Parts Work Therapy in Phoenix, AZ

Learn to heal your emotional wounds and experience an integrated life

Here’s how parts work can help you heal (continued):

…It’s not necessarily the same as having a dissociative identity disorder (formerly known as multiple personality disorder) or schizophrenia. Just think about how you might show up differently when you are in a professional setting versus hanging out with your best friend. It looks different, right?

Another way to think about it is that these parts are defense mechanisms. The problem is that sometimes, those defenses get so good at covering up the original wound, that it makes it hard for us to access that wound so we can heal it.

You may be thinking, if the wound is covered up, why resurrect it? The problem is that the parts of self that develop to hide the wound are not always as adaptive as we would like for them to be. Protective parts can show up as addiction, an incessant urge to seek external validation and reassurance from others—often pushing them away, binge eating, restricting food, self-harming, an incessant drive to control, and so much more. While these parts serve a purpose, sometimes the consequences that come from their actions are extreme and can wreak havoc on our lives and relationships. So you see why it might be a noble endeavor to learn how to get those protective/defensive parts to soften back a bit and give our present-day, wise, intuitive selves access to the wound.

Yet these protective parts are well practiced. They don’t necessarily trust the present-day, intuitive/wise self. They are like teenagers who think they know best (and I love teenagers!). So, the work lies in building a trusting relationship between the parts so they can integrate. From an integrated place, all the parts can work together–with the wise-self, leading the way—to heal the wound.