all.
Sometimes I think parts are pieces of soul that were abandoned after trauma. Let's say someone suffers neglect and rejection, and decides that he or she will never allow any more attachments in their life so that they won't suffer the pain of rejection ever again. So they abandon, suppress the part of the psyche that craves attachment. That part becomes disconnected from the rest of the "system", lives in hiding but can hijack the whole "system" when in stress. The goal, I guess, is to return that part home, so to say - to understand it, to bring in back and integrate it.
So naming it, feeling it, communicating with it really helps but it takes some practice and patience. Those abandoned parts have sad and painful stories, they often live in fear and shame.
This article has an interesting view on parts and where they come from:
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The Wounded Self
The wounded self is the part of us that carries most of the shame, fear and despair that were generated at the time(s) of the trauma we experienced. Children have a very limited perspective on events in their lives and most often interpret any negative experience as their fault and as evidence that there is something wrong with them.
Because we are talking about trauma that occured in childhood, we often experience this wounded part of ourselves as a child self. This part of us will usually have the mindset of a child about the age we were when we were traumatized. So this part of us may be three years old or thirteen years old. Or, if we experienced ongoing abuse or trauma, we may experience this part of us as being at different ages and stages of development.
Before we begin our recovery journey, and early on in this journey, this part of ourselves may be in hiding most of the time. Because we have unknowingly pushed away from the pain we once experienced and from its impact on our lives, this part of us has been pushed into hiding. The problem is, of course, that even though this part exists outside our awareness, it has a great deal of power in our lives. In fact, because it exists outside our awareness, it has greater power than it would if we were more aware of its presence.
This is the part of us that is insecure and reactive. This part of us usually believes terrible things like, I am bad, I am ugly, I am stupid, I am worthless, I deserve what I got, no one can possibly love me. Often, no matter how hard we try to earn love and value, this part of us carries a deep intractable fear that we are beyond help or hope and beyond love.
Whatever happens to a child influences the child’s sense of self. If a child loses a parent to mental illness, drugs, divorce or death, the child may feel both responsible for the loss and deserving of abandonment. If a child routinely experiences verbal abuse or physical abuse, the child will feel little sense of value. If something as obscene as sexual abuse happens to a child, that child will feel obscene, or in a child’s language, ugly and dirty.
In addition, children who are traumatized may suffer not only from demeaning, violating words and actions, but also from a lack of nuture, support, love and care. In fact, many kids who are abused or traumatized suffer as much or more from the neglect and the lack of love as from the trauma itself. So this wounded part of us is hurt, frightened, ashamed, wanting to hide and starving for love.
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