“The whole world is a theater, and the people in it are actors” – Shakespeare’s aphorism is widely known, and no one argues with him anymore. Also, no one argues with the statement that has lost its author: each person is a whole world. But the next step may seem unexpected, although it is quite logical: each person, each of us is a whole theater where drama, comedy, a one-man show or a crowded epic can be played out.
“The whole world is a theater, and the people in it are actors” – Shakespeare’s aphorism is widely known, and no one argues with him anymore. Also, no one argues with the statement that has lost its author: each person is a whole world. But the next step may seem unexpected, although it is quite logical: each person, each of us is a whole theater where drama, comedy, a one-man show or a crowded epic can be played out. Does the director manage to manage this process? Do the actors get along? If we add to this that among the “actors” there are children and the elderly, and many of them are connected by kinship and common memory, some are seized by the strongest passion, and others by the deepest indifference, then this metaphor gives a partial idea of what the theory of subpersonalities is. And the difference between the approach of the American psychotherapist Richard K. Schwartz to the therapy of subpersonalities from others is as follows. Most often, subpersonalities are considered as separate characters, and the client is invited to communicate with them in turn, each time with only one. Whereas the focus of Schwartz’s attention is the interaction within the group of “characters”, which the therapist considers as a system or “inner family”, applying already known methods of family therapy and creating new ones.
SCIENTIFIC WORLD, 336 p.