| Most
of us may be aware of only one personality - the one that
behaves rationally and responsibly and faces the world
each day, explain the Stones, authors of the book Embracing
Ourselves. Yet with practice, they say, we can
learn to uncover and talk to other "hidden selves."
Eventually, we may discover a cast of 40 or 50 sub -personalities
within, although the majority of us begin with a repertoire
of perhaps five or six. That prospect may seem frightening,
given that many books, movies, and TV shows depict multiple
personalities as manifestations of mental illness in which
an unsuspecting character switches back and forth between
a "good" and an "evil" persona. But
as Sidra Stone explains, "Psychotics have a full
amnesiac barrier between the different selves, and none
of them connect. Healthy individuals have a strong ego
that allows them to communicate with all these personalities
and come away with new experiences and new insights."
At the Delos Institute in Mendocino, California, Sidra,
age 60, and Hal, age 70, hold weeklong workshops to help
people make such alter ego connections. Five facilitators
work one-on-one with participants, who meet in intimate
groups of 12 to 14. "in these seminars, we treat
these selves just like real people," Sidra says.
"We ask for their concerns and opinions. That's the
essence of Voice Dialogue."
Much of their inspiration, say the Stones, comes from
the Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung, who 50 years ago put
forth his theory of "archetypes." It was Jung's
goal to help people understand the main characters or
forces at work within the human psyche. His dramatis personae
included the Great Mother and the Devouring Mother, the
Good Father and the Tyrant, the Wise Old Woman and the
Wise Old Man. Jung believed we could communicate with
them though a technique called active imagination. That
means sitting down in a quiet place, then holding an imaginary
conversation with them, just as in childhood, one might
talk to an imaginary friend.
The whole purpose is to get a dialogue going, to express
one's fear or discomfort, or even to ask for wisdom and
advice.
Voice Dialogue differs from Jung's technique in that it
asks us to roll up our sleeves, take a deep breath, and
actually embody all these different personae. A workshop
facilitator interviews the various selves; if the personalities
get too pushy or too powerful, the facilitator can intervene.
"We ask each participant to actually get up and move
around the room, until she finds the place that personality
wants to speak from," Sidra explains. "The Vulnerable
Child may curl up on the floor, and the Mother may sit
very upright in her chair. The first thing we try to do
is identify that self and observe its physical energy.
"As people enter different selves," she adds,
"their blood pressure changes, and so does the color
of their skin. When you talk to the vulnerable child,
the brow will flatten out and wrinkles often disappear.
Some selves stutter because they're insecure. After a
while, you get adept at identifying the selves and their
different energy fields."
Modern psychology has a tendency to look at all these
selves as splinters or unrelated fragments of the psyche,
but Voice Dialogue shows us how they come together and
work as a system. The key to controlling and integrating
such a system is cultivation of an aware ego. That gives
us a neutral ground, a way to listen to the different
voices in others and in ourselves. "Every time we
identify and interview a different self," says Sidra,
"we then request that the person step back into the
aware ego and process the information. We ask, 'What did
you think about what the Artist had to say?' Or, 'How
do you feel about the demands you've just heard from your
Inner Critic?'"
"The Aware Ego," adds Hal, "can listen
to all sides and embrace the opposites. It can hold the
tension between the part of you that wants to be committed
and the part that needs independence, between the part
of you that loves your job and the part that wants to
quit and take a flier. "
Once you become comfortable with these personalities,
you can draw on them for greater awareness in everyday
life. "You can play these different selves like an
orchestra," explains Sidra. "But the aware ego
is the master conductor: It can pull in different selves
and tune them up or tune them down."
The Stones discovered the different selves early in their
own relationship. One day Hat said to Sidra, 'You know,
there's a vulnerable little girl in you. Will you let
me talk to her?" Sidra agreed, and soon curled up
in the posture of a tiny child. "We were both astonished
that this quiet person had emerged," Sidra recalls.
"Most of the time I'm very extroverted and rational.
This creature was in touch with the magic of the world,
saw colors more intensely, and was highly intuitive."
