i just had my phone appointment with my t and we ended up doing some inner parts/children work. the weird thing is i hadn't even told her i've been reading up on all this inner children thing lately. she wanted to talk to a part of me and we did it but it was so weird. i still find it incredibly strange that there isn't one inner child but a whole bunch of them. and to actually get in touch with one of them and have a dialog with it was even weirder. but it's all weird in a good way as now i think i can slowly learn to work with that part of me and see why it is causing me so many problems. wow, i'm tripping about all this.

[sunrise]

Originally Posted by reflection

i still find it incredibly strange that there isn't one inner child but a whole bunch of them.

I would think it not untypical to have a lot of them representing different ages and experiences. Maybe the expression "inner child" led you to think there would be only one? (I have more than one also.)

and to actually get in touch with one of them and have a dialog with it was even weirder.

I have done this too in session. My T says this is ego state therapy. It's really very cool, when you think about it!

It sounds like you are doing a lot of really valuable work.

Originally Posted by sunrise

I would think it not untypical to have a lot of them representing different ages and experiences. Maybe the expression "inner child" led you to think there would be only one? (I have more than one also.)

yes, i had only heard there was one inner child so finding out there were many was a bit of a shock but now that i've read about all this inner family systems therapy it is making more sense. i still think it's pretty trippy though.

I have done this too in session. My T says this is ego state therapy. It's really very cool, when you think about it!

i kept hearing miss c mention ego state therapy and when i researched it i found out about this inner family systems therapy. i'm guessing it's all related. my t called what we did voice dialog. just when i'm thinking this stuff can't be real this part of me says something i would never say and i found out an interesting piece of info to help understand why i battle myself so much. of course it all made perfect sense in hindsight but in the moment i thought it was nuts. lol.

It sounds like you are doing a lot of really valuable work.

i hope so. i think i need to learn to integrate what i'm learning into my daily life but hopefully that will come in time.

((((((((((((((((((((reflection))))))))))))))))))))

Wow, that sounds like a really good session. It's sort of amazing the things we find out when we let our younger parts have their voice.

I found out today that Six (a younger part) is SUPER ANGRY. What?!?! It was so weird and shocking and trippy (good word! lol). But I think when we let everyone have a voice, we'll learn what it is we need to heal.

Originally Posted by earthmama

((((((((((((((((((((reflection))))))))))))))))))))

Wow, that sounds like a really good session. It's sort of amazing the things we find out when we let our younger parts have their voice.

I found out today that Six (a younger part) is SUPER ANGRY. What?!?! It was so weird and shocking and trippy (good word! lol). But I think when we let everyone have a voice, we'll learn what it is we need to heal.

mine wasn't a cute young part. noooo, it was my sister! lol. i have an inner child that is my sister and even has her name. she's quite angry too just like my sister can be in real life. she is worried and that is why she's being so hard on me. then t said she probably needs a vacation too from all her hard work to get me to conform to her expectations. i started laughing and said how about we ship her off to bermuda for a very loooooong vacation. maybe some day i'll tell my sister in real life i have an inner child named after her. oh, she'll probably just love it.

[sunrise]

Originally Posted by reflection

when i researched it i found out about this inner family systems therapy

Yes, that's what we do. I think it really appeals to my T because he is a family systems therapist, so he sees the inner family work as very similar. For instance, some trouble I was happening with an adult male ego state was something we worked on in therapy, and T tried to help us live in harmony and each value the role the other played, just like he would with a real family. In fact, I remember that session that he referred to the work he did with me and the male ego state as couples therapy, just like he would with any couple who came into his office. And there have been times that T told me things to say to the male ego state to help us get along. (This male happens to be my protector, and T said very early on that he needs to feel useful and needed and that his work to protect me is appreciated. So I had to thank him, and it really did help calm him down to know I valued him.) You are right, reflection, it is totally trippy!

t called what we did voice dialog. just when i'm thinking this stuff can't be real this part of me says something i would never say and i found out an interesting piece of info

Yes, I have had ego states say stuff to T that I would never say to him. It is quite amazing the things I can say to T when it is not me, lol. For example, I have reported to T that "he doesn't even really like you. He is threatened by you. He got really pissed off when you did such and such." And my jaw is just dropping as I pass this on to T, because where is this coming from?!? It is also quite amazing the things the ego states can tell me themselves, and I learn things about myself I never knew and it makes me almost mad when I find out some of them know stuff I don't. Since really, I am the head honcho, I should know everything, and when I find out I don't, it can rattle me. I remember once this male was talking to T (via me) and kept referring to me in the third person, and that was ANNOYING as h*ll. Like excuse me, I'm sitting right here, I'm not invisible d*mn it! How dare you GUYS talk over my head? Sometimes T has even shushed me because he wanted to talk just with the male and not also get my interjected comments.

