"Integrating" Oneself?

So I've now had my first two sessions with a new psychologist. I told him about the "alter ego" I "created" (described in my first cry for help here), and told him I felt like I was living the Star Trek episode in which the transporter splits Captain Kirk into Evil Kirk and Good (but Wimpy) Kirk. A central theme of that episode was the necessity of integrating both such sides of one's personality into a balanced whole. (I should note that I don't believe I have true multiple-personality disorder.) My therapist agreed.

Unfortunately, I don't have the luxury of a quick trip back through a transporter. And something tells me that, as in all psychotherapy, the process will be both long and messy. Has anyone else here suffered the same problem? If so, what did the process of re-integration entail? (If it means ending up acting like a demanding a**h*** toward anyone, I might be better off as the nice [but miserable] guy I am.)

Thanks -- DSM-3.1415926

P.S. In case anyone's unfamiliar with that episode: see this entry at Star Trek Re-Watch.

I am so out of my depth with any "Star Trek" references. But I would say - if you need to be "a demanding a**h***" towards anyone to get to a better place in life, do it. Seriously. I know a number of nice guys who would be so much happier if they let out that "demanding a**h***" part of themselves more often.

Not saying do it all the time, or become a pick-up artist, or whatever. But it's one way to learn to be assertive and self-defending.

Integrating for me was about integrating all the bus of me that or told you need, unsavory. We all wear many hats in life, but the unconscious aspects are what are are being, brought into the light and 'acknowledged'. That brings one wholeness.

I went back and read your first post and it sounds similar enough to my situation that I will say re-integration CAN occur, it will most like be long and messy (mine has been). Sounds like you have good intuition. You probably will have to be a demanding a**h*** at some point(s) -- hopefully limited to your therapy sessions -- but talk that over with your therapist and see what he thinks, if he can handle it, and if he can offer suggestions about what to do if the a**h*** gets triggered in the real world. If you don't like his answer and don't have confidence that what he says sounds reasonable to you, it may best to try to find another therapist. Once I got with my current T it's taken "only" 5 years. But, like you said, very messy -- only I had already broken down and was pretty much a mess already even though I'd been trying to find help. Just went to people who didn't understand what the problem was and/or how to help with it.

Interesting story, I'm not really sure how I'd advise you do it, but with enough discipline you can, of course, balance the rationality of your "good" half and the aggressiveness of your "evil" half. That's what Kirk always did, anyway. Otherwise he'd have been spending all of his time stumbling around the ship in heavy eyeliner and a cold sweat, swilling brandy and boffing his yeoman.

The transporter would be handy for all sorts of reasons, especially if it could filter out whatever was wrong in our heads and reconstitute us as something "better". I'd take that trip. Then again, they tried putting those two Good and Evil horned space poodles through the transporter and look what happened to them. Still, those were only dogs. As for you, "you have your intellect! You can fight with that!"

I definitely recommend watching Buffy S05E03 'The Replacement' - Its a variation on the Star Trek theme as Xander is split in to two. But his two are 'competent and incompetent' rather **s***e and wimpy! Anyway, this episode always makes me feel better about integrating. The end result is that it was an unnatural state for Xander to be in two. The natural order wanted them to merge, and so it was easy to achieve - once they'd done the scary part of facing up to what happened

I think its a great task to set yourself and to work with a therapist on. Have you heard the old indian proverb that the father tells his son, or the elder tells a young person, involving the two wolves inside us?

Two other images come to mind. Next Generation's Riker was also split in two in a transporter accident.

Then there is Jeff Goldblum's "Brundlefly"-- a case of integration gone wrong!