Over time, Hal and Sidra got to know the Vulnerable Child
in each other. "These inner characters helped us
dive beneath our fancy psychological terms and go directly
to our feelings," Sidra notes. The Vulnerable Child,
the Stones believe, is the core self, but is so shy and
sensitive that we develop one or two other "dominant
personalities" to deal with other people's demands
and "make it in the world." Here are some dominant
personalities most of us utilize from time to time:
The Protector wants to be sure we are well fed
and financially secure.
The Pleaser wants us to "be nice" so
others will love and accept us.
The Pusher wants us to put our nose to the grindstone
and "live up to our responsibilities."
The Perfectionist says, "If you do everything
right, then you will be loved."
The Caretaker says, "Be responsible. Everybody
else's needs come first."
The Rational Thinker says"Don't be flaky.
Stick to the facts."
The Inner Critic is that voice that censors us
and says, "You're not good enough. You'll never make
it. You're not original."
The dominant self is concerned with our need for love
and protection, but when it takes control, Sidra says,
it can end up boxing us in. "It is like an overprotective
parent. It takes over because it doesn't want to see us
hurt. It wants to make us socially acceptable, and in
doing so, it can hamper our creativity and growth."
Because it acts as the gatekeeper nothing happens psychologically
without its permission - the Stones make sure to validate
the dominant self, to thank it for the contribution it
makes to the participant's daily life. Then they try to
find out more about its main concerns. They interview
each person in the group to identify the dominant personality,
then begin asking simple questions, such as, "How's
your week been? How's your relationship with your spouse?
Is there anything you'd like to talk about today?"
"The first thing I told the Stones about myself was
that I'm a single working mother," says participant
Laura Holmes. "But I didn't realize how much time
I spent in mother mode until I got to the workshop. It
was clear in that initial interview that I was obsessed
with being a Caretaker. This was the self that was running
my daily life."
Laura's Caretaker, she recalls, was a no-nonsense personality
who felt she was an authority on parenthood: "I was
there for Laura when she was pregnant. I took her to the
library and had her read everything about early childhood
development. I make sure she takes good care of her son
and doesn't neglect him. And I make sure she takes cares
of a lot of other people, too."
The Stones asked the Caretaker, "is there anything
you'd like Laura to pay more attention to?" "You
bet," came the reply. "I'd like her to pay more
attention to me and forget that singer. How can she be
a good mother if she auditions for the opera and wants
to be an artist?"
"This is how one personality leads us to another,"
Sidra explains. "in that moment, we identified a
disowned self, one that Laura had been taught to repress
or ignore." Whereas the dominant self tends to be
overprotective and controlling, the disowned selves are
often playful, humorous, and freewheeling, with the risk-taking
and unconventional tendencies so often frowned on by a
culture that overemphasizes responsibility and achievement.
"The disowned selves are the parts of us we were
taught are unacceptable, inefficient, or downright unworthy,"
Sidra emphasizes. "They might include the Beach Bum,
the Risk Taker, the Rebel, and the Drop-out. They may
also include the more inspired roles of the Artist, the
Dreamer, and the Visionary. We abandon these inner selves
because society labels them unproductive or frivolous.
Yet when we start to honor them, we discover a whole new
range of creative possibilities."
In the workshop, Laura got to enter the world of the Artist
and listen to the singer's point of view. "When I
became the singer," Laura notes, "I gave out
a completely different energy. I crossed my legs, moved
my chair forward, and was immediately more theatrical."
Laura learned that the Caretaker and the Artist both had
long lists of things they wanted her to accomplish. She
suddenly understood why she always felt as though she
"had too much to do and was always running out of
time."
Talking to the different selves can be like running a
family meeting or mediating between two heavily armed
opponents, Sidra observes. The dominant selves are terrified
by their opposites and can put up a good deal of resistance
when they start to emerge. The Pusher, for example, fears
the Beach Bum. The Protector is unnerved by the Risk Taker.
The Pleaser finds the Rebel dangerous and out of line.
