The Inner Call- Understanding Parts Work More Deeply

 Many people come to therapy after years of trying to understand or change themselves through reasoning, talking, or willpower. When insight alone has not created the shift you hoped for, it can feel discouraging. This does not mean you have failed or that your therapist has missed something. It often means your system holds deeper layers that have not yet been accessed.

The Inner Landscape

When we show up to therapy, we are usually ‘struggling’ with something that led us to book our first appointment in the first place. We may wrestle with understanding why we our mental health is not improving, or even feel like the strong emotions or responses we are experiencing just isn’t ‘us’ or ‘who we are’.

It is often useful to view ourselves instead through a parts-based lens. Rather than thinking of ourselves as consisting of one core self-identity that is at once (confusingly) capable of wonderful things as well as ‘problematic’ things, we can shift this perspective a little.

 Instead, we can conceptualise our ‘self’ as different States that move in and out of conscious- so at one time our playful, present state (or part) is in the driver’s seat, and at other times a protective, hurt, conflictual or scared part trying to meet an underlying need takes the metaphorical wheel. It allows us to move beyond using labels like ‘angry’ ‘anxious’ ‘needy’  or ‘addicted’ to judge ourselves, or bind our identity to only our less desirable qualities or behaviours.

Framing ourselves as a complex internal world of states or parts is surprising simple for many people, and can even provide an ‘aha’ moment for developing insight. For those who think this sounds made up, just know that these parts are not different personalities or imposters in our system. They are not a way to defer responsibility, and their creation is based in neuroscience.

Going Deeper with Parts Work

In Resource Therapy, which I practice, we understand that parts or states actually consist of a bunch of different neural pathways in the brain. These pathways were shaped by repeated responses to external experiences that kept us safe or helped us thrive, and made us more likely to respond in certain ways to specific situations.

For example, a nurturing part may develop when as a small child we act in a caring way, and we receive positive reinforcement and praise. We are far more likely to repeat this response, and thus with repeated patterning establish a nurturing state. In a similar fashion, if soothing or people-pleasing kept us out of the firing line of an angry caregiver, we would be more likely to repeat this response and reinforce this neural template of a ‘fawning’ part.

 These inner states (or patterned brain pathways) can carry history, meaning, attachment wounds and unmet needs; or other traits and characteristics that we find more desirable- such as nurture, creativity, love, presence and joy. These states can all exist at the same time, because we are multidimensional creatures shaped by a whole lifetime of different experiences.

By working with these parts directly, we go deeper than 'just talking about' why we show up the way we do. We can actually update the neural pathway, reconsolidating the memories with new emotional responses. This shift also gives us the space to update our behavioural patterns in line with our more balanced and adaptive emotional relationship to memories.

A Call Inward

If you feel as though something deeper is calling for attention, you are not imagining it. There is a system inside you still holding the past. Parts work helps you meet these inner experiences with compassion rather than fear. More importantly, it helps you move into and work directly with the correct memory network or neural pathway, and create a new felt sense in response to the event that established it.

In short, working directly with the right ‘part’ of you can help you change your response on a nervous system level, and modify your response to the original

 Click here for an extended Relaxation exercise based on compassionately meeting your Inner Parts

And here for further wellbeing Resources

 If you’d like to see examples of how parts work looks in practice, you can watch my free YouTube demonstrations, or learn more about Resource therapy and training here.

Claudia Wolf | AMHSW | Accredited EMDR | Advanced Clinical Resource Therapist & Trainer

✨ EMDR Informed Advanced Parts Work Training

✨ Client EMDR Intensive Program (Immersions)

✨ Consultation

www.wolftherapeutic.com.au

wolf_therapeutic_community on Instagram

This blog is not a replacement for therapy and is for entertainment and educational purposes only. If these themes bring up any distress for you, please seek formal support.