Parts Work: Embracing and Understanding All Parts of Self as a Path Towards Healing

What Is Parts Work?

Parts work, or ego state therapy, is based on the idea that we all have many parts of ourselves. These parts can be connected to the roles that we play in life, to stages of life, and to traumatic or difficult experiences. You may have a part of yourself that knows how to be a good parent, a part that knows how to do your job well, a wise and loving part, and an inner teenager,  5 year old, and 10 year old part, as well as various protector parts. Another way to look at parts is strategies - all parts of ourselves are trying to help our system in some way or another. Perhaps the inner 5 year old learned to people please to stay safe and to make their needs small. While that strategy served them very well during that stage of their life and helped them to survive, as an adult, it may no longer be as helpful and could be causing a lot of harm. You may have an inner critic part that is actually a protector part - trying to protect you from ridicule or abandonment through its attempt to point out all your flaws first and perhaps motivate you to change or keep you from taking risks that feel threatening. 

Updating and Learning to Care for All Parts

In parts work, your therapist will help you to identify all the different parts of yourself, to understand what strategies those parts are using to try and help you, and to work with you to be in relationship with these parts. Oftentimes, parts may need updating - they may need to realize they are no longer that scared or helpless kid and that you can now take care of yourself and get your needs met. You may need to help the inner critic learn that it no longer needs to be so mean to you for you to be successful, loved, or safe. 

 You may be in conflict with some of your parts - likely hating your inner critic or feeling negatively towards parts of you that may be connected to experiences that feel shameful or traumatic. In parts work, your therapist will help you to build compassion and understanding towards all aspects of yourself, which can be deeply healing. 

Who's Driving Your Car?

You may be an adult with a scared kid part of you driving the car of your life. This may cause you to avoid many aspects of life that feel scary or threatening to that part, like going after career goals, or trying to build friendships or romantic relationships. Alternatively, if a strong protector is in control (that may have arisen to protect the scared child part), you might find yourself responding with anger often to the people and situations in your life, pushing relationships away and causing challenges in your work.   

Parts work can help you put your wise adult in the driver’s seat and to make space for all other parts in your car, as you interact with them with kindness and care. For people who have attachment wounds, where they did not consistently receive the care they needed from their caregivers, parts work provides an opportunity for reparenting that can build a secure internal attachment.

Deep Healing

Parts work provides deep nervous system healing and can be helpful to all people, but especially to those who have experienced complex childhood trauma. 

Beautifully integrated into EMDR, parts work can offer more effective trauma treatment than EMDR alone. At Rise Healing Center, we offer both modalities, as we specialize in providing the most effective treatment from a trauma informed lens. Sign up for a scheduling call to get started with understanding and healing all parts of yourself.