10 - my main animal alter - has really been re-identifying herself after this article. Because it talked about how the alter often became or incorporated the animal that was either hurt of used... i am still trying to understand it all... but she's always been a cat... but then about 4 years ago became a wolf... with cat tendancies (?!?) and reading this, we were able to follow that string back through the knotted other strings and see where this divergance occured and how she got so seperated from the whole. doing that, she realized that she is still a cat, but that her uncontrollable rage was called a wolf by a therapist, and it stuck. looking back - i think maybe it was because we had a cat, and that cat always got abused by the dad. anytime the cat would stick up for itself, it would get knocked down, thrown, hit, or strangled. so, being a cat alter, i think it was determined that rage and boundaries, safety and needs to defend oneself was too big for a cat. when she became a wolf, there was space for that rage (which was then taken out on the body) but she was then even more alienated from the rest. so she is now reclaiming that cat self, and starting to reexperience safety, trust, cohesiveness with the others... this is big. lots of shifts, tears, practice.... still stepping into wolf sometimes, but more into cat... being reconnected with the body and mind... cried today in the osteopath appointment (which is sort of like body work for me, even though it is realligning the body posture)... but it was ok to feel... she was FEELING for the first time in i don't know how long... feeling emotions other than rage... other than threats... having thoughts of freedom, of soaring like a bird... feeling connected and safe. even though the face didn't show any emotion, the eyes kept leaking. the dr kept asking if we were ok, what's going on in there... told her it is all good... internal processing... nothing bad, nothing scary. big stuff. Then more crying and actual emotion later.