Authentic Counselling Training
Personality Dissociation:
Subpersonalities and Multiple Personality
[Under construction: 7 July 2005]
Exploring my sub-personality constellation
Preamble
Some parts of Peter wrote this document in 1992,
when 34 years old, and revised it the following year. Each different part was
able to identify fully with its respective section of the document. On
rereading the document in 1996, identification with each of the different parts
of the document had weakened a little. The nature of sub-personalities is that,
through time, and albeit slowly, they can shift around. Now in 2005, despite
many years of counselling, many changes of job, moving house, a major car crash,
the extent to which Peter’s ‘constellation’ has stayed the same is breath-taking.
Interestingly, whilst each sub-personality description feels clearly
recognisable, each has, to varying extents, grown
older.
Introduction
The passages that follow illustrate and explore
some of the different sub-personalities of which I am
comprised and that I am able to recognise. Each passage responds to the
same set of questions (listed elsewhere). Some sub-personalities do not have
particular items on their agenda.
In the process of writing this report, I found
myself becoming increasingly fascinated with the first sub-personality
explored, about which I knew relatively little. Whilst it is a sub-personality
I use only a small proportion of the time, it holds some important (although not
necessarily desirable) aspects of personal and social behaviour. I guess one of
the reasons why this sub-personality has been largely unexplored to date is
that its wealth of anti-social qualities are unacceptable, and even shocking,
to many of the people around me. Reflecting my fascination, the report focuses
to an unbalanced extent on this sub-personality. In the circumstances, such
imbalance does not feel too inappropriate as it illustrates the kind of
material and depth at which I work with counselling clients when helping them
to explore and identify particular sub-personalities. The sketchier
descriptions of some of my other sub-personalities serve more as contrast than
as full and detailed descriptions in their own right.
In writing this report, I have tried to adopt the
language, vocabulary and register of the sub-personality. This process also
fascinates me, both from a literary perspective and from the point of view of
an attentive counsellor. While writing parts of this report, I have been required
to respond to the enquiries of passers-by, and while typing it up, I have taken
telephone calls. I have found it wryly amusing that my responses have been
patently the responses of the particular sub-personality on which I have just
been working. For example, I snapped tetchily at some tourists who noisily
invaded the part of the College (the close and gardens behind Durham Cathedral)
where I was quietly working out some details of the Religious sub-personality. In contrast, while working on the Counsellor sub-personality, I was
helpful and understanding on the telephone with someone who only occasionally
communicates anything but ill-will towards me, and with whom I should prefer to
behave as coldly.
It should be obvious that what is
written here is intended to communicate an impression, and is not to be
taken literally.
A19 Driver
It is late: coming up to 08:40. I am unobtrusively stalking across the A19 Tees
viaduct in my grey, Series 3 BMW. I have twenty minutes driving to achieve in
ten minutes. I am about to tail-gate a white builder's
van in the outside lane, and am poised to slip down into third. Once I have
pushed the van out of the way, I shall accelerate up again to 80, staying in
the outside lane in order to avoid tangling with the slow-moving traffic
entering from the A66. I check in the mirror for police cars, check the fuel
gauge, check the mobile phone to ensure that reception is OK, check ahead to
see what the other traffic is doing, check the mirror again, check my speed
(65) and the alert cycle continues. The cocoon in which I am seated is filled
with Mahler or Sibelius or Genesis, insulating me
against rain, tarmac and lorries. I recall past epic
journeys, such as the time as I drove from Durham
to Cambridge in a beaten up Austin
1300, only to find the car's sub-frame collapsing when I arrived, so I drove
back to Durham the same evening. And the occasion earlier this year when I drove to London
for a lunch-time meeting, and was back in Durham
in time for tea. And the time in the early summer when
I drove to Saffron Walden one afternoon, launched a book that evening, and then
drove home again. And the time, last year, on the news
of my father's death, when I drove foot-on-the-floor to Cornwall:
over 100 down the M5 bank approaching Bristol.
