Have you ever wondered who you really are? In fact, you’ve probably acted rashly or let your passions get the better of you, discovering a side of yourself you didn’t even know existed.
We tend to think of ourselves as a single, indivisible entity, but the truth is that every day we split into different roles. We are the child accompanying their mother to the hospital, but also the parent caring for their children, the loving partner, and the coworker. In all these environments, we not only behave differently, but we also feel differently.
Specifically, the “Theory of Selves” postulates that our personality is fragmented, composed of a multiplicity of selves that take control as needed to protect us from danger, ensure our survival, and make us less vulnerable.
How do these selves develop?
Babies are born with a unique constitution, a quality called a “psychic imprint.” In fact, many mothers notice that their siblings are different from the moment they are in the womb; some are more active and responsive to stimuli, while others are quieter and lazier. However, along with this psychic imprint, babies also have the potential to develop a wide variety of energetic patterns or selves, the combination of which will give rise to their personality.
However, the newborn is helpless and vulnerable, dependent on adults for survival. Very soon, the child learns that to avoid problems and disappointments, he or she must exert a certain degree of control over his or her environment. The attempt to gain this control marks the beginning of his or her personality, which develops as a need to cope with vulnerability; it becomes a shield against the world.
How do you make the child more powerful?
Throughout development, we are rewarded for some behaviors and punished for others. As a result, some behaviors are strengthened and others weakened. Every time we learn a lesson, our personality develops in one way or another.
In fact, one of the first aspects of personality to develop is the controlling/protective self. It’s a kind of bodyguard that constantly looks for dangers that threaten us and determines how it can protect us from them. This self incorporates parental and social rules and controls our behavior. It ensures that we follow a set of rules because these will guarantee our safety and social acceptance. The controlling/protective self determines how emotional we can be and ensures that we don’t act inappropriately or ridiculously.
This self constantly scans our environment to determine which of our behaviors will appeal to the greatest number of people. Under its direction, the simplest and most natural behaviors, such as laughing, lose their spontaneity and become automatic reactions to environmental stimuli. We become less authentic because our controlling/protective self is monitoring and evaluating these supposed threats.
This self is just the first of many others we will develop as we grow. It is a series of subpersonalities that will define us as individuals and that, ultimately, are truly responsible for how we behave. For example, the controlling/protective self will decide whether it is important to be liked by others; if so, a “pleaser” self will be incorporated into the primary self system, whose mission is to obtain approval. The controlling/protective self can also give free rein to a “pusher self,” which would be responsible for constantly motivating us, relentlessly, to achieve success, or it could allow a “perfectionist self” to form.
These primary selves have been created by the controlling/protective self to form a protective shield that defends us from vulnerability, and they are the result of different aspects with which our ego identifies. They also reveal what is important to us at any given moment, which means that this balance of selves can change over the course of life, just as our priorities change.
Some of these selves are pleasant, familiar, and intriguing, but others are strange or even unpleasant, in which case they become “disowned selves.” Basically, these subpersonalities have formed from behaviors that have been punished every time they have emerged. This may have been through punishments such as withdrawal of attention, verbal reprimand, public humiliation, or even physical punishment.
Thus, the child learns that these behaviors and the underlying energetic patterns are not socially acceptable, do not help them gain greater control over their environment, and do not protect them from vulnerability. As a result, they repress them. However, these selves do not disappear completely; they remain in the unconscious, where they continue to determine our lives, albeit surreptitiously.
In fact, according to Self Theory, much of the stress we experience is due to our tendency to attract reflections of our disowned selves into our relationships. In practice, we develop an ambivalent relationship with these selves; we don’t recognize them in ourselves, but we are attracted to them in others. Obviously, the repetition of these patterns in our lives only causes suffering. The solution? Embrace these disowned selves.
The “Dialogue of Voices” technique
The main problem with developing different selves is that we lose track of that initial psychic imprint. Therefore, the stronger our personality, the less vulnerable we will be, but at the same time, the further we will be from our authenticity.
The more powerful a person becomes, the more they lose touch with their unique self. Children sense they must put on a “mask” to deal with the world, but over time, that mask becomes their personality, and they embrace it as their own, until it becomes a part of them. That mask becomes a truth, hiding what is original and authentic within us, since these qualities are frowned upon in society.
What can be done to recover that psychic imprint?
In the early 1970s, American psychologists Hal and Sidra Stone created a highly original technique called “Voice Dialogue,” which they explain in detail in their book “Voice Dialogue Manual: Recognizing and Accepting Everything Within Us.” Its main objective is to channel each self through a conscious ego, so that we can get the best out of each of them.
For example, when a “pusher self” encourages us to push ourselves beyond what is healthy, it’s best to let the opposite self, a “lazy self,” apply the emergency brake. In fact, we must be aware that we all have different energetic patterns that we identify with or reject, and each of these selves has its opposite pole, which operates consciously or unconsciously.
Through Voice Dialogue, we can become aware of this multiplicity of selves and make meaningful choices in our lives. It is a tool that increases our self-awareness and involves a process of internal transformation.
With this technique, the psychologist has direct access to subpersonalities, can separate them from the overall personality, and deal with them as distinct psychic units. In this way, they can discover the different selves without the interference of the protective/controlling self, which acts as a repressive critic.
Furthermore, since each of these subpersonalities experiences life differently, they can provide us with new perspectives on the problems we face or encourage us to live more fulfilling lives. At the same time, by embracing our disowned selves, we accept all parts of ourselves and can take real control, helping us break free from those toxic relationship patterns.
Reference:
Stone, H. & Stone, S. L. (2014) Manual del Diálogo de Voces. Barcelona: Editorial Eleftheria.
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