第十四章 情绪探索：多自我实践方法

179C H A P T E R 14 Exploring Affect: The Multiple Selves Practice A primary goal of CFT involves helping clients bring compassion to their emotional experiences. We’ve discussed how different affects and motivations can organize our clients’ experience in very different ways, and we’ve proposed Compassionate Self work as an organizing framework for devel- oping an adaptive, warm, confident version of the self. In this chapter, we’ll introduce a chair exer- cise that will tie all of this together: the Multiple Selves practice (Kolts, 2012). MULTIPLE VERSIONS OF THE SELF In the Multiple Selves practice, developed by Paul Gilbert, clients are guided through an explora- tion of how various affects and motives shape their experience. We’ll prompt clients to identify a situation they’ve been struggling with, and help them explore their response to the situation in terms of the feelings, thoughts, and motivations associated with different emotional states, guiding clients into and back out of these different emotional “selves.” The Multiple Selves exercise com- monly focuses on anger (“angry self”), anxiety (“anxious self”) and sadness (“sad self”), but differ- ent “selves” can be substituted, depending upon a client’s presenting concerns. After exploring the perspectives of these different selves, the client is guided to shift into the perspective of the com- passionate self, and prompted to consider both the situation and the perspective of the other emo- tional selves from this compassionate perspective. This works well as a chair exercise, in which a different chair is used for each emotional self, but clients can also complete the exercise in writingCFT Made Simple as homework, or even in group settings, using a piece of paper divided into four sections—­one for each self. While the Multiple Selves exercise is fairly straightforward, there is a lot going on. My friend and colleague Tobyn Bell, who is conducting research on the Multiple Selves exercise, highlights a number of potential objectives we can keep in mind for the practice—­these are just a few (personal communication, 2015): • Increasing awareness of, and exposure to, threat emotions that may be avoided • Exploring how different emotional perspectives organize the mind and body • Providing a window into the emotional dynamics of self-­criticism (“What does your angry self think about your anxious self?”) • Learning to shift in and out of different emotional experiences and perspectives, and developing confidence around being able to do this • Developing and expressing compassion for these different emotional selves • Compassion-­in-­action: practice putting the compassionate self in the driver’s seat • Developing tolerance and compassion for avoided aspects of the self, so that they can be integrated into a positive self-­identity Exploring the Selves In exploring the perspectives of different emotional selves, the therapist begins by prompting the client to “invite in” this aspect of the self, giving herself permission to dive deeply into emo- tions she may commonly tend to avoid. This can be challenging, as clients may have learned that certain emotions shouldn’t even be acknowledged, much less experienced. Some clients may need to engage in the exercise multiple times before they can connect with avoided aspects of the self. Here are some tips for facilitating the practice: • Provide reassurance that you’ll be there to guide the client into and out of the exercise. • Start by prompting the client to connect with how the emotion is felt in the body, and instruct her to imagine these sensations building within her. • Then prompt her to consider the mental experiences associated with the emotion: thoughts, imagery, and motivation. If this emotion could speak, what would it say? What would it want to do? If the (angry/anxious/sad) self had complete control and unlimited power, what would it do? What does this emotional self want? 182Exploring Affect: The Multiple Selves Practice • Perhaps begin with an emotion to which the client has an easier time connecting, then proceed to less familiar emotions. • When shifting from one self to another, have the client do some soothing rhythm breathing. I also sometimes like to offer a mental “palate cleanser,” tossing out a few random—­often silly—­things for the client to visualize or think about, to aid the shift out of an emotion and to lighten the experience a bit. • Let clients know that it is all right if they find an emotion to be “sticky” and have trouble shifting out of it. Reassure them that this is normal, and encourage them to honor this aspect of themselves, and to keep going. The Captain of the Ship One goal of the Multiple Selves exercise is to help clients relate compassionately to the various threat-­based versions of the self. The idea is to shift their relationship with these emotions from something that is wrong