Category Archives: Meeting the Voices in My Head

What is the Evidence that You Are Plural?

A Review of “Many Minds, One Self” By Schwartz and Falconer I have an image of being a practical, no-nonsense kind of therapist to uphold. A certain sort of underserved clientele flock to me because they think the mental health world is glutted with flakiness. Should I really be telling them that they are inhabitedContinue reading “What is the Evidence that You Are Plural?”

Can You Unify the People in Your Head?

Subpersonalities: The People Inside Us, Part 7 If you have dozens of people talking in your head at once, you’d want them to work together. Therefore, every form of psychotherapy seeks to integrate them. However, integration means something different when you’re at different stages. First, it means you want the subpersonalities to stay away becauseContinue reading “Can You Unify the People in Your Head?”

Engaging With Your Subpersonalities

Subpersonalities: The People Inside Us, Part 6 When I began doing psychotherapy, oh, so many eons ago, the first techniques I tried that helped me engage with subpersonalities was Gestalt Therapy, the creation of Fritz Perls. You don’t hear much about Gestalt these days, since Pearls died, because the star power of its main proponentContinue reading “Engaging With Your Subpersonalities“

Going Deeper with Jung

Subpersonalities: The People Inside Us, Part 5 I had a sense of my own subpersonalities since I first realized my imaginary friends were imaginary, but it wasn’t till I started to read Jung, long before I thought of being a therapist, that the nature of these non-being beings became clear. Jung introduced me to theContinue reading “Going Deeper with Jung”

Freud and the Fight of the Subpersonalities

Part IV of Subpersonalities: The People Inside Us Freud’s unconscious is a site of dramatic struggle between subpersonalities. The Id, the Super-Ego, and the Ego have been described as a gorilla and a schoolmarm fighting in a dark cellar, refereed by a nervous bank clerk. Deals are struck between the three, resulting in character andContinue reading “Freud and the Fight of the Subpersonalities“

Making Sense of the Voices in Your Head

Part III of Subpersonalities: The People Inside Us Let’s begin to take a look at the many kinds of psychotherapies that address subpersonalities. My guide on the subject has been John Rowan in Subpersonalities: The People Inside Us(1990). But here, I must leave him for a bit to talk about one therapy that has comeContinue reading “Making Sense of the Voices in Your Head”

Where to Find Your Subpersonalities

Part II of Subpersonalities: The People Inside Us Where do we get the idea that there are subpersonalities inside us? We’ve always seemed to have it. Primitive cultures have been fascinated with altered states of consciousness and spirit possession. They are the stock in trade for shamans. Ancient people seem to have conceived of subpersonalitiesContinue reading “Where to Find Your Subpersonalities“

What Do I Do with the People Inside My Head?

Part I of Subpersonalities: The People Inside Us It’s not uncommon to feel that there is more than just you inside your head. There seems to be a board of directors, at best, or a squabbling family, a mutinous crew, or a polarized congress up there, at worse. You may feel that someone sort ofContinue reading “What Do I Do with the People Inside My Head?”

Burdens and the Peddlers That Traffic in Them

If the inside of my own head is any indication, we all carry psychological burdens. If that’s not bad enough, we try to trade one burden for another and end up carrying them both. I got one of my burdens when I was about eight years old, riding the school bus. No one would sitContinue reading “Burdens and the Peddlers That Traffic in Them”