With apologies to people suffering with Multiple Personality Disorders of any type, I hope I can borrow the term for the purposes of an analogy or metaphor.
I have mentioned Richard Schwartz and his Internal Family Systems (IFS) work before. IFS describes our minds as naturally having multiple ‘parts’ or characters. When I say ‘multiple personalities’ this is what I mean.
In the content of the Are vs Should Problem, we have to look at our selves as being comprised of more than just two parts; the Are and the Should. In fact, there are many Shoulds. I’m not sure if there are multiple Ares because I believe the Are is defined by our unique DNA. So for now we’ll consider ourselves as being comprised of at least one Are, and multiple (maybe 5-25) unique Shoulds we have learned and developed as we became Domesticated.
In my personal IFS work I have come to understand this model and believe it is not only incredibly useful, it fits in very well with the Are vs. Should Problem. These parts have origins, develop distinct personalities, and seem present consistently enough to warrant focused consideration.
This week I’ll use the IFS model to describe our ‘parts’, how they relate to the Are vs Should Problem, and how these parts come to be.