with me to understandable responses to perceived threats. Our evolved threat emotions aren’t bad; they just aren’t always the most useful responses to modern stressors. I’ve found that clients often have an easier time relating compassionately to these threat-­based emotional selves if we set the stage for the exercise by using a metaphor, which I’ll call the “captain of the ship” (Kolts & Chodron, 2013). In this metaphor, we have the client imagine a ship at sea, with various passengers on board, including the various emotional selves. When the ship eventually encounters a storm (as we all will face emotional “storms” in life), we imagine the emotional pas- sengers doing what they always do: the angry self rages and criticizes; the anxious self worries and cowers; the sad self shrinks and becomes mournful. We then set up the compassionate self as the captain of the ship. Kind, wise, and confident, this captain understands that storms are just a part of sailing, and has the wisdom and experience to guide the ship to safety. The captain also under- stands that such storms can be very scary for the passengers, so instead of becoming upset with them, the captain comforts them, reassures them, and offers to take care of things. This metaphor sets the stage for clients to relate compassionately to the understandable reac- tions produced by various threat emotions, while understanding that we don’t want to give these emotional selves control of the ship. Instead, we set up the compassionate self as a superordinate aspect of the self and apply this perspective in working with both the situation and the emotions produced by it. Let’s consider an example of how this might play out in a session: Therapist: Josh, we’ve spent some time discussing your anger, but in doing the case formulation, it sounds like there might be some other emotions worth looking at as well. I was wondering if you’d be up to trying another chair exercise to explore these different feelings. 183CFT Made Simple Josh: I’m not sure I understand the point of it. The anger is really the problem. Therapist: Interestingly, anger can sometimes act as a secondary emotion—­this means that it can arise in response to other feelings. If we look deeply at our anger, we often find that there are other, more vulnerable feelings behind it—­like fear, sadness, or anxiety. Sometimes we can even use anger to try and avoid those feelings. Does that make sense? Josh: It makes a lot of sense. I do that. Therapist: Could you tell me more about that? Josh: I feel anger so I don’t have to feel that stuff. I don’t go there. Therapist: Ahh… I’ve heard that a lot. A lot of us tend to use anger in that way. Do you think you might be willing to go there if I were there to help? Josh: (reluctantly) I guess so. Therapist: Remember when we talked about compassion being about having the courage to face the stuff that scares us? This is exactly what we were talking about. In this practice, we’ll consider a recent situation that triggered your anger, and explore how different emotions relate to that situation. We’ll visit the perspective of your angry self, your anxious self, and your sad self, and finish up with the compassionate self, which you’re familiar with. Josh: Mmm-­hmm. Therapist: While I set up the chairs for the exercise, could you bring to mind a recent time when you struggled with anger? (Gets up and arranges four chairs positioned a few feet apart as corners of a square, pointed inward.) Josh: That’s easy. My wife and I got in a fight last night. Therapist: (sitting back down) Could you tell me a little more about that? Josh: 184 Sure. I got home from work, and the moment I walked in the house, she started in on me. A couple of weeks ago, our lawn mower had stopped working. I’d told her that I’d fix it as soon as I could—­even though I don’t know what’s wrong with it. Well, I’d planned to try and fix it over the weekend, but we got busy with other things. Last night, the moment I walked in the door, she points out that it’s still not working—­(in a nagging voice) “Is the lawn mower fixed yet?” She knew it wasn’t! I just blew up at her, and told her that if she wanted the damn thing fixed, maybe she should fix it herself. After that, she just shut down. She and the kids avoided me for the rest of the night, and I just spent the evening stewing over it.Exploring Affect: The Multiple Selves Practice It’s like I’m always the problem…I mean, I’d just walked in the door from work. But I feel terrible about it. I thought I’d been doing better at this… Therapist: This sounds like a perfect experience for this exercise, Josh. It sounds like you have a lot of feelings about this situation. Ready to start? Josh: I guess so. Therapist: Great. To start, how about you move over into this chair? (Points to the chair.) Josh: (Moves to the chair and sits.) Therapist: This is where your angry self is going to sit. Remember