Alexa Delroy
Psychotherapist
I will
I will
I will
Who will care for me?
I will
I will
I will
I will
More About Voice Dialogue
VULNERABILITY is the heart of the matter. In this illustration, vulnerability is depicted as a baby – because a baby is completely open and can be easily hurt.
It is our necessary and normal task, as children, to acquire ways to interact with our world that both protect our vulnerability and allow us to express ourselves. For example, the baby (often, but not always) learns that by smiling and pleasing others it gains the approval of others and can influence its environment. You could call this pattern of associated thoughts, feelings and behaviours the birth of a "Pleaser" ‘self'. The Pleaser becomes a part of the personality, or, in other words, a part of the functioning ego.
VULNERABILITY poses the question, "Who will take care of me?" and our unique nature interacts with its environment to provide answers – the ‘selves', which we come to think of as Ourself. These ‘selves', in effect, are saying, "I will take care of you."
There is a hidden cost to acquiring a well-functioning Pleaser self. In order to identify with, for example, pleasing, the baby must disown the opposite quality: pleasing itself or "selfishness." It must become partial. However, that fact does not seem important when the need to protect its vulnerability is pressing. The cost may only be felt much later.
Each ‘self' is acquired to answer the needs of our life, and each persists because it works in a particular important context. Our life comes to be "run" by these Primary ‘selves'.
So – a person might acquire a Hard Worker ‘self', a Caregiver ‘self', an In Control ‘self', a Clown ‘self' – the possibilities are endless. And for each ‘self' with which they are identified, they have to give up its opposite.
Which ‘selves' are you identified with? Who is taking care of your vulnerability? What qualities are no longer available to you? And what part does this play in your present situation?
It is our necessary and normal task, as children, to acquire ways to interact with our world that both protect our vulnerability and allow us to express ourselves. For example, the baby (often, but not always) learns that by smiling and pleasing others it gains the approval of others and can influence its environment. You could call this pattern of associated thoughts, feelings and behaviours the birth of a "Pleaser" ‘self'. The Pleaser becomes a part of the personality, or, in other words, a part of the functioning ego.
VULNERABILITY poses the question, "Who will take care of me?" and our unique nature interacts with its environment to provide answers – the ‘selves', which we come to think of as Ourself. These ‘selves', in effect, are saying, "I will take care of you."
There is a hidden cost to acquiring a well-functioning Pleaser self. In order to identify with, for example, pleasing, the baby must disown the opposite quality: pleasing itself or "selfishness." It must become partial. However, that fact does not seem important when the need to protect its vulnerability is pressing. The cost may only be felt much later.
Each ‘self' is acquired to answer the needs of our life, and each persists because it works in a particular important context. Our life comes to be "run" by these Primary ‘selves'.
So – a person might acquire a Hard Worker ‘self', a Caregiver ‘self', an In Control ‘self', a Clown ‘self' – the possibilities are endless. And for each ‘self' with which they are identified, they have to give up its opposite.
Which ‘selves' are you identified with? Who is taking care of your vulnerability? What qualities are no longer available to you? And what part does this play in your present situation?
The above is just a taste of the model of the psyche called the Psychology of Subpersonalities and the Aware Ego Process developed by Drs. Hal and Sidra Stone. Voice Dialogue facilitation is the method they created for providing access to these structures in the psyche. It is friendly and respectful toward the ‘selves' with which we are identified, and allows us to enter into relationship with those qualities we have disowned.
Rational mind
In control
Pleaser
Clown
Caregiver
Hard worker
I will
I will
Aware Ego is the ability to hold and have access to both sides of us without being identified with either. Ultimately, only Aware Ego can take care of our VULNERABILITY in a way which enables us to remain whole.
Voice Dialogue
Aware Ego is the gift of doing this work. Through facilitating and then separating from the ‘selves', we gain Aware Ego relative to the ‘selves'.
Copyright © 2008 by Alexa Delroy . Webmaster: Sheila Ascroft. Banner photo by ©Tim O'Lett