"I don't know what's wrong! I know I shouldn't do it, but there's a Part of me that just almost does it automatically before I even notice!" ~
Ding-ding-ding! That's it! Now we're getting somewhere! All of us have inner "Parts" in our subconscious that jump in at certain times or in certain situations and grab the steering wheel to drive the bus. They are called sub-Parts. My instructor affectionately called them Minions who take over and drive the bus while the teacher (our conscious self) is duck-taped to the back emergency door of the bus.
A client of mine was accumulating so many "Parts" from our Parts Therapy hypnotherapy work that she was wondering how to keep track of them to better recognize if they were still popping up in her present-day life and interactions. Throughout my own Parts Work, I have found toys that emulate the transformed Part and kept them on my nightstand or on my desk. This one is my favorite because it's a Knight (my name) but inside it's just a scared little chicken (the "exile" in IFS therapy, or the "inner child" in Parts Therapy in hypnotherapy):
The goal is to acknowledge, heal, and fully integrate our "Parts" into our wholeness (Parts Therapy in hypnotherapy) and ultimately to be completely "Self"-led as Dick Schwartz instructs in his IFS (Internal Family Systems) model. Hypnotherapy's "Parts Therapy" model as first developed by Charles Tebbetts and then advanced by Roy Hunter takes a slightly different approach than IFS where it ultimately infuses a core transformation technique and then "grows up" the Part and integrates it into the present-day adult self.
I was instructed at the Institute of Interpersonal Hypnotherapy to then add in an additional step of setting a trigger and anchor to allow the client to then easily have a way to quickly access the heightened and euphoric state happening during the hypnotic trance state at that moment. That added step is pure gold for the client.
However, many times Parts are interacting and "in Kahoots" with other Parts. It may take several sessions to have the opportunity to unveil, acknowledge, dialogue with, and then integrate each individual Part. Also, it may be necessary to speak to each Part more than once, or even to be able to see a Part that is still driving a certain behavior in life. This is where Mapping of the Parts can be useful.
And this is the area where one of my clients is in with still processing through the many Parts uncovered and acknowledged so far. So I went searching for tools, because I believe in making every step of a process as easy, enjoyable - hence the toys!, and fun as possible.
I came across a blog with the idea of Mapping Parts using Google Keep which gives you the option to use notes to describe the main sections of what we talk about with the Part once we unveil it:
the Part's age
the Part's needs
what behaviors it uses as a strategy
what the Part is triggered by
where in or around the body it uses sensations to get attention
what it's causing in the body to get its needs met
connections to other Parts (e.g. whom it’s protecting or protected by)
the story of origin
the Part's highest intention for the client
You could also use Trello to map out each Part and that's a great app because it's very easy to add visual images or clips from articles, etc. to each board. I'm a visual person, so it was helpful (and fun!) for me to find toys to display as a reminder of why the Parts were causing certain behavior in my life or in my body. But for others, mapping the Parts might be more helpful.
Let me know if you have any other ideas for mapping Parts!
All my best,
Christine
Comments