Dave,
heisenberg69 wrote on Dec 11th, 2009 at 2:36pm:Multiple personalities are a well known phenomenon in clinical psychology- often the result of trauma such as childhood sexual abuse. The film Sybil starring Sally Field was an example of this ( based on the case of Shirley Ardell Mason). These sub-personalities are an individual's way with coping with an intolerable situation but cannot really be considered as 'real' people in themselves.
Dave
One of most satisfying experiences utilizing the concept of "aspects of self" has been working with psychotherapists in Germany. There is a small percentage of clients, perhaps as many as 5 to 10%, that are eventually told that there is nothing else that can be done. They have been through every form of therapy known to the psychoterapist's team without making a dent or scratch in the psychological problems in their lives. In some cases these clients cannot work or be around other people due to their "illness." According to the therapists I work with these clients are eventually told, 'We're sorry, there is nothing more we know to do except give you medications to make your condition more bearable.
One therapist described his first aspect of self therapy session with one such client. After putting the client in a light trance and suggesting that a Helper would come the client began to describe the Helper. The client was instructed to ask the Helper to guide him/her to the source of the present difficulty.
A short time later the client was arguing with the Helper saying that the scene he/she had been brought to could not possibly be the cause of the problem.
After interviewing the Helper, through the client, and the client directly, all during the session, the therapist understood how the events in the scene (from client's present lifetime experience) described a trauma that led to the present psychological difficulties. The therapist then used pretty standard theraputic techniques during that session to help the client deal with that life event in a more constructive way with a more productive, positive outcome.
The client was guided to retrieve the aspect of self from the scene and the experience using the technique I teach in the Self Discovery, Self Healing workshop. The aspect was 'absorbed or reabsorbed' into the body of the client as aspects of self often are.
The kicker was that the therapist told me that after the client was brought out of the light trance after that one session the client was 'cured.' The psychological difficulty was gone and the client was able to go back to work, live and enjoy life.
When people who don't understand the concept of Aspects of Self attempt to explain them away as some profit-motivated, new age, hogwash fantasy I think about the clients of that psychotherapist. He and several other therapists in Germany are using the Aspects of Self concept in conjunction with Helpers in treatment sessions with their most difficult clients. I hear that kind of 'it's all new age hogwash' kind of comment and think about how the lives of those clients are changed, and I smile.
It maybe indeed be such new age, hogwash, but for those clients, it works.
Bruce