when we discussed that different emotions can organize our minds and bodies in different ways? Our attention, thoughts, feelings—­that sort of thing? We’re going to explore that. I’d like you to invite your angry self into the room. Thinking of this situation; allow any anger you feel about it to come to the surface. If you were to feel that anger rising in you, how would you feel it in your body? Josh: I feel it as tension—­in my jaw, my forehead, my gut. I tighten up all over. Therapist: Imagine that tension filling your body, building and building…your angry self completely in control. Imagine being completely being taken over by the anger. We want to give that angry version of you a voice—­to hear what it has to say. Imagining yourself filled with anger, how do you feel? Josh: Furious! Furious at her, and furious at me. Therapist: You’re doing great. From this perspective of your angry self, what are you thinking? What does this angry version of you have to say? Josh: That she doesn’t appreciate any damn thing I do. I had just walked in from work! All I wanted was to relax and unwind a little bit, and she starts nagging me about the lawn mower. Why doesn’t she fix the fucking lawn mower? Why do I have to be the one that does everything? She always says, “We need to do this…” or “We need to do that…” Well, I know what that means—­that I need to do it! I get sick of it, you know? Therapist: It sounds like your angry self has a lot to say. If your angry self were in complete control in this situation, what would he want to do? What would you do? Josh: I know exactly what I’d do. I’d tell her where she could stick her lawn mower. I’d tell her that I’m sick of being taken for granted, and then I’d pack up my shit, get in my car, drive away, and never come back. (Begins breathing more quickly, and shakes his head back and forth.) 185CFT Made Simple Therapist: Josh, you mentioned feeling angry at Karen, but also at yourself. Could you talk about that, from the perspective of your angry self? How does your angry self feel about you? Josh: My angry self hates me. Why do I keep screwing it up? What the fuck is wrong with me? And then, after…I wanted to apologize to her, to try and talk to her, but I couldn’t do it. What the hell is wrong with me? Therapist: So it sounds like there is some anger with yourself for how you handled things, both during the situation and after, but also maybe some other feelings—­like some fear or anxiety that kept you from apologizing, or some disappointment with yourself. Josh: (Nods, hangs his head, and looks down.) Therapist: This seems like it might be a good time to shift to another chair. Before we do, does your angry self have anything else to say? Josh: (Shakes his head to indicate “no.”) Therapist: In that case, how about you move to this chair over here? (Points to the adjacent chair.) Josh: (Moves to other chair and sits.) Therapist: Before we move on, let’s do some soothing rhythm breathing—­slowing down the breath…slowing down the body…slowing down the mind. (Waits for thirty seconds to one minute.) Josh: (Slows his breathing.) Therapist: Looking over to the angry chair, let’s thank your angry self for sharing his perspective with us. He did a good job of helping us to understand the perspective of your anger. Josh: (Looks at the anger chair with a neutral expression on his face.) Therapist: Let’s have some mental “palate cleansers.” I’ll say a few things, and you think of them, okay? Josh: Okay. Therapist: Tater tots! (Waits five seconds.) Dancing pandas! (Waits five seconds.) Your favorite sports team! (Waits five seconds.) What is your favorite sports team, anyway? Josh: 186 I like the Oakland Raiders.Exploring Affect: The Multiple Selves Practice Therapist: Well, that explains the anger. (Smiles.) Just joking—­I’m a Chargers fan. Josh: (Smiles.) I get you. Too bad they’ve never won a Super Bowl. Therapist: Ouch—­well played! That was just a way to focus our attention on something else, to transition from the anger. I find a little silliness can sometimes help with that. Ready to keep going? Josh: Why not? Therapist: Good. This chair we’re in now is the “anxious chair.” In this chair, we’re going to invite your anxious, fearful self to share his perspective. Bringing up the situation last night with Karen, is there any anxiety or fear that comes up? Any worries about how things happened? Josh: Yeah. Yeah, there are. Therapist: Like we did before, let’s give your anxious self the floor. Imagine the anxiety building in your body. How would you feel it in your body? Josh: Restless, and jittery, like I can’t relax. And an unsettled feeling in my stomach… a little nauseous. Therapist: Imagining that anxiety building and building, how does your anxious self feel about this situation? Josh: Scared, and worried. Therapist: Scared? Josh: Scared that I’ll never be good enough. That I’ll keep coming to these sessions but