This exercise to develop desired qualities can become the focus of a larger program. You can gather together poetry, symbols, music, drama, artwork, photography, dance,’ and biographical excerpts, all evoking or in some personal sense symbolizing serenity, and use them for a total experience. By surrounding yourself with these materials, you can evoke and develop a deep sense of serenity—or of any other quality. You can use all that you find in your environment to foster a sense of serenity through your own creation of a synthesis of experiential forms. Those who are identified with their minds are likely to describe themselves with intellectual constructs, even when asked how they feel. They often consider feelings and sensations as peripheral, or are largely unaware of them. Many are identified with a role, and live, function, and experience themselves in terms of that role, such as “mother,” “husband,” “wife,” “student,” “businessman,” “teacher,” etc. Assagioli’s early conception of the subpersonalities was partly inspired by one of the great pioneers of psychology, William James, who, in his monumental work Principles of Psychology (1890), defines the various social selves – i.e. the roles we play in society – which, in Assagioli’s terminology, are one aspect of the subpersonalities. Make a sign with the words SERENITY, using the colour and lettering that best conveys this quality to you. Place this sign where you can see it daily and if possible at the time when you need serenity the most. Whenever you look at it recall within yourself the feeling of serenity.

This is a modification of ‘The Evening Review”. It consists of reviewing your day from the point of view of the three main personality aspects: your body, your feelings, and your mind. d. What we want to appear to be: these are the roles we play in different relationships and circumstances, the masks we put on for the purposes of vanity, success, and so on. Secondly, the message received is not always clear in its application and so must be interpreted correctly. A famous example of this is God’s injunction to St. Francis to “Go and rebuild my church”. At first Francis thought this meant to rebuild the little ruined church of San Damiano outside the walls of Assissi, and only later did he realise its true import—to rebuild the whole Catholic Church! This constant input of influences veils the clarity of consciousness and produces spurious identifications of the self with the content of consciousness, rather than with consciousness itself. If we are to make self- consciousness explicit, clear, and vivid, we must first dis-identify ourselves from the contents of our consciousness. Identification

Below is a list of each subpersonality dissected and put under a microscope. Consider this question: which one is the most predominant in you? The Worrier

a. What we believe ourselves to be: some images are based on inferiority or superiority (and others are based on a more or less realistic understanding of our development ). In addition, Assagioli states that different ‘complexes’ can develop into subpersonalities, thereby supporting the pathological aetiology of some subpersonalities. Miscellaneous thoughts, musings, intuitions, questions, or speculations which do not fit under other headings. After the dis-identification of myself, the ‘I,’ from the contents of consciousness, such as sensations, emotions, thoughts, I recognise and affirm that I am a centre of pure self-consciousness. I am a centre of will, capable of observing, directing, and using all psychological processes and my physical body. Examples: Typical dialogue includes thoughts like: “ What if they hear me stutter and think I’m an idiot – and don’t give me the job?!”, “ What if he doesn’t call me, and I feel distraught and shattered?”, “ What if I put myworkon public display and everyone laughs at me,thinkingI’m a failure?” The CriticLet us finally explore some of Assagioli’s insights when it comes to the integration and synthesis of our manifold and often conflicting nature. As we have learned, the subpersonalities are often in conflict, something we experience when we encounter ambivalence or inner conflict. The goal is to create a personality that can express its needs and visions in a harmonious way, and there are ways to achieve this – Assagioli calls this process synthesis. However, synthesis is the goal, not the starting point. Which subpersonality was the most dominant in you? It could have been two of them equally – this is normal. Or it could have been just one like me (The Perfectionist). To take this journey in the most effective way, it helps to understand the primary traits of the core members of your community of the self, enabling you to better navigate your way through this process.

c. What others believe that we are: these are projected images that have been internalised as part of our relationships with prominent others. This makes sense: we must not maintain false self-images as we undergo personal synthesis. For example, it is not helpful to keep speaking about a ‘raging subpersonality’ because such an identification will keep that raging energy alive just as we are seeking to transform it. Rather, we must own the sense of having rage but gradually learn to transform this energy through acceptance, and then give that energy a new positive function in the overall structure of our personality, perhaps through identification with the strong, powerful warrior archetype. In the form which follows, the first phase of the exercise—the dis-identification—consists of three parts dealing with the physical, emotional, and mental aspects of awareness. This leads to the self-identification phase. Once some experience is gained with it, the exercise can be expanded or modified according to need, as will be indicated further on. Stand up with some room around you to move in. Close your eyes and again ask “Who Am I? “. And this time let the response come through movement in your body. Trust its wisdom and let the movement unfold until you sense a completion. You may also want to include sounds in this response, or singing. When you are ready, write about your experience.These layers of self- perceptions may be positive or negative. They represent different aspects of our personality and of our relationship to the world. Some of the layers may be like a façade, or mask, hiding those aspects of ourselves we do not like, some may be those unliked aspects themselves, and still some others may be those hidden and very positive aspects we have trouble accepting as well.

For all these reasons keeping a workbook can be an important aspect of the psychosynthesis process in that it is a method which one can employ on his own initiative, as he takes the process of his growth and self-realization increasingly into his own hands. Were my subpersonalities in harmony with what I wanted to do, or did I have to go along with them? What part did I take in harmonizing and directing them? Synthesis. This is a state of effortless co-operation in which the different subpersonalities are integrated and synthesised into a single whole, directed and loved by the A psychosynthesis concept, subpersonalities are the ‘parts’ of us that form in response to varying rewards, punishments, and experiences at different times in our lives. Perhaps you were motivated to own a room and entertain adults when you were a child. Or maybe you were told that children should be seen and not heard. Perhaps you developed a rebellious streak in your teens, a spiritual seeker in adulthood, a hippie, a corporate professional… the list goes on. There are two striking pieces of information in this statement. First that, as early as 1911, Assagioli had formed an understanding of subpersonalities, and secondly that he considered subpersonalities to be ‘one of the chief points of psychosynthesis’.

Each of our subpersonalities have different needs and goals. Whereas one might want you to stay in, study hard, and develop a career, another may just want to find the next rave or eat a whole tub of Ben and Jerrys in one sitting. Both are valid expressions of your wants and needs. Roberto Assagioli was the first to coin the term subpersonalities, however, he was inspired by William James’s concept of various selves and sees subpersonalities primary as normal psychological formations based on our social roles and functions. Let us now look at the psychological elements of the subpersonalities and see how Assagioli understands their constitution. What are these parts in the first place? Some may take it for some kind of a metaphor. We look into ourselves and see that there is an i nner critic, a perfectionist, an inner child and that this is a way to name our thoughts. From the therapy point of view, this is not quite how it works in the Internal Family Systems theory. After all, even now many neuropsychologists claim that our brain works on a modular basis. The modules seem to co-operate - some more constructively, others less, but they all form an internal community of autonomous neural networks interacting with each other.