Probably the first time I drove at over 100. (I don't
like to call it ‘a ton’ as some people choose to, because it cheapens the
significance.) I drive at 100 more frequently now, when the road is clear and
once I'm fairly sure that there are no police cars
around. I know that some people think that I am probably a dangerous driver,
and I know that they are wrong. At 33 years of age, I am neither a tearaway nor
a doddering old fool. I remain constantly alert, and read the road carefully
and defensively. I have been driving since I was 17, and have never driven a
car involved in an accident. I rarely fail to predict accurately the moves of
other road-users. I make use of my good judgment to communicate my own
intentions and my expectations of them: I use road-positioning to allow or
prevent drivers from pulling out; I flash my headlamps to give permission; my
hand hovers over the horn whenever I am in fast moving traffic, so as to alert
other drivers that I am coming through. I am in control, and expect things to
remain that way. I scowl at people who will not get out of my way, and consider
them to be ill-mannered. I never scowl at the Mercs and Porsches that approach urgently from behind,
lights ablaze, demanding passage. On the contrary, I move in at once, abhorring
the idea of being seen as an obstacle as much as I
abhor obstacles. I don’t give a pin about their
politics, and feel apathetic about politics and social welfare myself. I have
no interest in getting to know drivers as people. On long journeys, I enjoy
encountering a driver willing to play high-speed cat and mouse, for it retains
high-speed alertness. Fundamentally, my role is to get from A to B as quickly
as possible. Journeys have no value. I admire anything that reduces travelling
time (such as travel by air or high-speed train) and hassle (such as new by-passes), and detest traffic jams, contraflows,
speed restrictions, horse-riders and cyclists. I embrace technology with
enthusiasm, and am able to comprehend statistics and analyse data. In the
appropriate context, I take considerable interest in the technological details
of the aeroplane in which I am flying, the track speeds of given railway lines,
and favourite or hated motorway intersections. I am neither particularly
talkative (I find it difficult to think of other topics to talk about) nor
articulate. I prefer to travel alone, and do not enjoy the company of
passengers. When I am behind the wheel, fashion means little to me. I dress
tidily and semi-formally. They clothes must be clean and comfortable: I hate
ill-fitting clothes that interfere with my concentration. Outside the car, at
service stations, I like to appear reasonably smart: no longer having a machine
to control, I no longer have a means of demonstrating my worth (even if
incompetent road-users are too ignorant to recognise quality driving when they
witness it) but still want to be held in esteem.
Occasionally, during a long drive, I will stop for a coffee (not tea) with my
tie unknotted and top shirt button open: “That's how
hard I drive. I’m no Sunday driver. Take me
seriously.” I am not particularly comfortable about holidays, because, for me,
the ideal holiday is one which is solely driving, and
involves getting back to base as quickly as possible. Stopping at places along
the way is a nuisance. Therefore, the holiday loses all value. I am a fairly easy sub-personality to slip into, partly because I
predominantly exist in a narrow range of environments. I see myself as a tool
to be used like some piece of technology. The
strengths I bring, which have some level of transferability, include:
safety in a dangerous environment; steadfast single-mindedness; an ability to
make judgments and decisions fast; a willingness to pull out all the stops; an
understanding of and admiration for technology, statistics and data. Without
me, Peter would find it difficult to cope with this technological age, and
would probably get treated without respect. My
weaknesses are that I hold few things in life of value; that I am intolerant of
the short-comings of other people; and that I find it
irrelevant and difficult to relate to other people. I am a lousy
sub-personality to use outside the context in which I am generally used, but I
am willing to be used as required.