The Perfectionist looks with horror at the Drop-out who
doesn't care about an ordered life. The Caretaker fears
the Artist who might run out on her responsibilities.
The Rational Thinker tries to quash the Dreamer. The Inner
Critic wants to disarm the Visionary.
The Voice Dialogue technique, say the Stones, can be especially
useful in times o transition, such as when you're starting
a new job or relationship. First you need to identify
the conflicting voices that are present and feel the tension
as they begin to pull against each other. The next step
is to ask someone you trust to talk to the conflicting
parts of you: the part that wants to get married and the
part that wants to keep your independence, or the you
who wants to get that next promotion and the you who wants
to forget about the rat race and go off on a Buddhist
retreat.
"You may have to repeat this process a number of
times, until the selves finish giving you their information,"
Sidra observes. "in the end, however, you should
be able to make a mote conscious decision based on all
the data you've received."
In their second book, Embracing Each Other,
the Stones focus on the role alternate selves play in
our relationships. "The people we are attracted to-or
end up in conflict with over and over again -- carry the
selves we need to learn from," says Sidra. Often
a woman who plays the "martyr' may end up with a
self-centered man to learn how to get her needs met. Or
a computer specialist, who works in a cool, technical
atmosphere, picks an emotional mate to make contact with
his passion. It's the old saw - we choose our opposites-and
then sign up for a long and sometimes arduous apprenticeship.
But when one person in the relationship integrates a disowned
self, the whole dynamic changes. "I once worked with
a couple who owned a business together," Sidra recalls.
"He was a relaxed, laid-back guy. One of his primary
selves was a Beach Bum, a real loose character who never
worried about anything. The wife was stuck with the Perfectionist.
She took the books home, watched the inventory and was
so obsessed she couldn't sleep at night. The harder she
worked, the more relaxed he got. When I showed the woman
how to stand up to her Perfectionist, she started being
less responsible, and the husband had to pick up his load.
Finally they sold the business because they both wanted
a less stressful life." 
Miriam Dyak and her husband, Richard Berger, have been
going to Voice Dialogue workshops since 1985. "We
run a gallery in Seattle," says Miriam, "and
we have different styles of dealing with finances. When
it's time to take a risk, I often go into the frightened,
vulnerable self. Then Richard feels I'm being negative.
He wants to be the creative entrepreneur and my fear is
stopping him. We take time out to explore these different
points of view and then we make our critical decisions.
Over time, the Voice Dialogue process has deeply enriched
our partnership."
John and Leanne Dougherty, of Knoxville, Tennessee, found
that the Voice Dialogue workshops gave them a common language.
"Now we have a real communication system," says
Leanne, a therapist. "We can look at each other and
see who's talking, and know which self is present. We
know when to step back and let that personality have its
say."
The Doughertys, who have attended Voice Dialogue workshops
for the last 15 years, are about to teach its techniques
in a new couples group. Leanne already uses it in her
counseling practice and John, a doctor, sometimes uses
Voice Dialogue to interview his patients.
"If someone has chronic headaches, I will ask them
to speak from the self that has the worst time with this
pain." This information comes in handy when he makes
a diagnosis.
Laura Holmes sums up her experience in the workshop: "In
the course of the seminar, I worked with my Caretaker,
my Artist, my Pusher, my Vulnerable Child, and my Inner
Critic. I explored the 'to-do lists' each one of these
selves had for me. And I found a place to stand, in the
aware ego, and began to mediate. After the Voice Dialogue
work, I feel a lot more relaxed. The sense of need and
urgency that underlaid my life is gone."
Says Miriam Dyak, "After doing Voice Dialogue, you
learn not to take your problems so seriously. You are
aware that you've got all these competing voices, so you
lighten up and learn how to go easy on yourself."
SELF-IMAGES
Since many people find it easier to access their various
personalities through images, the Stones have called upon
artist Suzanne Perot, 48, who is an expert in the medium
of collage, to do a special afternoon session at Voice
Dialogue workshops. "Collage allows us to project
our different selves onto a piece of paper," observes
Perot. "We get the picture first. The name for it
comes later. And since this is primarily an intuitive
way of working, there are some surprises. Often a new
self comes forth with valuable information about our relationships
or our creative work."