reflection, how did you do the voice dialog? Did your ego state talk directly to T or use you as the go between? With me, I am the go between. T will ask the ego state a question. The ego state answers to me, and then I pass on the answer to T ("he said that he blah blah blah"). My ego states never speak directly to anyone but me. The words that come out of my mouth are always "he/she said that...", never "I am..."

I hope you will write more about what you are doing with your inner family. I find it so interesting, but bewildering too, and would really like to hear how your inner family therapy goes.

i have an inner child that is my sister and even has her name. she's quite angry too just like my sister can be in real life. she is worried and that is why she's being so hard on me.

That is cool! So is her function to worry about you and look out for you? The vacation idea is great! Who knows, it might help.

[imapatient]

To expose my density, but is this DID stuff? I'm not very familiar with DID but come across comments about it here and there and there on psychcentral. Never been suggested that I am DID by a T pdoc or thought of it myself, but I can't tell when that's what people are abetting into sometimes in their comments. If not, I've never heard about this different ego state identities and multiple inner child(ren) thing.

Originally Posted by imapatient

To expose my density, but is this DID stuff? I'm not very familiar with DID but come across comments about it here and there and there on psychcentral. Never been suggested that I am DID by a T pdoc or thought of it myself, but I can't tell when that's what people are abetting into sometimes in their comments. If not, I've never heard about this different ego state identities and multiple inner child(ren) thing.

from what i've read it is all on a spectrum with everyone having inner children at one end to DID at the other end. i think i read PTSD is about in the middle of the spectrum. i just have inner children. i'll scrounge up some links i posted about this last week and post them here. it is interesting stuff.

here's the website with info on all this inner family stuff. it's not too easy to navigate so here's the pdf the guy has which has most of the site's info. here's a good page he has on the various inner children/parts/subselves. an easy way to think of this inner family stuff is how freud said we have an id, ego and superego. they just identify more than those three.

[sunrise]

Originally Posted by imapatient

To expose my density, but is this DID stuff?

No, it's ego states. A simplistic distinguishing mark of DID is that the alters take over and you "lose time" and don't know what they were up to when you were "gone". With ego states, you're always there and they don't take over. There are probably all gradations in between.

Here is a good site on ego state therapy:
http://www.clinicalsocialwork.com/overview.html
And here's an excerpt that I think explains nicely what ego states are:

[Paul] Federn believed that the personality was not simply a collections of perceptions, cognitions, and affects, but that these organized into clusters or patterns, which he called ego states. An ego state may be defined as an organized system of behavior and experience whose elements are bound together by some common principle.

When one of these states is invested with ego energy, it becomes "the self" in the here and now. We say it is "executive," and it experiences the other states (if it is aware of them at all) as "he," "she," or "it," because they are then currently invested with object energy.

Ego states may be large and include all the various behaviors and experiences activated in one's occupation. They may be small, like the behaviors and feelings elicited in school at the age of 6. They may represent current modes of behavior and experiences or, as with hypnotic regression, include many memories, postures, feelings, etc. that were apparently learned at an earlier age. They may be organized into different dimensions. For example, an ego state may be built around the age of 10. Another one may represent patterns of behavior toward father and authority figures and thus overlap on experiences with father at the age of 10.

Originally Posted by sunrise

Yes, that's what we do. I think it really appeals to my T because he is a family systems therapist, so he sees the inner family work as very similar.

that makes total sense.

For instance, some trouble I was happening with an adult male ego state was something we worked on in therapy, and T tried to help us live in harmony and each value the role the other played, just like he would with a real family.

is integration not considered the goal now? i am hearing the word "harmonizing" as i'm reading about this and i wonder if different models have different goals. i believe when i did inner healing (the spiritual version of parts work) the goal was integration. has that changed?

You are right, reflection, it is totally trippy!

i'm glad i'm not the only one who thinks so! earthmama, i may not be a beach bum, but i am a california girl so i do say things like trippy and groovy on occasion.

