There are some Ts who like to work with the different parts of a person's personality in therapy, and this goes by a lot of different names: ego state therapy, parts therapy, inner child therapy, inner family systems therapy, etc. My T and I have done ego state therapy in the past, and it worked really well--some of my best memories of therapy. Last time at the end of the session, T wanted to dive very quickly into therapy with two of my "parts". We were super rushed and it didn't go well. I think it will help when we take more time.

I am wondering how working with other parts is for others here. How do you know what parts will participate? Do you identify them? Does your T? T wanted two of my parts to work with each other, and it was like whoa, I don't think I even have those two parts! I felt like one of the parts was just me. I guess I could call it a part, but really, it is closely identified with the main me, so it was hard to hear T call it a "part" (hey, that's me you're talking about T!). And the other part doesn't really exist, or if it does, I am not in touch with that part. Why would T suggest I had this part? Does he see something in me that I don't? Is everyone supposed to have a part like the one he suggested? There is something wrong with me because I don't have or know that part? I felt like he said let's let Parts A and B interact, and I only have A! When I think about it, there was another part there, Part C. But he didn't mention this one. He wants A and B, but that day I only had A and C. Shouldn't I be the one to identify my parts, not him? How can he know? When we did ego state therapy before, I always told him what parts there were. It seems very presumptive and directive of him to identify my parts for me. What we tried didn't work for me because it was inauthentic. I tried to pretend this Part B existed but it didn't. I think some of the difficulty was that we were so rushed so he just plunged in and identified parts. No time to tease out who there really was to work with. I don't know.

Anyway, I just wondered how it was for others who work with different parts of themselves in therapy. Is it you who identify what parts there are or does your T sometimes say to you, "let's work with Part X and Part Y." And if the latter, is there ever a mismatch with what parts T specifies and what parts really exist?