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Partswork Discussion Sept 2019
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Hey Amber. It is SO cool to read about the intention around the Parts work you share here! I appreciate the formalized approach to doing parts work here and utilizing the interview process to bring out the identity of your client’s parts. Your navigation around her conflict and “Shouldn’ts” reads as so tactful and exciting. I am reminded through your reflection of the value of working through some of these initial interviewing assignments with a client to help inform suggestions like “how to incorporate Soul” into the experience. I appreciate your approach to this and what’s coming up for me is an excitement to explore this with my practice client if we continue to the eagerness she displayed at our first exposure/exploration of this lens in our sessions together. I appreciate the aside/question around the unnamed “Doubt” maybe being a fear as an underlying experience rather than a part…I find that a tricky part of the navigation myself and appreciate you carrying onward with guiding your client’s exploration without seemingly getting caught up in it during the session itself! Sure do miss ya! Look forward to catching up at the Starhouse!
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Hey Mel! Thank you for highlighting how parts work adds to your approach by (i think this is what you were saying) creating a more dynamic observation field for your client. Reading between the pauses in the story, maybe? Am I projecting a little here? Oops! And the appropriateness of incorporating Partswork as an introduction to the client’s Soul part as a grounding source, “encouraging connection at that level” is such a wonderful lens for this incorporation. I also resonate with what came up for me in reading your initial post around nature being an element of the session regardless of location. I LOVE the exchanges thus far with practice clients around something that I cannot recall if Michael or Derek mentioned, that WE ARE NATURE. Having a phone session with a client while they have made it a point to be on their back porch by the creek with the dog…and then I name my surroundings and happen to be at my friend’s shop in a room with no windows and a loudly vibrating heating element rattling out of the wall! that is my environment in that moment…and my perspective, embrace of it is what I try to highlight, work off of, rather than the aesthetics! Anyways, I appreciate you naming the presence of Nature in ALL things.
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Summary: In reading how many of you provided insights and reflections on your practice clients over the course of multiple sessions, I am looking forward to begin tracking my client sessions thoroughly. I will NOT say “more thoroughly” as I have been quite lax in maintaining formalized files or something similar for each practice client.
My takeaways from this module are largely around approach. I love how, as Amber mentioned in her summary, complementary Gestalt and Parts work can flow together. The practice of the lens of Gestalt when working with a client not only to see the initial baseline shifts; but also, to sort of feel out/ask into whether or not the client has slid into a different part. I am also growing more aware of how isolated I may be approaching practice sessions through this particular discussion board of this module. In balancing out my work with groups through the nonprofit, I am becoming aware that I have a low expectation of repeat client interaction through the unfortunate inconsistency of client participation among the sober living facilities and programs I work with. I am curious and will check in with this moving forward with my 1-on-1 sessions, if I carry that sadness/low expectation of continuation of care/multiple sessions with me and project it at all onto the client/into our session…something for me to look well into! I have had a warm/enthusiastic reception to exploring a client’s parts, or rather encouraging them to explore their parts, and am also appreciative of how being present with what the client brings to the session is the best way for us to decide if leaning into Parts work is the way to go. And another take away is that this is not just a checklist to run through. The less I speak, the more I actively listen and take in what the client is offering up, the more this will begin to flow as a journey of exploration. I am grateful for my practice clients’ willingness and open-mindedness to support ME in my navigation of this work. And am SO pleased to be back trudging through this work online and re-engaging with you all. Albeit on a hefty delay! -
PARTSWORK Conclusion
I think I’m starting to get the hang of PartsWork, though explaining it still feels like the most difficult aspect. When clients bring up “part of me felt this way and another part felt that way” I dive in. And we seem to do okay until it comes to actually naming the parts. Then we both seem to overthink it and way too many named parts show up.
I’m currently working with a client who has done IFS with a therapist she is no longer seeing…a man she says is one of the top specialists in Connecticut. It seems he focused on “the child” with her. What she described was a number of children, herself at different ages. It sounded very different than the version of PartsWork we are being taught. Not knowing where to go with all this I dropped it for quite a while…until the other day…when I heard her manipulator show up as she was discussing her relationship with her son. Previously we have had several discussions on her need to manipulate others and her dislike of being manipulated. So I recognized the likelihood of this being a part. I didn’t tell her this. Instead I listened to the story of her visit with her son and her son’s girlfriend’s family. She has a very strong self-awareness of her discomfort in feeling that she is losing her son’s affections and caring as his relationship with his girlfriend deepens. She has explained how this is all tied into her childhood. I leave that aspect to the therapists. She described how she can’t seem to stop herself as she intentionally does the opposite of what her son requests. I asked her what part of herself was manipulating her son. She named it “the restrainer”. It restrains others from getting what they want as she, in this case the mother, does what she wants . She is relatively clear on what the restrainer wants for the mother…the love that was denied her in her own childhood by both parents and brother. She was also aware of her dislike of this behavior. During this conversation and previous session it was clear to her that what she really is looking for in her own behavior is to be kind loving and compassionate. So I asked her if there was someone who might help her in obtaining this and in stopping the manipulator before something happened that could not be undone. With no hesitations she said Ms. Appreciator! The part of her that loves and appreciates life!
I was surprised that she found this part of herself so quickly but didn’t hesitate to seek out the resource anchor that she could use to bring Ms. Appreciator to the forefront when the restrainer was looming largely. She thought for a few moments and pointed out the comfort she felt using the hand warmers I had let her borrow on this particularly cold day. It was something she could keep in her pocket. Then she remembered a small embroidered sack that had sentimental value. She could put the heater in this. And so it was agreed upon that the next time she would be seeing her son, which was soon, she would buy a hand warmer and put it in the embroidered sack and carry it hidden in the pocket of whatever she was wearing that day. This would serve as a reminder and give her the internal strength she was seeking, to behave in the ways she preferred. And that’s how the session ended. In the future I plan on further understanding and naming the various parts and begin mandala work.
