Parts of Self, their Purpose, and the Parts Party

This article explores the meaning of parts of self, the purpose of parts, and the Parts Party for couples or other pairs in relationships.

What are parts of self?

A part is created within self as a characteristic aspect or attribute. Parts develop from a person’s feelings and interpretations about experiences in life from birth to death. These responses over time take on habit patterns that cluster together to form personality traits and a structure of behaving, which is a personality style. The integration of experience with interpretation results in character attributes or patterns, and the emergence of parts.

A positive or negative interpretation of experience becomes associated with certain parts of self. Such is the case with feelings of anger, which may have been unacceptable to express in childhood. These messages affect the development of parts.

For example, when a child expresses a feeling (like anger) and they receive a response (like punishment), they interpret their experience by perceiving anger as negative. When they have repeated experiences like this, it leads to learning that feelings (such as anger) are unacceptable. When anger is a problem pattern, the response is to internalize it in the body. This embodiment of anger develops into a part of self.

What is the purpose of parts?

The purpose of parts are to naturally emerge from experiences that are interpreted repeatedly over time as a pattern. With negatively perceived parts, a person may deny feelings that lead to the expression of a disowned emotion. Or it may lead to a dependence on positively interpreted parts that are valued and embraced. This may lead to less personal flexibility and masking of vulnerability.

All parts provide some type of protective function for a person and have evolved for survival purposes. It is beneficial for all parts, including disowned ones, to be valued and honored by the individual and others.

Parts carry energy and a force within the person. This power provides the capacity for taking action or resisting expression. The fuel for the energy of parts comes from feelings. This is why acknowledging feelings are so important. It frees the energy. People have a choice to allow the energy to flow out or to block and contain it.

What is the Parts Party?

The Parts Party is an intervention and approach developed by American psychotherapist Virginia Satir. It's used to “facilitate the enactment of an individual’s internal process and conflicts.” It can be applied to couple, marital, partnership, or other two-person interactions. It focuses on the parts within the self, and on the interaction between each person's parts. It is intended to enhance the person’s autonomy and integration.

The procedure was adapted to help the couple’s relationship in counselling by enriching each individual and their bond together. The goal of it is for a person to become aware that they are made up of many different parts which need to get acquainted with, be understood, and learned how to be used in a balanced and integrated way.

The purpose of the Parts Party is to “foster higher self-worth, increased use of self and, with couples, an improved relationship.” It brings to life a person’s individual system of parts with a focus on the relationship between the parts within self.

In couples or other two-person counselling, the Parts Party allows both people to see the parts that exist within themselves, learn how their parts interact with the other person's, observe how different aspects of both people impact one another, and transform dysfunctional interactions between the couple into healthier (appreciative and understanding) patterns.

Sources

Brothers, B. J. (2013). Virginia Satir: Foundational Ideas. Routledge.