Participants select random images from magazines, calendars,
and fine art reproductions. Perot gives them a long sheet
of paper and asks them to create a "time line."
The idea is to chronicle the personalities that emerge
at different junctures of their lives. "The collage
will contain images of the Vulnerable Child," she
explains, "but it will also show the selves we take
on later, in order to be validated by the family and the
culture.
"Men who are burdened with a lot of responsibility
invariably choose images of the Provider, but somewhere
in the collage we'll find the Beach Bum who wants to get
away from the daily struggle. Women usually pick images
of the Caretaker, but the opposite personality also shows
up. The Power Self, who wants recognition in the world,
comes out in images of high fashion, diamonds, or dollar
signs."
The "time line" exercise also indicates how
the different personalities work together. In a section
of a collage Perot made for herself, there is a sixties
Flower Child, barefoot, with long straight hair, love
beads, and no makeup. "I played this role for a while,"
she notes, "but inside me there was also a CEO who
made sure I took care of business and was a good mother."
It's useful to look at how we've been helped, in the past,
by our more spontaneous and intuitive selves, adds Perot.
"This encourages us to trust them and call on them
to solve whatever problems we are facing now."
Perot has also developed a three dimensional collage
called the Self Box that helps people to differentiate
between the selves they show the world and the ones they
tend to keep locked away. "We start with a plain
white box, then begin to paste images inside and out.
The selection of the pictures and their placement is unconscious,
but after a while, a pattern forms. On the outside of
the box, we see the dominant selves, like the Provider,
the Caretaker, the Pusher, or the Perfectionist. Inside,
we find images of the Vulnerable Self, as well as pictures
of the Dreamer, the Visionary, or the Artist. Most people
hide those personalities that give voice to their intuition,
their creativity and their spiritual nature."
The collage workshop gave Kathleen Downes, a former university
teacher and researcher, a glimpse of an emerging self.
"I was surprised by the images I chose. My collage
showed an adventurer and traveler, and that personality
became dominant in the next few months. I'm in the process
of reshaping and reinventing my career, and I've been
attending professional conferences in Bali, Hawaii, and
New Zealand. I used to think there was only one right
way to do things. But the workshop helped me to realize
there are many different selves living inside me. It gave
me permission to include them and to live in a more creative
way."
WRITING THE SELVES
Writing is another way to connect with our alternative
identities. "A human being is a very complex system,"
observes poet and novelist Deena Metzger, who leads writing
workshops in her home in Topanga Canyon, California, and
nationwide. Participants in her seminars create characters,
write their histories, and get to know them intimately.
"Each one of us is a little universe, filled with
many different selves," says Metzger, author of Writing
for Your Life. Yet we rarely get a chance to explore what
it might be like to stand in the shoes of another person-say,
a midwife or a healer, a peace worker, a tribal elder,
a teenage mother, a gang member, an Inca chief. "We
are vessels in which many selves and values coexist. The
problem is that we are taught to choose and develop only
one."
Metzger, 60, whose recent books Tree and Intimate Nature
focus on the richness and diversity of the natural world,
urges her students "to take a risk, delve into new
realities, go into the unknown. Writing works only when
you move beyond the limits of your routine personality.
A story gets exciting when you have the courage to explore
what it's like to be somebody else."
Workshop participant Karen Gottlieb grew up in a suburban
house in Queens, New York, with loving and protective
parents. Yet she "happened upon" a character
named Johnny Stiletto. "He's slim-hipped, sharp,
and doesn't take crap from anybody. He can get around
in a tough urban environment and he lives in the shadows.
He's the street kid that I never was and he helps balance
out my polite exterior. He lives in the recesses of my
psyche, but he also has a place - a geographic location
in the world."
Metzger's students don't dialogue with their characters.
