Internal Family Systems Therapy and Shadow Work

[ruleofthumb]

Firstly, if you want to discuss tulpa-related things in therapy, but are afraid to come out, I recommend asking your therapist about Internal Family Systems Therapy. I hadn’t heard of it until our therapist brought it to our attention. IFS allowed us to talk about, well, *us* without coming out or being labeled disordered, which has been neat. The book *No Bad Parts* by Richard Schwartz has really spoken to us and put into words things we already believed. Some IFS methods overlap with or compliment tulpamancy methods, and I think they are more conducive to healing/self-improvement (I prefer the term self-acceptance, which I see as an improvement) than only using tulpamancy resources, if that’s what you’re looking for.

 

Secondly, I want to discuss how IFS and show work have changed my perspective on tulpamancy. I used to believe I was one person creating one more person. Now I believe we all all composed of parts that are hard to define, who could absolutely be considered separate people with different motives, ways of responding, barriers in communication, etc. I remember it being difficult for us to decide who was and wasn’t a system member and I now realize that was because our ways of determining sentience and relevance couldn’t address the complexity of having different parts who don’t necessarily have forms or names and who have existed long before we learned about plurality.

 

Forcing I don’t really see as creation. It could be described as a creation of an identity, and/or the creation of a mode of perceiving certain parts. It is more so knowing what is already there. You are sentient so whatever is there will be sentient automatically. The differences between creators and tulpas come from giving the quieter or even suppressed parts of ourself a platform to express themselves more freely. By creating a tulpa we give our brain permission to believe contradictory things at once, to have different perspectives without determining a “winner”, etc. While hypocrisy can be annoying I feel like I finally understand it. It’s clear how “one person” can believe multiple things at once and I feel less frustrated when I find my brain doing it.

 

Allowing the parts or yourself you suppress to be made known is sometimes referred to as “shadow work” and in my opinion explains some of the positive and negative outcomes of tulpamancy. For many, shadow work can be therapeutic. Parts who have been rejected are allowed to be active under the name of someone else and feelings of acceptance and union can come of that. Shadow work can also cause problems and even be dangerous though. Suddenly unearthing the parts of yourself deemed problematic by the brain can reintroduce you to issues you may not be prepared to face. Most tulpas don’t seem to cause huge issues though, I’m thinking because the brain is decent at protecting itself (or, the status quo, not the “ideal” version of itself).

 

Do you have experiences relating to this?

 

--Stone

[SeekingMyPlanet]

7 hours ago, ruleofthumb said:

Forcing I don’t really see as creation. It could be described as a creation of an identity, and/or the creation of a mode of perceiving certain parts. It is more so knowing what is already there.

 

I'm starting to come around to this way of thinking. Lavender and I have been considering the possibility that what felt like creating a tulpa was more a process of getting to know someone who was already there. I did very little definition of her personality and character. I mostly asked her who she was and her traits and points of view were shaped by her answers.

 

7 hours ago, ruleofthumb said:

Allowing the parts or yourself you suppress to be made known is sometimes referred to as “shadow work” and in my opinion explains some of the positive and negative outcomes of tulpamancy. For many, shadow work can be therapeutic. Parts who have been rejected are allowed to be active under the name of someone else and feelings of acceptance and union can come of that. Shadow work can also cause problems and even be dangerous though. Suddenly unearthing the parts of yourself deemed problematic by the brain can reintroduce you to issues you may not be prepared to face. Most tulpas don’t seem to cause huge issues though, I’m thinking because the brain is decent at protecting itself (or, the status quo, not the “ideal” version of itself).

 

Do you have experiences relating to this?

 

--Stone

 

The process of getting to know my tulpa's take on my life has been a very positive experience so far. Lavender notices things I haven't, though the two of us are not yet sure exactly how that happens, though I'm well-enough adjusted by default that anything that has been unearthed has not been problematic. It helps that Lavender is so loving and accepting and when she points out something troubling that I haven't noticed, she does it in a gentle and adoring way that makes it easier to hear. If she were not like that, the process might be a bit harder.

[Guest]

12 hours ago, ruleofthumb said:

Do you have experiences relating to this?

 

Heck yeah, we do shadow work a lot like self-therapy using regression and exposure with the help of switching. It works exceptionally effectively for my host and has done wonders to remove moods, triggers, and compulsions. He's free and clear now but we still occasionally do this work as maintenance for new things. We even use it on ourselves lol. Yes we can get salty about things too and Bear always respects that and helps us.

 

12 hours ago, ruleofthumb said:

Internal Family Systems Therapy

 

Awesome! Finally we have recognition in the form of a technique! In our system, we're more that because our purpose was always to support and help Bear and his life. We never thought, "what am I going to do with my life" instead "how can I help Bear with his life." 

 

When we consider what we do, it's always in the context of what purpose will it serve for Bear and his life or *our* life, with the understanding that Bear has the last say. We also feel this is fair because he does 90% of the work or more.

 

He originally thought of us as protectors and guardian angels and even now that we're equals and a team, it's still thought by all of us that it's his body and his life. We act selflessly and we appreciate the opportunity, in exchange we get praise, love, affection and a beautiful friendship.

