It is very often heard from clients that they feel they have lost themselves. This was also one of the first key observations of Carl Rogers, the founder of the person-centred approach, based on which he began to hypothesise that a true self exists and something is preventing it from being expressed. At the very moment I am writing this article, I am more in touch with the part of myself that creates and offers. The part I hear telling me that it has a wonderful idea which could become an article, and perhaps this article might serve as a small stepping stone for someone reading it in their personal growth. At the same time, I also hear the part of myself that looks after my rest, and I heard it telling me: “Philippos, you've had a very full week, make sure you rest this Saturday and leave the articles and creations alone.” And consider that these two parts of myself are the dominant ones right now, but of course there are others. Naturally, the same thing happens every day with clients in the consulting room, who, through the psychotherapeutic process, discover new parts of themselves. Parts such as the procrastinating self, the self-neglecting self, the self-deprecating self, the grumbling self, the wise self, the creative self, and many others are frequently voiced. But could the belief that becomes a desire to find oneself actually be an illusion?;
If in our personal quest we are searching to find a single self—and as we know very well, whatever we focus on is what we find—yet there are actually multiple selves, might we never actually meet them?;
For quite a few years now we have had data from neuroscience, dating back to 1985 with the work of Gazzaniga (The Social Brain: Discovering the Networks of the Mind), who opened up the dialogue regarding the existence of semi-autonomous functional neural networks in the brain, each of which has a specific role. Quite simply, beyond the specific brain functions we possess by our ‘factory’ design, the brain forms neural networks that run through both the neocortex, the midbrain, and the cerebellum, helping us to survive emotionally. A common example is the voice of an inner strict and often self-deprecating critic, which strays far from providing healthy self-criticism and positive motivation, and polarises into a rigid sternness whose only effect is complete freezing and paralysis of the individual. Such a strict inner critic might say something in a very harsh voice like: “Well, look how useless you are! No matter how hard you try you achieve nothing, so get a move on and do something before your whole life passes you by!” This neural network naturally triggers very intense feelings of anxiety, and if this part were all there was, a person would live in a constant state of panic and would literally die of stress. Therefore, the wise brain decides that in order to cope with this critical side, it creates another neural network which bestows boundless love (not unconditional, but boundless!), a magical and unlimited love that leads to procrastination. This second part, which comes literally to rescue the person's existence from the humiliating aspect that causes them panic, may speak in an almost hypnotic voice, saying: “Don't worry, everything is going to be fine, there's no problem at all, you don't need to do a single thing, you can postpone it as long as you need.” And of course, once the person has caught their breath and rested, their strict part returns and rushes them until they feel such intense panic that they need the procrastinating voice to calm them down again.
The question now, of course, is: fine, we went to psychotherapy, we discovered our parts, and what do we do now? Is there any hope?;
The answer is yes, of course; we have no masochistic reasons to dig up and uncover wounds in therapy, other than just enough to be able to heal from them. And naturally, healing means new neural networks that will bring greater cohesion to the polarised parts of the self. This process takes place both through various techniques and through the therapeutic relationship that develops between the therapist and the client. Our optimism is based on the fact that the brain's ability to erase old networks and create new ones (neuroplasticity) lasts a lifetime. It may slow down as we grow older, but it remains present until our very last breath. To give a visual image regarding therapy, in the example above, it might be helpful to develop (sometimes from scratch) a part of the self that is compassionate towards another part: the inner child.
In the dialogue above between the strict critic and procrastination, the wounded inner child is not heard—the child sobbing and sinking into despair upon hearing the harsh, deprecating comments of the strict critic. In other words, an adult part that could simultaneously listen to the person's pain and needs and hold space for them, while also being able to mobilise them towards what they desire in life through the provision of boundaried love.
If the above makes sense to you, I have a mental exercise.
to suggest. You can imagine a bus, which is the bus of your subpersonalities. On this bus are all those parts you may have already discovered, but there are empty seats for the ones you will discover along the way. The entire bus constitutes your self, just as a mosaic is made up of much smaller pieces. The questions for you to reflect upon are the following:
- which parts of myself are currently on the bus?;
- which part of me is driving right now?;
- how do the others feel about who is driving?;
- which parts of me are forgotten in the back seats? How do they feel?;
Thus, we could say that in the example above, the strict, critical self drives when the person faces an internal or external expectation that they fail to meet, and once the critical self has driven the bus of the self with the pedal pushed firmly to the floor, to prevent everyone from crashing, the procrastinating self takes over and brings the bus to a halt…
In closing this article, I believe that a realistic goal in both our inner lives and with those around us is to gain greater cohesion—or in other words, better cooperation—both with the aspects of ourselves and the people we “like” very much, and with the aspects of ourselves or people we “dislike”. For me, this is also one of the core messages of group psychotherapy, where we are called to reconcile both with the parts of ourselves that others highlight (mirror back to us) and with the aspects that others radiate towards us. Collaboratively, toward a meaningful life.