Instead they get to know these "selves" as they
tell their stories. When Metzger once asked class members
to write about someone they wouldn't ordinarily meet,
L.A. psychotherapist Jane Plotkin was afraid she wouldn't
come up with anything at all. Suddenly she got an image
of a nine year-old black girl wearing a plaid dress. "She
just popped into my mind and at first, I was afraid I
wouldn't know how to relate to her," she recalls.
"But I watched and listened to her, and slowly her
story unfolded. I saw that she was in prison, sitting
on a cot with her mother who had been arrested for shoplifting.
I saw that her mother's spirit had been broken, but this
child had a plumb line to the spiritual roots of the black
tradition. She was an old soul in a little girl's body.
She remembered how to draw sustenance from the world,
even from the ground of slavery.
"This is a profound creative process and it's bound
to spill over into other areas of your life," says
Plotkin. "On one level, I have a new sensitivity
to myself and others. As I learned how to participate
in the world-view of this little girl, I discovered a
quality of innocence and openness. And I learned about
a strength that goes back through the generations and
whose roots are deeper than our family of origin."
Over the last 25 years of helping students evoke their
different selves, Metzger has developed techniques for
jump-starting the imagination. "I like timed exercises,
because they force people to move past the inner critic
and draw upon their intuition. I ask my students to do
the impossible - to pick a character and write his or
her life history in ten minutes. When you have to work
fast, there's no time to be self-conscious. You have to
write down the first thing that comes into your head."
Metzger also works with lists and free association. "Right
now, I'm teaching women who have breast cancer. I give
them ten minutes to list all their memories and associations
with that illness. This sounds difficult, but its astonishing
how well it works." Participants write a paragraph
or two on each image or association. Finally, they write
a fictional story of a woman who has breast cancer, incorporating
their own memories and life experiences.
In this workshop, Metzger also asks participants to create
a character who has learned how to heal herself. To get
them started, she requests that they make a list of all
the moments in their lives when they felt whole and empowered
- for example, the time I stood up to my boss, the day
my son was born, or the long-awaited vacation I finally
gave myself. The women expand upon this list until they
can tell the story of a character who has survived her
diagnosis and gone on to renew her life. By the end of
the class, Metzger says, "We have explored two different
selves - the one who suffers and the one who learns how
to nourish and cure. The profound lesson is that both
these selves are intertwined. One could not exist without
the other. There is a direct link between our own health
and well-being and our ability to validate these different
selves."
THE MEDIUM AND THE MESSAGE
Which method is best for exploring the various and numerous
inner selves? That's a matter of personal preference,
everyone agrees. For people who feel comfortable being
interviewed and acting out, Voice Dialogue has great appeal.
"It's an excellent tool for business executives because
it honors the rational mind," John Dougherty adds.
"And it's an easy process for men to relate to, because
we tend to be systematic thinkers. It helps us to make
a bridge to the more emotional and intuitive aspects of
our lives."
More visually oriented people may prefer Perot's collage
workshop, but it's also surprisingly effective for overly
articulate types. "It can help people go deeper than
words and get to a place that's more visionary and intuitive,"
Perot explains.
Deena Metzger's writing seminars attract people who like
to create complex worlds and follow their characters into
dark and unfamiliar territory. "I'm a very private
person, so I prefer working in my notebooks," explains
one workshop participant.
But whatever the medium, these methods all achieve the
same end enabling participants to uncover hidden parts
of themselves and integrate them into the kind of person
they'd really like to be. *
Valerie Andrews, a writer living in Sonoma, California,
is also the director of Sacred Words: The Center for Healing
Stories.
RESOURCES
Voice Dialogue Workshops are offered throughout the year
in Mendocino, California, and in major US cities. For
more information, or to order Voice Dialogue audiocassette
tapes, videos and books by Hal and Sidra Stone,
contact:
Suzanne Perot gives workshops through Voice Dialogue
and at her studio in Sonoma, California. For information
call: 707-938-3465.
Deena Metzger offers ongoing writing workshops.
For information call: 310-455-1089.
|
We
occasionally catch glimpses of these alternate selves,
but for the most part our dominant personality - the one
we present to the world - keeps the others in check. In