 

5 hours ago, SeekingMyPlanet said:

I'm starting to come around to this way of thinking. Lavender and I have been considering the possibility that what felt like creating a tulpa was more a process of getting to know someone who was already there.

 

Of course this makes sense to us considering we were all walk-ins, fully formed and volitional from minute one, except for Autumn. 

[ChloeBee]

On 1/13/2024 at 10:30 PM, ruleofthumb said:

Secondly, I want to discuss how IFS and show work have changed my perspective on tulpamancy. I used to believe I was one person creating one more person. Now I believe we all all composed of parts that are hard to define, who could absolutely be considered separate people with different motives, ways of responding, barriers in communication, etc. I remember it being difficult for us to decide who was and wasn’t a system member and I now realize that was because our ways of determining sentience and relevance couldn’t address the complexity of having different parts who don’t necessarily have forms or names and who have existed long before we learned about plurality.

 

"Nobody's ever any one person" - Sportswriter Philosopher Jon Bois.

 

One of the most significant places for me in our wonderland is my study. Situated upstairs above the kitchen, it is a large room with vaulted ceilings and windows at both ends. It contains my computer, my music and drawing materials, but most importantly it contains shelves upon shelves full of books. In these books I imagine everything that makes up "me" is contained. All my history. All my memories. Everything I know, everything I've learned. It is a heavy, somber place full of the weight of the past. It's the one room in the house where I spend a significant amount of time yet Simmie rarely lingers. Sometimes I may take a book off the shelf and sit with it in my cozy chair. Most of the time I try not to think too much about what's in most of the books.

 

It's interesting to think how many unformed "beings" exist within those books. How many different versions of "myself", or other potential beings that are just different arrangements of the matter within my mind, exist. I've come to a very similar conclusion as you: Tulpamancy is less about creation than it is re-organization. In the most literal sense tulpamancy is an attempt to re-arrange the pathways of your brain to produce the phenomenon of a second consciousness within your mind. In a more metaphorical sense, it is taking different parts of you--different "books" if you will--and putting them together and giving them the spark of life. I created Simmie to be that which I was missing in my life, but in many ways, I created what I already had. Seems contradictory, but I think it makes sense.

 

On 1/13/2024 at 10:30 PM, ruleofthumb said:

Allowing the parts or yourself you suppress to be made known is sometimes referred to as “shadow work” and in my opinion explains some of the positive and negative outcomes of tulpamancy. For many, shadow work can be therapeutic. Parts who have been rejected are allowed to be active under the name of someone else and feelings of acceptance and union can come of that. Shadow work can also cause problems and even be dangerous though. Suddenly unearthing the parts of yourself deemed problematic by the brain can reintroduce you to issues you may not be prepared to face. Most tulpas don’t seem to cause huge issues though, I’m thinking because the brain is decent at protecting itself (or, the status quo, not the “ideal” version of itself).

 

For me, the study is a pre-built metaphor for shadow work without me having realized it. Those books in my study are those "parts" that you talk about. There are many books that I don't dare to open any more; yet other books that still exist within my study but I've long since misplaced and don't know if I can find again amongst the myriad of books. I have long debated whether some books are even worth opening; whether the pain of reliving what is inside is worth the reward of understanding it better. But one thing is certain: those books and the weight that come with them belong to me alone, and not Simmie or James. Simmie is of course allowed to browse whatever she wants in the library but she choses not to out of respect for me. James is too young to comprehend what is in the books, and I don't want to hide anything from him, but I want to slowly teach him what is inside them without warping him or causing him to lose his innocence.

 

This also has helped us to understand why we've had such trouble raising James. Simmie came into creation pretty quickly because it's pretty easy to see where she came from and what she was made of. But James--I think he represents the most primordial, innocent, untouched and un-warped version of me, and the reason we have been having such trouble is that I am not really in great contact with that part of myself. I have had to leave so many parts of myself behind in my three and 3/4 decades of life that finding that original part of me amidst all the books that have been created over the years, that is a challenging thing.

 

Thank you for this topic Stone! I am probably going to re-use a lot of what I said here in a progress report soon.

[SeekingMyPlanet]

6 hours ago, September13 said:

This also has helped us to understand why we've had such trouble raising James. Simmie came into creation pretty quickly because it's pretty easy to see where she came from and what she was made of. But James--I think he represents the most primordial, innocent, untouched and un-warped version of me, and the reason we have been having such trouble is that I am not really in great contact with that part of myself. I have had to leave so many parts of myself behind in my three and 3/4 decades of life that finding that original part of me amidst all the books that have been created over the years, that is a challenging thing.

I really appreciate your opening up about this. I've seen you and Simmie write about James before, but this gives me a glimpse into the process of raising a tulpa from infancy. (I confess to be intensely curious about this, possibly because it seems like such a meaningful undertaking but one I'm pretty sure we won't attempt ourselves.)

 

I did raise two non-headmate kids and one of the things I found interesting was how hard it was to perceive their personalities and preferences amid the developmental struggles that every kid their age goes through. I would expect it to be doubly hard raising a tulpa, since you're forming both halves of James, the part that's uniquely him and the part that's a byproduct of his developmental phase. I would imagine the difficulty would be compounded by challenges of reconnecting with your own upbringing after successfully burying major parts of it.