It is also quite amazing the things the ego states can tell me themselves, and I learn things about myself I never knew and it makes me almost mad when I find out some of them know stuff I don't. Since really, I am the head honcho, I should know everything, and when I find out I don't, it can rattle me. I remember once this male was talking to T (via me) and kept referring to me in the third person, and that was ANNOYING as h*ll. Like excuse me, I'm sitting right here, I'm not invisible d*mn it! How dare you GUYS talk over my head? Sometimes T has even shushed me because he wanted to talk just with the male and not also get my interjected comments.

reflection, how did you do the voice dialog? Did your ego state talk directly to T or use you as the go between? With me, I am the go between. T will ask the ego state a question. The ego state answers to me, and then I pass on the answer to T ("he said that he blah blah blah"). My ego states never speak directly to anyone but me. The words that come out of my mouth are always "he/she said that...", never "I am..."

i did it just like you did as the go-between. but near the end i think i responded directly in the other ego state/child. sunny, i took a brief look at the page you linked on ego states. were you hypnotized when you did your work? i wasn't. we just jumped right into it but being familiar with the concepts really helped me do it.

I hope you will write more about what you are doing with your inner family. I find it so interesting, but bewildering too, and would really like to hear how your inner family therapy goes.

i find this fascinating and very helpful but yes quite bewildering too. i'm not really sure what the next step in this is or if t will want to do this type of therapy often with me or what.

So is her function to worry about you and look out for you? The vacation idea is great! Who knows, it might help.

i think she is like a worried parent which is just how my sister acted irl. but she caused me all kinds of problems so i'm not sure i want an internal one. lol.

[searchingmysoul]

Reflection thank you so much for the website!

Sunrise thank you too!

The first time I talked about my "parts" with T I thought that I had gone completely mad. The interesting thing for me is that when I was describing these parts of myself I used the terms in Sunrise's link without ever having read about ego states previously. I described my true self is the "executive" or leader, there is a distinct "protector", and a distinct "vulnerable child" that the protector looks after. Since then I have come to identify other "parts" that seem to be sub parts of the bigger parts...For example I have a distinct protector who comes around when I feel threatened in a work situation-she is a saavy smooth talker with some spunk. The protector that shows up in T is extremely critical and feels young, like adolescent-ish. The adolescent seems to be the most dominant of the protectors though. It is like have a 15 year old doing this all the time.

I have a bunch of vulnerable selves too...But I have not gotten as familiar with them yet. My 15 yo protector works hard to keep them "protected"... Which actually might be more like stuffed away...

Anyway, the ego state stuff is facinating...

[sunrise]

Originally Posted by reflection

is integration not considered the goal now?

I'm not terribly unintegrated like someone with DID. I have a bunch of ego states and some are more prominent (in the foreground) than others. My first little girl showed herself in a dream right before my second therapy appointment. I told T and he told me she was an ego state--I'd never heard of any of that. We did trauma work early in therapy on healing some of the "younger me" ego states. As they become more healed, they are not as prominent. But I wouldn't use the word "integrate" for my world. I have a rather prominent teen me also, who we've never worked with. She and my male protector are special friends. It is good to know she has someone. He was very angry at T on her account--he accused T of ignoring her and shuffling her aside whenever she tried to say something. I knew none of this. I was just kind of flabbergasted as I sat there and told T this stuff.

My goal in therapy is to heal, and some of that means ego state therapy, but mostly, we do other stuff. So we are not focused on the ego states or the idea of "integration", but rather issues.

i am hearing the word "harmonizing" as i'm reading about this and i wonder if different models have different goals. i believe when i did inner healing (the spiritual version of parts work) the goal was integration. has that changed?

My T doesn't use the word harmonize or integrate. He worked with me and my male as if we were a couple, just as he would any couple in his office for therapy. And with some of my young girls, he taught me how to go back in time, enter their world, and rescue them.

i did it just like you did as the go-between. but near the end i think i responded directly in the other ego state/child. sunny, i took a brief look at the page you linked on ego states. were you hypnotized when you did your work? i wasn't. we just jumped right into it but being familiar with the concepts really helped me do it.

No, I wasn't hypnotized. We just did it. However, I got so freaked out by the male becoming so prominent in me, I felt overwhelmed by him and like we were sharing a brain at all times and he was starting to squish me into the corner. Finally, I told him rather harshly to leave me alone and go away. And he did. I felt very bad after that and wanted to be with him again, but he had gone away, or I couldn't reach him. I felt horrible about that! And at that time I started looking into ways to overtly access my ego states, if they were not apparent, and I read that hypnosis could be used. But I never did it.