Counsellor
I am 42 years old. It is important that I wear
clothes that make me as unobtrusive as possible in the context in which I find
myself. I tend to dress up or down to match the person
with whom I am working. I use the language, register and images of the person
with whom I am working. I am like a chameleon. I carry nothing but my clothes
and my skill. I can dive into any situation and swim well, using my skills and
wits to carry me with the current. I drive a grey Ford Escort, not least
because it is unobtrusive, and always travel at the speed of other traffic. I am
not an especially competent driver, and prefer to be somewhere than be
travelling. If I am travelling, I prefer to be with a passenger with whom I can
talk. I do not feel very comfortable about taking holidays, and when I do,
these involve visiting relatives. I do not talk about myself much, and when I
do, I use the disclosure to add depth to the encounter. I do not talk about
other people much, partly because I have a powerful sense of confidentiality,
but also because, even where confidentiality is not involved, I am aware that I
could be saying things that the person about whom I am talking would prefer
left unsaid (at least to the person with whom I am talking). I do not respect convoluted
sentences (like the one this follows) and think carefully about what I want to
say so as to distil my meaning into few words. My
particular value is that I am able to relate to other people extremely well on
their terms, and understand them empathically. To achieve this, I use a trained
and well-developed sense of total alertness. In this I
am alert to verbal, para-verbal and non-verbal
communication. By constructing an artificial ‘virtual reality’
of their world inside a part of me that I keep in readiness for this purpose (‘entering
the client's frame of reference’), I am able to flush from awareness the values
and attitudes that Peter associates with himself. This makes me highly
amoral. I tend to be viewed as extremely liberal. (I
wonder if amorality and liberalism are the same
thing.) I exist only for, and predominantly in relation to, other people. My
strength is my malleability: my ability to relate well to whomever. Without me,
Peter would get to know in depth only a handful of people. My weakness is my
malleability: I am wholly fluid and there is no firm base. I do not know who I
am because I become a ghost of the person with whom I am working. Were I to
take over, Peter would become a shadow. He probably is.
Teacher
I am 43 and a couple of stone overweight. I try
to dress smartly, often in a suit, to wear shiny black shoes, and to be well-groomed. When I do not live up to these expectations,
because a different sub-personality has taken charge (for example, I may have
been using the A19 Driver to get me
safely and quickly to the teaching venue), I feel shabby and embarrassed at
myself. I prefer to dress not too ostentatiously, but to distinguish myself
from the students, not least so that I am communicating the seriousness with
which I am treating the occasion. Unlike the Counsellor, I try to lead people in the direction in which I
believe they ought to be travelling; but like the Counsellor, I will always start from wherever they are coming from.
Unlike the Counsellor, I tend to
carry a considerable amount, usually in boxes. Unlike the Counsellor whose equipment is himself, I am always as well
accoutred as possible. Unlike the Counsellor,
who is happy to counsel anywhere, I infinitely prefer to teach in the best
possible surroundings. I drive an inconspicuous Volvo 740, and take my family
for summer holidays in the Dordogne. I
have a number of strengths, including an ability to express myself clearly,
simplifying complex ideas and concepts in ways which are intelligible for the
people I am teaching; I convey considerable enthusiasm for material I am
teaching; unlike the Counsellor who
is extremely cautious about being positively or negatively judgmental, I will
always seek to amplify praise for some behaviour which is well done.
(This behaviourist attitude is necessarily judgmental.) My major weakness is my a lack of self-assurance, belied by my enthusiasm, in my
teaching competence. Unlike the Counsellor
and the A19 Driver, my locus of
evaluation lies outside myself. This means that I indulge in neurotic behaviour
to obtain evaluation and validation. I like people: they are the targets of my
presentation, the prospects for my sales pitch, and the touchy students who I
must coax. My liking for people is not as unreserved
as that of the Counsellor. Indeed, I
can easily come to dislike a person who appears to be thwarting my aims. Without
me, Peter would have no confidence to control the public settings in which he
works. When I take over, which I do from time to time, Peter's life becomes
increasingly frenzied as a result of repeated cycles
of enthusiasm, increasing exhaustion, and a never-satisfied desire for
affirmation, validation and constructive criticism.
