Dealing With A Divided Self

We talk about ourselves in parts on a daily basis. "Part of me wants to make a really nice dinner and save money, but the other part really doesn't have the energy to cook and would love to order out despite the expense.". "Part of me wants to go back to graduate school but the other says where would I find the time or money". I could spend this whole article coming up with examples. My point is this, we are divided much of the time, we are not one thing and we are not experiencing one thing ever. Pat yourself on the back right now for processing as much of your experience as you do each day and still manage to get things done, have relationships, eat, shower, drive and have a life.

Everyone operates mostly out of the "keep moving forward" part of themselves. The experiences we have seem to happen there in that part of us however this is not entirely accurate. The work I do as a trauma therapist does deal with divided self on the most painful level, however we all have this issue on a spectrum of emotionally complicated pain. The pain is there for all of us. We are divided selves. With trauma, the way to reorganize that self is more complicated however, this thing I call "the work" is something we all need in our lives.

In this article there will be a link to a tool at the end for exploring parts. It will bring you to the ENYA, Everyone Needs You Always page where I post a lot of tools in order to promote this concept and empower you to understand the work that is possible for you. First, let us get detailed so I earn your trust and you choose for yourself if it pulls you into recognition and desire to consider "Dealing With The Divided Self" that is you.

As a therapist for 17 years I have seen the signs of being internally fragmented. Many have experienced intense divides between what trauma can activate. For example, “I will be abandoned if I don’t know how to take care of this without help”, when a stressor occurs. At the same time, the here-and-now side of yourself that can make assessments of danger, “I know I’m safe asking for a balanced amount of help that is not needy.” There can be paradoxical modes of motivation as well such as the desire to be kind and compassionate toward others or to live a spiritual life, on the one hand, and intense impatience with others and a need to judge and control or tell them what they should do.

When people have trusted me and described their conflicts, the patterns became more easily observable and meaningful. These sides of the conflict are parts of an individual voicing a different way of surviving the threats out there, at times what the earlier parts of ourselves did experience as nearly unsurvivable in a felt sense. Some parts get stay and do the moving forward, this is all of us. For those who have traumatic experience, stuck parts can take a lot of energy to keep down over decades. They have less ability to form the usual tools of getting attention of the moving forward parts. We need to give them those tools. There is an art to reconciling the opposites that are so often part and parcel of traumatic experience. In a later article I will show the Narrative Grid tool that can help you see your story and combines the tools of Internal Family Systems with other models. We need many explanatory models that describe each reaction as logical and necessary in the face of threat or abandonment and that reframe them as the survival responses of different parts of the self, to which the individual, in therapy or not, can relate and make meaningful progress with.

The theoretical model called the Structural Dissociation model of Onno van der Hart, Ellert Nijenhuis, and Kathy Steele (2004) has a neuroscience perspective that is valuable here. The theory speaks to the specialized hemispheres of the brain, left brain and right brain, and how this innate structure can serve to facilitate a disconnection under conditions of threat. When we detect danger the left brain is relied on to remain task-oriented, logical and optimistic. Danger can be stress on a spectrum of experiences depending on the individual and for trauma holders, certainly trauma itself and trauma triggers, facilitate a disconnected left brain side of the personality. This side stays focused on the tasks of daily living, while the other hemisphere fosters a steadfast right brain self that remains in survival mode. This mode can be braced and clenched for danger, ready to flee and run, paralyzed in fear, praying for rescue, or too ashamed to do anything but submit.

We have some parts that are easier to identify with or “own” and some parts we effortlessly ignore or dismiss as more against our personality or the one we want to be "me”. Internally, the parts are often in conflict underneath the "keep going" parts. They don't understand if it is safer to freeze or fight? To cry for help? Or to be seen and not heard? They are not allowed to form relationships with each other and so the internal relationships between these fragmented aspects of self stay stuck and the keep showing up in reflected back trauma experiences internally. The traumatic environments for which they had once been solutions don't really work but they keep existing.

The left-brain present-oriented self dominates it's domain and avoids the right-brain survival-oriented parts who dominate theirs. There may be judgement that they are bad parts, the right brainers, or bad qualities to be modified. The right brain parts are equally alienated from what they perceive an absent other half, maybe grow in desperation for what should be there. All the while, the functioning self carries on. We are trying desperately to be “normal. The cost is feeling alienated, or even invaded for some, by the intrusive communications of the parts.

This is a basic overview of how the self does lead a fragmented existence in traumatic experiences, yet the fragmented selves concept applies to us all. Future articles will explore how we can use concepts like Internal Family Systems in a relatable way. I will be developing ways we can combine resources for you to start "the Work" and chose the modes and method of help after that has begun on your terms first. I am a trauma therapist who struggle to see her own parts due to their disconnects and I understand we don't always know how to start talking. These tools can help you hold your story and have a way to see things without knowing exactly.

Between Session Work from ENYA, Everyone Needs You Always. Do "the Work"

Resources

Fisher, Janina (2017-02-23T22:58:59.000). Healing the Fragmented Selves of Trauma Survivors: Overcoming Internal Self-Alienation . Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.

Schwartz, R. (2001). Introduction to the internal family systems model. Oak Park, IL: Trailhead Publications.

Siegel, D.J. (1999). The developing mind: toward a neurobiology of interpersonal experience. New York: Guilford Press. Siegel, D. J. (2010). The neurobiology of ‘we.’ Keynote address, Psychotherapy Networker Symposium, Washington, D.C., March 2010.