not_doing_it

"We're not doing it the right way!"

I believe the time has come to open up the whole "psychology of the selves" to the outside world and connect to the hundreds of new ideas and the countless areas of new research that is going on around us and that are closely related to the work we are doing. As Hal and Sidra have reminded us so may times, this work is not ours exclusively, we don’t own it and nor does anyone else. Like any early explorers, we may still be ahead in our understanding of the dialogue process, but only because we have been exploring longer than most other people. Early explorers have a habit of missing out on the rewards when the land they discovered gets opened up for settlement by others. There are so many other people out there now beginning to study the same territory as we have been. They too are pioneers and we need to work with them and share our understandings.

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If you are talking to psychologists, psychiatrists and researchers today you can’t help notice something exciting. More and more of them are recognising the existence of many discrete and separate inner selves within functioning and healthy individuals. Of course they don’t call them "selves". The list of terms grows daily, "life scripts"; "schema"; "repetitive patterns"; "sub-personalities"; "ego states"; the "society of minds"; "inner families" are just a few. Some of these terms have been used since the 1960’s (see bibliography) but the acceptance is growing that, whatever you call them, these are not just abstract hypothetical models.

Quite rapidly the broad world of psychology is coming to appreciate that these selves (or sub-personalities or ego states or whatever) exist not as abstract hypothetical models but (as classic voice dialogue advocates have known for years) as living and totally real parts of our overall personality.

For some years we might we have been the only people to specialise in developing the skills and formats for dialogue with the selves (as we chose to call them) but even this process is now becoming more widely recognised. Therapists might not call it "classic voice dialogue" but when you watch them in action you can’t help noticing that what they are doing is remarkably similar. As yet we may be one of the few groups that have grasped the enormous significance of the aware ego and its ability to balance opposite energies, but that too is gaining recognition among other researchers who have discovered similar concepts as part of their own work, without their having heard of Hal and Sidra Stone, inner selves or aware egos.

To remain as a valid voice within this expanding field of knowledge may even mean letting go of some of our familiar terms that we have used for so long, like "inner selves" and "aware ego" and "disowned" or "primary" and "even "classic voice dialogue" in order to fit our work into the broader picture in which we are only one of many kinds of players. It may mean letting go of the idea that there is a right or wrong way to dialogue (and if there was that we would be the only ones to have known about it.) It almost certainly involves a closer examination of the idea of restricting the types of selves to just two, Primary and Disowned, a concept far too limited to cover the number of rich variations in energies that selves exhibit..

I am one of the people who is choosing to take this direction in 2005 and if you are not too appalled by my heresy, you will be able to keep in touch with my new directions over the coming months. Yes there will be new terms, yes, some of the old terms will be redefined. No it definitely will not be about how to know or judge the "right" way, or how do it "by the book". The few do’s and don’ts will be just warnings – advice about processes that could harm the client or a technique that could disturb a client if not handled with care.

All this has an enormous significance for those of us who seek to train others in these processes. If we cling to the idea that classic voice dialogue is a separate process (and let’s face it one that has a rather new age image) that must be used on its own, we are in danger of being left far behind in the field. If we claim that it should not be combined it with other processes or in combination with actual therapy (which classic voice dialogue is not) we will clearly miss the bus, because other people are already pioneering this area. (With considerable success).

If, as trainers, we claim there is one "right way" or a "wrong way" to do classic voice dialogue (which happens to be the way we teach it) then we are in danger of being left further and further behind.

If you have read even a few of the articles on this page you’ll notice that I don’t suggest that anyone should do classic voice dialogue "by the book" in fact I am in serious doubt as to what "the book" is anyway. I maintain that there is no one "right" or "wrong" way to do classic voice dialogue, no such thing as "pure" classic voice dialogue and no fixed rules about exactly how we should or should not facilitate as long as the process creates some awareness, is energetically positive and does no harm to the people involved.

I believe it is also inappropriate for one "trained" classic voice dialogue facilitator to judge anyone else’s understanding of the work and I get even more uncomfortable these days* when this judgment extends to how well that other person is handling the growth of their own personal awareness. Yet I have met classic voice dialogue "trainers" who judged others in this way, because the observed growth did not parallel the direction in which the "trained" facilitator has chosen to develop their own awareness (or the direction described in the mythical "rule book".)

*(OK so I’ve done it myself in the past. I can see now that that was my judge, knower, rule-maker, patriarch team doing the same thing I am writing about. I am now trying to make amends for that.)

There is something ironic, sad and even humorous about one person telling someone else that they are "not doing classic voice dialogue the right way". Unless of course it’s the client speaking during a dialogue session and there is some awareness that the voice might be his or her rule-maker, judge, knower, patriarch/matriarch or a combination of these selves. Yet this attitude still turns up both here in Australia, in the USA and even in Europe. But I must emphasise NOT in Mendocino. Hal and Sidra have often stressed how important it is for those who work with the Psychology of the Selves to keep trying new ways of looking at the selves as well as dialoguing with them.

To avoid doing so might be the only example of truly "not doing it the right way."

For a glimpse of some of these new views written in 2004- see New ways, New Directions, New Names

For the most recent (2004) articles click on A pragmatist's storytelling approach to Inner self and self-awareness - and how to use them to make changes that make a difference

Feedback - please e-mail me John Bligh Nutting - at nutting@growingaware.com.au

Don't worry about these copyright notices at the foot of each page. It just means I want to hang on to legal ownership of what I write for use in future books. Until that day, please feel free to copy and even adapt them for your own use and for friends as long as you acknowledge me as the author and owner of the copyright and you don't charge anyone for them. If you want to use them professionally or commercially (charge a fee for them) or for clients, each sheet you hand out must include full acknowledgment of copyright ownership as above and if you are benefiting as a result, I would appreciate an appropriate sharing.

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