Integration/Blending/Staying Separate

I have not been diagnosed with DDNOS, but think that may be what i have. My t and I have done some parts work but my experience is that the adult side of myself usually becomes overwhelmed with the pain from other parts and i can't tolerate it. It usually leads to getting stuck in the pain and not being able to escape or feel any relief. For awhile, my t worked to try to get my adult self to rescue and soothe the hurting child parts of self that would get engulfed in pain during trauma work, but this did not work for me. i was not able to have the adult self present at the same time in order to do it. Therefore, trauma work always led to child parts feeling like they'd been retraumatized again with no one to rescue them. I couldn't rescue them, and my t didn't feel comfortable intervening in a physical way to bring them an awareness of safety and comfort either. So it was a bad, bad experience nearly every time.

Lately, when my t has done parts work with me, she has specifically asked parts to be present, but not to blend with the self. This has actually worked pretty well for me, in that it enables me to keep my composure and stay in my adult mind, so the pain from other parts doesn't flood into my awareness. But what I'm wondering is, is it best to keep parts separate then, and not to have the goal of integration? Does it sound like my t's goal will be not to try to merge the parts of self together?

PS - Can unblended parts of self be healed separately without merging?

(((((( peaches ))))))

It will not be the adult side of you that cannot tolerate it. It will usually be the child parts that feel very strongly. Unless the adult side has been traumatized in adulthood that is, in which case that would mean your T needs to work on strengthening the adult first before attempting 'parts' work again.

It can be a long road but definitely worth doing. More 'parts' work needs to be done.

As for your question on blending/staying separate, it really is up to you on how far you want to go. In my opinion you can live a perfectly good life still being separate. Furthermore parts of self do heal at different rates, infact it would be quite impossible for them all to heal at the same rate.

Well from my experience, I let my littles decide for themselves if they want to "grow up" is the word we use for integration. Its totally their choice if they want to cause it wouldn't be right for me to make that call. I had several who choose to grow up after telling their stories they held and some who may never grow up, but thats totally okay with me. I enjoy having their company and I know I can do whatever I want still with having them. Do whatever works for you

to me it sounds like your therapist is doing Transactional Analysis. the basic idea of it is every one has with in them parts of their self known as the Parent, Adult and Child. these parts of self are a completely different thing then having alters with dissociative disorders. A person doesn't have to have been abused. completely normal people have these parts of self. the parts of self instead of being alters are times when people act as their own parent nurturing and taking care of their self, times when they are thinking like a logical responsible adult taking care of adult matters like paying bills, housework, going to work. and theres the child self where all people react as a child would tempter tantrums or unable to take care of their self, reacting from pain of past abuse.

The goal of this therapy approach is to teach the client about these parts of self and teach them to tap into the Parent self and the adult self when encountering problems or issues that cause them to react from their child self. Instead reacting from someone saying something you don't like, like a child would have the parent or adult self step in and say ok thats their opinion and go about business. when feeling pain from past abuse tap into the parent or adult self and think ok that was then this is now, your ok and your safe now.

Sometimes it takes the therapist suggesting that the child self feelings and pain stay separate from the adult or parent self or suggesting to the parent self and the adult self not to connect with the child self so much that they can see the problems from the parent or adult self point of view. the way my professor explained it is when a woman has a baby they bond so strongly with their child that when the child crys out of hunger or pain the parent sometimes doesnt do whats right for the child. example teaching the child to sleep in their own crib after being in the parents bed for a year. you put the child to bed in his own bed, she screams to be back in the parents bed. instead of holding out a few minutes to see if child will settle down the mom runs in grabs the child and puts her in the parents bed. the end result no one in the house gets good sleep for fear of rolling over on the baby, lack of sleep causes many problems. So the mom has to be taught that its ok not to be so connected to the child to the point of not being able to see the whole picture and then be able to dot he right thing let the child sleep in their own crib parents get sleep and are able to take care of their family.

In TA sometimes the same thing has to happen, the client needs to learn to tap into the adult and parent self and be able to self nurture and act and react like an adult not the child. In order to do that sometimes the parts of self need to not be so connected to each other that they cant see the whole picture.

In TA there is no blending and integration of the parent child and adult self because its normal to have these parts of self. Everyone even those with no mental problems have them.

Just because it is helpful right now to have aspects keep separate doesn't mean that's the way it will always have to be. I don't have alters, but I do have some "differentiated ego states" that have a kind of life of their own. It's been helpful for my T to get "everyone's" side of the story because everyone sees the same events differently. some days I feel very "together" and I can see the different perspectives. Some days I feel very separate and I get very conflicting, strong emotions. On those days, the one who is upset gets all of me upset because there's all this upset that doesn't add up. Don't know if THAT made any sense...

I think integration is a "down the road" sort of thing. First there has to be awareness, then communication, then cooperation. Until those are in place, I don't think there can be integration - how can we integrate with someone we don't even know is there? How can you integrate two who can't even talk to each other?

It's a process. As you get "down the road", you'll probably have a better feeling for what your solution will be.

Thanks everybody for your replies. It kind of helps me get a little perspective on it. I still am not sure if what i have is just normal self parts, or if i have a slight dissociative disorder. My t says that i do dissociate and she has heard phone messages from me that sound very different from one another, and has seen me act differently too. She sometimes talks to certain parts of me and asks others to stay separate. But i don't lose time or have names for parts, other than hurt little girl, angry child, etc. It makes sense to me now why she would ask adult and child parts to stay separate right now because I DO tend to get overwhelmed with pain and cannot think logically when i allow what she calls "blending."

I have parts. my child parts come out in therapy and I cant seem to soothe them. My t says that i can do it, and has seen me with my kids, but I feel that is totally different from soothing a part. I cant rescue them either. I feel that and desire a hug at that time, but am to scared to ask my t for one. My child parts dont want me to soothe them, not trusting of me i think. only want to be soothed by her.I get the feeling that she is not the hugging touching type. just wanted to say i feel the same way.

we don kno. we been tawt to fink of us all bein intagrated. but ya nevr kno til u gets dere. we kinda hope to be jus one peepl wif lots of persunality - like a jewel wif lots of fassets. we lik to talk to u peepls here. ok byby

leli pixie