Parts Psychology: A Trauma-Based, Self-State Therapy for Emotional Healing

This book adopts a novel, even revolutionary, approach to healing a wide range of psychological problems in therapy. The premise is that all of us have a number of multiple personalities (self-states) within us who powerfully influence every aspect of our lives. By locating these internal parts and neutralizing the effects of the high-energy, often traumatic, experiences that created them, Parts Psychology demonstrates that patients can heal rapidly and completely from long-held emotional issues.
<P>The core of the book contains the healing narratives for 12 patients who, except for the problems that brought them to therapy, lead relatively normal lives. Several chapters describe the treatment process for such problems of emotional intimacy as lost love, low sexual desire, jealousy, and sexual swinging. Others describe issues of compulsion such as binge eating, porn addiction and bulimia. Several chapters detail success stories in the treatment of anger and rage, depression, grief and anxiety. Child abuse appears in the history of a number of patients. Each story begins with the first meeting with the therapist and concludes when the patient graduates from therapy.
<P>A first look at patients’ inner worlds might suggest multiple personality disorder (dissociative identity disorder) and many are shocked to find that they can have conversations with themselves. However, the case studies illustrate that having unconscious parts (subpersonalities) is normal. Therapy with these patients involves the identification of each person’s internal parts as an essential aid to healing the emotional issues that brought them to therapy. Parts Psychology views therapy as a process of discovery of each patient’s own world of parts rather than the world of the therapist imposed upon the patient. Most commonly, patients’ visualized images of their internal parts appear as versions of themselves, varying in dress, facial expression, or body posture. Generally, some internal images appear as child parts, and sometimes in the form of the opposite gender. For example, women’s angry parts often appear as male. Less frequently, but commonly, internal parts may appear as animals, animated film characters, colors, geometric symbols, or natural phenomena such as fire or clouds. Although people may use fascinating images to represent their internal worlds, the more important content of a part of the self is its unique set of memories. Life experiences recorded in the memories are the subject matter for therapy. Adult issues always have to do with the painful or novel life experiences that created the parts and the problems in each person’s life.
<P>The introductory and concluding chapters describe the theory that guides the work of parts psychology, and link it to ideas from the early 20th century (Morton Prince) and late 20th century (John and Helen Watkins, Richard C Schwartz). Although the book’s case studies aim for general readers in psychology, the theory chapters invite experienced therapists to do a close reading as they consider adding the framework to their own toolkits.