[sunrise]

Originally Posted by searchingmysoul

The first time I talked about my "parts" with T I thought that I had gone completely mad. The interesting thing for me is that when I was describing these parts of myself I used the terms in Sunrise's link without ever having read about ego states previously. I described my true self is the "executive" or leader, there is a distinct "protector", and a distinct "vulnerable child" that the protector looks after.

The same thing was true for me. I had never heard of much of this at all, and then I discovered this young adult male living inside of me and he told me he was my protector. I thought I was highly aberrant because I had this adult character of the opposite sex as an ego state and I was really worried and embarrassed to tell T about him because I thought T would think I had truly gone off the deep end. It seemed very reasonable to me to think I had younger versions of myself as ego states, who had split off during traumatic events, but having some dude I had never even met was just weird. But T told me it is completely normal to have ego states of the opposite sex. He told me some of his clients have "inner animals" and he tried to normalize it for me. He said that for me, having ego states may seem strange, but for him, it is very normal, as he has worked with many clients and their ego states, and he said everyone has them. My male is a young adult, early 20s, and he is very, very brash and quick to anger (whereas I, on the other hand, don't really even know how to feel anger or express it). It turns out he hated this certain person in my life (totally irrational) and completely interfered with my ability to get along with this person. I would just get so angry, and I didn't know why. And that's how I discovered him. I had an email to me from this guy that totally pissed off my male ego state, and all I would have to do was read it and there would be the male. It was kind of mean to "call" him like that. I don't do it anymore.

One of my male's great fears was that he would cease to exist because I was doing healing work in therapy with T, and his protector role would become less and less important as the younger girl ego states healed. So he would throw up stumbling blocks to working with the girls and do stuff to try to get me to sabotage therapy, because he didn't want me to take his job away. T told me I needed to reassure him and tell him that there were lots of other things he could help me with and to list specific ideas for him. And to be firm with him that he should not interfere with my little girls' healing. I thought well that is great, he is so strong, I could really use him at times. I told him one thing he could help me with and he totally rejected that--didn't want to do my scut work, so I had to come up with other ideas. Yeah, passive he ain't.

searchingmysoul, is your 15 yo protector female or male?

Yes, this is fascinating stuff! It's actually really creative of our minds to create these "people" to populate our inner world and help us out or seek refuge there. It's soooo creative.... Makes me really appreciate being human.

[peaches100]

I don't have alot to add, but I also do ego state therapy with my t. It is similar to the way others have explained it here.

[searchingmysoul]

Originally Posted by sunrise

One of my male's great fears was that he would cease to exist because I was doing healing work in therapy with T, and his protector role would become less and less important as the younger girl ego states healed. So he would throw up stumbling blocks to working with the girls and do stuff to try to get me to sabotage therapy, because he didn't want me to take his job away. T told me I needed to reassure him and tell him that there were lots of other things he could help me with and to list specific ideas for him. And to be firm with him that he should not interfere with my little girls' healing. I thought well that is great, he is so strong, I could really use him at times. I told him one thing he could help me with and he totally rejected that--didn't want to do my scut work, so I had to come up with other ideas. Yeah, passive he ain't.

searchingmysoul, is your 15 yo protector female or male?

Yes, this is fascinating stuff! It's actually really creative of our minds to create these "people" to populate our inner world and help us out or seek refuge there. It's soooo creative.... Makes me really appreciate being human.

Thanks for this Sunny!

My protector is female I am pretty sure...So far all of my states are female. I guess I would be a little taken aback if I had a older male state that was ready to kick everyone's booty, but that is what my 15 y.o. is for. She is a cussy, volatile, eye rolling, booty kicker. My T and I have joked around about her being my "fire keeper". I usually say that my fire keeper needs a keeper. I guess that is what my executive self is there for...

I certainly have grown an appreciation for how I was able to handle all that I did...I imagine these states hold the keys to some of that...

i talked to my sister tonight and we were talking about therapy, and i told her i had an inner child who is basically her. i think she was a bit tripped out as well, but we were laughing about it too. i have to say that we have come a long way. my sis can still do pretty hurtful things but she can be pretty cool too. and she's totally apologized for all the childhood crap and is working on her stuff. we're not too consistent yet, but it certainly is a whole lot better than when we were younger.

Originally Posted by reflection

and she's totally apologized for all the childhood crap and is working on her stuff. we're not too consistent yet, but it certainly is a whole lot better than when we were younger.

This is so cool!