Inside me are there 'selves' that I lock up to protect myself?
And those subpersonalities relate to each other like a family. Some people suffer from a little inner voice that when they try to do something tells them that they are going to fail...
“You're not good for this or that”?
They are parts of us that we once blocked, after a traumatic experience, so as not to repeat that pain. And those voices contradict each other today in their desire to protect us.
Isn't that called schizophrenia?
I detected these hidden subpersonalities in my patients when I began to try my therapy, and then I thought they suffered from multiple personality syndrome.
What are those hidden voices like in me?
Maybe that part of you is still the seven years old you were when you made a fool of yourself in class; or 12, when they suffer bullying at school; or the 20 from when they fired him... And you have blocked them to protect yourself and avoid reliving the pain: because that child no longer exists, but the emotions he felt do. And he needs protection.
Are they like our internal family?
That's why I called the therapy internal family systems, because it consisted of detecting those parts that we have locked away and that speak to us and to each other as in a family in which discussions become polarized.
Do you heal us by talking to them?
The therapist helps the patient to detect them, talk to them, accept them and release them so that they flow and reintegrate them into our self.
Isn't the self the ego?
It is our being that innately tends toward goodness, because we are good. The self is like the sun in us: sometimes our innate goodness is hidden, but it never disappears.
Aren't we all perverse at times?
These perversions are behaviors with which we try to protect ourselves so as not to suffer the traumatic experience again. And with them we can harm other people or ourselves, as with anorexia, suicidal or self-harming tendencies, or addictions.
How to cure them?
When we recognize those parts inside us frozen in time and release them, we abandon those harmful behaviors.
What if we don't make it?
A part of you will tell you, for example, “don't speak in public, you'll make a fool of yourself” or “don't try to lead others or you'll die,” because they are the voices of who you were when you tried and failed; and the other will tell you to do it, and perhaps you will be paralyzed by both.
How to get rid of those traitors?
They are not bad beings; They are part of yourself: you just have to release them, which is why I titled my book There Are No Bad Parts. And I assure you that I have seen some of those parts in patients that were horrible. They can be released and healed.
Can you cure a criminal?
To begin with, we have to make sure he doesn't commit any more crimes, but we also have to understand why he commits them. Because even the most destructive parts of ourselves are born with protective intentions: what did that part of you want to protect when you harmed others? Respond.
Will knowing this deter him from committing a crime?
Our therapy helps by working with those extreme emotions, beliefs and sensations that led them to commit a crime.
Justice faces the external manifestation of the crime, and you, the internal one?
We want the criminal to analyze himself to find when and why he deviated from the natural path of a good person, from the self that we are. Because even the most destructive parts of us have protective intentions.
Do they harm others to protect us?
What did he want to protect when he hurt others? That's the therapy: detect it and release it. And some religions and cultures force their members to exile, repress or renounce inalienable parts of ourselves, which they label as sin.
Is there repression at the origin of evil?
When you help the patient to detect and release them, he also feels freed from the impulses to harm or harm himself, because he converts what he interpreted as horrible parts of himself into other small and friendly ones with which he dialogues.
Was it a sin and turns out to be normal?
But that little person is still the 5-year-old child and the emotions from when you froze him to protect yourself, and you must talk to him and protect him now to continue moving forward.
How do I talk to that sad child in me?
That child in you who was bullied: how do you feel towards him today? Do you feel sorry for him because he was innocent, or do you despise him because he was weak? I will help you help you and help you. You will understand that child that was and you will console him and validate his pain and allow him to integrate little by little into the self that you are today... Did that child cry a lot?
Maybe.
Then you will cry too when you understand it and, little by little, you will let him free and he will let you free.
