a person can't be IFS Self for a group, because by definition the Self is trustable by all the parts, and there's no person who is fully trustable by all the other people in the group just as Self is an emergent mode, not a part GroupSelf is an emergent mode, not a person
GroupSelf as an emergent mode, not a person
12 tweets · September 2022 · 102 likes · 0 retweets · read on Twitter
note ofc that in IFS, sometimes the Self still has some other part blended with it or claiming to be it (a therapizer part, a fixy part.,) in which cases the other parts will appropriately not trust this false Self
and even if a person is inhabiting Self themselves, they still can't play the role of GroupSelf because they don't have access to others' perspectives in the way they have access to their own and people have different trust-functions
now, in general when the GroupSelf speaks it will be speaking out of a single individual's mouth at a time how does one tell the difference between that and the individual speaking, in oneself and others? I have the sense that this is learnable.....
but perhaps instead the thing to track is simply whether the perspective speaking generates distrust in you/others and then respect when that happens!
I've been playing around with the idea that "trust = subjective truth" ie "trust = truth in first person" thus: we distrust others' perspectives when they seem to negate what we ourselves know to be true we've all got a lot of practice self-negating
note that your own subjective truths are largely represented as generalizations, and *as generalizations* they are busy implying falsehoods but underneath is an experience, that can be interpreted better and better!
so perhaps we might say "iff GroupSelf is speaking, everyone in the group will feel space for their own perspective in what GroupSelf is saying" verbal practices (eg NVC) can help create this, but the question is whether it's working, not whether you're using the right language
it seems to me that GroupSelf-ness can be enhanced by learning to *hear* what others are saying in ways that still leave space for your own perspective, even if it's phrased it ways that seem to deny your perspective ideally with minimal distortion of *their* perspective
another part of the puzzle here is that people might have their own parts active that are busy rejecting what their other parts are seeing... ...which will make it hard for them to feel welcomed by any GroupSelf ...which implies it's very hard to HAVE GroupSelf in such a scene
I have once or twice managed to speak to two parts in someone that were at odds, in the same breath (tho addressing them separately) and have them both feel welcomed, and it was quite powerful but this is not always going to be possible in practice
this whole thread feels like a new edge of articulation of my main project, that's building on a few other new pieces that clicked into clarity for me while doing a bunch of unpublished writing & reflecting the last month would love to hear what inspires you, or critiques!