Parts in Relationships by Dr. Deb Hirschhorn

Dr. Deb

Parts in Relationships

By Deb Hirschhorn, Ph.D.

Our parts came about out of necessity when we were children. They helped us survive. Even the ones that seem malicious had good intentions. So if they had good intentions, why do they hurt us?

Meaning, why are they critical or angry at us? Why do they keep warning us of gloom and doom instead of letting us be happy? Why do they worry so much or cause us to be depressed?

The answer is that they’re kids – and their logic is the logic of kids. Which is to say it isn’t very logical. Today I asked someone to ask her part that gives her panic attacks what the purpose was. She said it was to spur her on to get things done.

I get that, but why have panic attacks? There are other ways to get things done, after all. I asked her to “go inside,” meaning to close her eyes and imagine herself as a separate Self from her parts and converse with this particular one. I wanted to know the purpose of giving her panic attacks.

The answer was startling. However, it made sense from a child’s perspective. She told me the part said, “Because that’s all you know – I want to scare you because you don’t know from peace and happiness.” Wow.

The little kid in her was maybe five when she needed to jump into hyper-alertness to be sure she was safe. So she learned to scare herself. This little girl inside of her only knows how to do this one job that she took upon herself: Keep herself from missing something dangerous by scaring herself.

Similarly, parts that function as critics are there to edge us on so we can beat our parents to the punch by criticizing ourselves before they do. From the logic of a child, it makes sense, right?

Each and every part meant to help us – in its own way. And they are part of us so we should never reject them.

I mentioned in last week’s article that I’m suspecting this is more than a metaphor. Rather, parts are likely clusters of neurons that regularly fire together in our brains.

On the other hand, since they’re children, they generally don’t see the consequences of their actions. For example, they don’t see that provoking someone can lead to an unpleasant escalation.

They don’t envision the hurt feelings that they could cause by instigating us to scream at our friend. They think – like a typical child – that causing us to scream might get us what we want or need from others. Of course, it doesn’t work that way in the adult world.

Which brings me to the topic of this article. What if everyone in the world was just a child who did not grow up? Can you imagine the chaos, confusion, and pain that would generate?

Wait a minute! That is exactly the world we live in.

Ninety-nine percent of the time we – all of us – are dominated by our parts. When those parts interact with people who are also being dominated by parts, I can assure you nothing productive happens.

But here is the beauty of thinking of yourself as a “bunch of parts held together by a Self”: When we are being run by our parts, that’s not who we really are.

Who we are is our Self, our neshama, the part of us that is connected to G-d and “knows better.” The traits of Self include clarity and courage, wisdom and intuition, truth and compassion – and more. We have all this within us and it comes out more often than we realize.

On the other hand, the parts are loving pieces of our past history; they certainly are part of us, but they took on roles that were needed once upon a time but are no longer needed because we do have a Self, a mature, adult Self.

Looking at this a different way, I never cared for mental health diagnoses because the diagnosis only refers to part of us – a part that is not doing very well. But is that the totality of who we are? Of course not. No matter how troubled and troubling our functioning, we are more than that label. We have capabilities, opinions, interests, talents, feelings, experience, and knowledge gained through the hard knocks of life. That is a lot closer to representing who we are. And the diagnostic label completely misses all of that.

I have often said that diagnoses are disrespectful because they zoom in on the worst in us. But the problem goes deeper: it’s simply an incorrect picture of who we are.

Similarly, any one part, or even the listing of all of our parts, still doesn’t come close to fully describing who we are.

In fact, the saddest thing here is that we, ourselves, have lost touch with who we are. We’ve lost touch with our Selves and we operate on automatic most of the time, not realizing that various parts have come to our rescue.

But once the curtain is drawn back and we see the array of parts but also recognize our true Selves shining through and taking leadership of all these little-kid parts, then what happens when a chance event in our lives suddenly springs a part into action?

What happens is we then have power. We then have choice.

The moment we recognize that “it’s only one of my parts” is the moment we can choose to say we don’t wish to be governed by that part; we’d rather return to Self-government. And that’s powerful. That simple step enables a person to shift back into Self.

See, unlike a mood which feels like it’s “your mood,” seeing it as merely a helpful kid within you playing a role from long ago which is no longer needed helps you to see your Self as separate and in control. It also takes away the sting of looking at yourself as having acted foolishly; it was only a part that jumped in; it’s not Me.

Now, what is it like when a married couple has come to learn how to distinguish their parts from themSelves? And when they’ve learned to pause and ask themselves if they want to be taken over by the part or not? It’s at that precise point that they can be a happy couple. Either one – and both – can take a moment to get back into Self. When they’re discussing sensitive topics from a place of Self-mastery, they aren’t thrown by each other’s parts.

What would that look like?

Mark and Mindy had a recurrent issue: spending money. Mark could

feel a tightening in his stomach when he learned that Mindy had spent any amount over $100. It just plain scared him. He was so used to this scared feeling that he pre-empted having it by lashing out at the least hint that this topic would come up. Because if he got angry, it covered up (to some extent) the scared feeling.

He didn’t know where that feeling came from and he didn’t really care. That is, until he started (very bravely) to examine himself. (This story is made up.) He recalled his childhood and the issue of overspending. His father had worked hard as a doctor, yet there never was enough money because his mother seemed to need to have a luxurious lifestyle (due to her own inner hurts and pains). He remembered the fights they had and how scared he was of the fighting. Money always brought the fighting on; nothing else did that. He loved his parents and was terrified they would divorce. If only there was peace and quiet.

Mindy was actually a conservative spender. She worked hard herself; she had her own business on Central Avenue. That is, until COVID came and caused the local government to shut down everything. She was sad and depressed over it, but careful with her spending. Mark and Mindy seemed to be on the same page. And yet…

When things started to open up, Mindy, one day, casually said, “I need a vacation. I need to get away from this sadness and just be happy.”

That was enough for Mark’s anxious part to take over. He could feel his stomach tighten and suddenly felt the anger well up inside. “How dare she think about going away under these conditions,” he thought.

But he noticed this feeling taking over him. And he stopped. He shut his jaw before the words came out. He took a deep breath and asked himself: “Do I really want my anxiety and anger to take over me, or do I want my

We, ourselves, have lost touch with who we are.

Self to be in charge here?” Well, that was an easy question. He chose the latter.

Self is characterized by many wonderful qualities but one of the most important is curiosity. “Maybe it’s better to find out what she was really thinking,” his Self thought.

So he asked her.

“I wasn’t thinking anything particular,” Mindy responded. “This situation weighs heavy on me.”

Self is also characterized by compassion.

“I know,” Mark responded. “I feel that way, too. What can we do about it?”

“Maybe Sunday we can take a drive out to Long Island?” Mindy responded. “Maybe look up something to do that’s fun and distracting for an afternoon?”

Mark exhaled. “See? She didn’t even have any nefarious plans for spending money in mind,” he pointed out to any of the parts inside that might be listening.

Next week, let’s see what happens if Mark has not learned how to do what he just did but Mindy has.

Dr. Deb Hirschhorn is a Marriage and Family Therapist. If you want help with your marriage, begin by signing up to watch her Masterclass at https://drdeb. com/myw-masterclass.