The Concept of Self-States in Psychotherapy
/The purpose of poetry is to remind us
how difficult it is to remain one person,
for our house is open, there are no keys in the doors,
and invisible guests come in and out at will.
—Czesław Miłosz
Many people struggling with life difficulties find themselves as stuck in a fixed pattern of existence. The concept of self-states (a term popularized probably most famously by the late psychoanalyst Philip Bromberg), however, can help people widen their experience of themselves to allow for greater self-awareness, self-acceptance and flexibility. Rather than seeing themselves as having a personality set in stone, people can see themselves as experiencing different self-states or distinct “modes of being” in response to particular situations for specific periods of time.
Helps Lead to Greater Self-Acceptance
To be human means to develop less-than-ideal strategies to avoid feelings associated with uncomfortable aspects of one’s personality. The concept of self-states makes it easier for people to examine what they might consider “less desirable” aspects of themselves without letting these aspects define who they are. Unfortunately, people often don’t appreciate how complex they really are—that they have different selves appear in different situations or even within the course of a therapy hour. In psychotherapy all versions of oneself, all self-states, are not only welcome, but need to be recognized in order for a person to retain their sense of identity while changing.
All Parts Are Welcome
Philip Bromberg, the psychoanalyst most often associated with the concept of self-states, writes that “health is the ability to stand in the spaces between realities without losing any of them—the capacity to feel like oneself while being many.” Learning more adaptive coping responses requires the ability to tolerate the conflicting parts of oneself that want different things. Many psychotherapists make the mistake of focusing too much on the part of the patient that wants to change and giving short shrift to the part that wants to stay the same. A good psychotherapist will not only help patients access dissociated self-states (often through enactments), but will then help patients tolerate and work through the ensuing conflict between different self-states so that they can make an active choice to live differently.
Helps to Understand Triggers
An important component of psychotherapy is identifying, exploring and understanding the self-states, or triggers, that precede acting on an urge. Boredom, for example, is a very common self-state that people experience prior to using drugs or using some other form of passive dissociation. It’s important to unpack the meaning of this self-state in therapy, observe it outside of therapy and begin to be curious about why it arises. This way people can develop some familiarity with this part of themselves, learn to predict when it might occur and develop alternative ways to manage this momentary experience.
Helps to Manage Uncomfortable Feelings
There's a good reason the saying "this too shall pass" has survived over the years. A model of the mind that includes multiple self-states is useful because it reminds us that self-states are fluid and therefore will pass. Sometimes I will suggest that the next time someone has an urge to make an impulsive decision or take a rash action, to observe how long the urge state lasts without giving into their sudden emotional trigger. One of the simplest and hardest concepts to grasp is the idea that uncomfortable feeling states are in fact transient and with adequate emotional regulation they can be survived without resorting to self-defeating behaviors.