Religious
I am 28 years old. I feel young against the body
of knowledge and understanding before which I stand. I wear plain clothes of a
semi-formal register. I hope that they are inconspicuous, not as in the case of
the Counsellor in order to fit in
with any given client, but because I do not wish to draw attention to shallow,
surface, outer things, but to inner matters. I do not enjoy driving cars, and
probably drive quite poorly. I do not respect modern technological society.
Holidays can be anywhere, but preferably walking in countryside. Woodland
and moorland footpaths with no-one
else around are preferable during the daytime. A book-lined study
with pen and paper are where I spend the evening.
Unlike the A19 Driver, who prefers to
have his journey completed by mid-evening, and unlike the Teacher and the Counsellor
who like to have finished by late evening, I often find that I do the most
meaningful reading, writing and reflecting in the small hours of the morning.
My particular strength is an ability to intuit the
value in everything natural around me, particularly plants and animals, but
also old buildings. Surfaces irritate me, and my focus is primarily on form. I get irritated by what I perceive to be surface and shallow
chatter, and willingly engage in only deep and meaningful conversations.
I am irked by any attempt to focus on the symbolic or
superstitious, which self-evidently miss the point. I am a judgmental person,
who despises sham and phoney and all that is inauthentic. However, I do make
every attempt to re-evaluate what may appear initially to be inauthentic in
order to give it meaning. My strengths are that, in searching for meaning in
life, I am able to understand; and in valuing myself, I am able to ascribe
value to other things and people. Without me, Peter’s life would lack an ethical,
moral and spiritual framework. My weakness is my reluctance to accept in others
what I have rejected in myself, that is, I am intolerant about that from which
I have already moved on. Were I to take over, Peter would need to have his life
managed for him in a much more complete way, for few of the practical aspects
of life would get addressed.
Student
I am 18 years old, and enjoy life intensely. I am
full of fun and joie de vivre. I skip along walls, jump out from behind
hedgerows, and burst crisp packets in the street. I dress brightly,
ostentatiously and sloppily. Holidays in Britain
do not interest me, and I travel as far and as excitingly as I dare. I do not
really aspire to owning a car, although that kind of talk sometimes has
currency when talking with some of my many friends. If I ever did own a car, it
would be an old banger because I despise the blinkered middle-aged,
middle-class, Barrett-estate-type people who spend their lives keeping up with
the Joneses. I value what gives pleasure, and in particular people who tell me
interesting things. Whilst I am enthusiastic about sex, this enthusiasm tends
to occupy considerably more of my attention than the actuality. If I am honest,
which I find easier over three or four pints of strong ale, I am not very sure
of myself in a variety of respects. I suppose I do not really know or understand
who I am. But so what? Life is my oyster, provided that I grasp opportunities when they arise. My
strengths are my enthusiasm for life, my enjoyment of life, and my eagerness to
experience anything once. My gregariousness makes me very friendly, and I am well liked. My uncertainty about life prevents me from
committing myself to any one group of people, so I tend to move around and be
somewhat on the edge of things. Without me, Peter’s life would be devoid of
fun. My weakness is that, as an indulgent romantic, I am good for just about nothing other than socialising. Were I to
take over, Peter's life would become rapidly untenable, for not only would
little of any practical relevance get done, but also there
would be neither stability nor direction.
Conclusion
How can I conclude when this is just beginning?
The process I have used feels extremely good. There are at least as many
important sub-personalities to explore as I are explored above. In addition,
there are quite a lot of fragments that bear identification.
Caveat: when I drive I do not always use the A19 Driver; when I teach I do not only
use the Teacher; etc..
p.g.h@btinternet.com
This
document in all parts is copyright © Peter Hughes from the date of construction given above. Please
feel free to make use of them for solely personal purposes. However, should you
wish to use them for teaching, training, commercial or other purposes, you are
required to ask me first.