A Theory and Treatment of Your Personality. Garry Flint

between, say, noon and 1 p.m., when you thought you had lunch, then another part may have been running your body during this time. These parts will want to join with the Main Personality, because parts that like to run the body will have the opportunity to run it from morning to night after joining. Joining with the Main Personality will allow them and all other parts to experience more satisfaction and less pain. When the joined or integrated parts and Main Personality all have the same memory, they run the body at the same time without conflicts.

      4. To keep the Main Personality from dissociating important information

      The Main Personality likes to get satisfaction in the form of closeness and affection. When the content associated with old memories elicits or triggers parts that intrude with strong negative emotions, the emotions will interfere with getting this satisfaction. Sometimes, the Main Personality will learn to dissociate important information to stop the intrusions. This dissociation distorts reality and the Main Personality makes a bad decision. A woman who marries an alcoholic might sometimes say, “I didn’t even see that he was alcoholic before our marriage.” What happened was the Main Personality dissociated the awareness that he drank a six-pack of beer on both Saturday and Sunday. She blindly entered into another marriage because of good feelings and a distorted reality. She discovered later that he was an alcoholic. The full integration of all parts will help to prevent this problem from happening.

      5. So that all parts can run the body all the time

      Integration or joining parts is the goal. When the integration process is complete, the memories of all parts are available for use in responding to all fitting situations. With integration, all parts run the body with no conflicts. Integration also gives more wisdom to the Main Personality, which will result in all parts getting more satisfaction and having less pain.

      6. Because a mono personality works best

      Research by Colin Ross, MD (Ross, 1996), has shown that when patients who start with many parts get treatment and all parts integrate with the Main Personality, they behave normally in life. On a major test of mental disorder, Ross found the patients with integrated personalities showed better mental health than the average U.S. citizen. Therefore, in order to move toward health, it is good to integrate all aspects of your personality with the Main Personality.

      Now that you understand the benefits of treatment, let’s talk about the Treatment Team.

      3-4 Introduction to the Treatment Team idea

      This is important and I want all aspects of the personality to pay careful attention. If the idea of a Treatment Team does not feel comfortable to you, you can substitute playmates, the crew or team, inner helpers, or whatever name you choose in place of Treatment Team. Any name will work just as well. This is where the respectfulness of Process Healing is most obvious. Before the parts join the Treatment Team (see Figure 3-19), the parts agree to common goals.