nothing will change. Worried that they’ll finally get sick of it, and leave me. Scared that I’ll push them away, and I’ll be alone. Hell, I’m even worried that I can’t fix the lawn mower, and that Karen will decide that I’m not good for anything. Therapist: It sounds like there’s a lot of anxiety in there with the anger. If this anxious version of you were in complete control, what would he do? From this perspective of your anxious self, what would you do? Josh: Pretty much what I did last night—­nothing. Just sit there and think about it over and over, scared to do anything. (Pauses, becomes tearful, looks down, then up at therapist.) I wanted to apologize, you know. I wanted to tell her I was sorry for snapping at her, that I’d meant to fix the lawn mower but wasn’t sure how to do it. But I was scared that she wouldn’t care—­that she’d tell me if I was really sorry, I wouldn’t talk to her like that. Maybe she’d be right. I’m scared that she doesn’t love me anymore, and that the kids just see me as this raging lunatic. 187CFT Made Simple Therapist: It sounds like your anxious self is really scared that there’s no making things better, that maybe there’s no way to control the anger and repair your relationship with your family. Josh: (Looks down.) Yeah. Therapist: It also sounds like there’s some real sadness coming up about this situation as well. Rather than resisting it, why don’t we invite your sad self into the room? Would you mind shifting over to this chair? (Points to the next adjacent chair to the right.) Josh: (Quietly moves to the next chair.) Therapist: This is the “sad self” chair. It seems to me that there is some sadness coming up in you about this situation. Is that right? Josh: (Nods.) Therapist: Let’s go with the sadness, then…inviting your sad self to share his perspective. What does the sadness feel like in your body? Josh: Heavy, like a sinking feeling, right here. (Motions toward his gut.) Therapist: Imagine if that sad, heavy, sinking feeling were to build and build in you. What feelings would come up? Josh: This is the worst. I don’t do this. Therapist: I’m here to help, Josh. You can do this. How does that sad version of you feel? Josh: (crying) I just feel hopeless. Look at me, sitting here crying like a baby. I feel helpless, like there’s nothing I can do. Therapist: There’s a lot of sadness in there, isn’t there? Sadness, and feelings of hopelessness. What does your sad self think about all this? What thoughts come up? Josh: (crying) That I’m losing my family, and it’s my fault. That they don’t love me, and they’d be better off without me. That my daughter and son are ashamed of me. Therapist: (nodding quietly) Mmm-­hmm. Josh: I feel like I’m a terrible father. Like I’m teaching them all the wrong stuff. That they’re ashamed of me, and ashamed to be with me. Therapist: If this sad self were in complete control, what would he want to do? What would he do? Josh: 188 Just give up. Just lay down and die. Maybe then they could just forget about me and go on with their lives.Exploring Affect: The Multiple Selves Practice Therapist: (Pauses.) Josh: (Pauses, wipes his eyes, and sighs.) Therapist: You did it, Josh. You let yourself feel it. Josh: For whatever it’s worth… Therapist: I think it’s worth a lot. That took a lot of courage. That’s what we’ve been talking about—­the courage of compassion. (Pauses.) Would you mind moving to this last chair? (Gestures.) Josh: Sure. Therapist: This chair is where your kind, wise, courageous, compassionate self sits. In a minute, we’ll slow down our breathing, and invite the compassionate self into the room. But first, let’s look around at these other emotional selves (gesturing)—­ the angry self, the anxious self, the sad self—­and thank them for sharing their perspectives. They’ve done a good job helping us understand your anger, anxiety, and sadness. (Pauses.) Josh: (Slows his breathing; looks around at the chairs.) Therapist: Now this self will be more familiar, as we’ve been practicing here and in your homework. Let’s take a bit of time to do some soothing rhythm breathing—­ slowing things down, and paving the way for compassion to arise. (Pauses for one minute.) Josh: (Closes his eyes; slows his breathing.) Therapist: Now allowing yourself to feel those compassionate qualities rising in you…the kind motivation to work with the suffering, to help yourself and others… (Pauses.) The wisdom to look deeply, and understand things from different perspectives… (Pauses.) The confidence and courage to work with whatever comes up… (Pauses.) And when you’re ready, opening your eyes, bringing these compassionate qualities with you. Josh: (Opens his eyes.) Therapist: Now, we’re going to hear from the compassionate self, but I want to set things up a bit. We all have these different versions of us—­angry, anxious, sad—­but the idea is that we can choose which part of ourselves we want to put in charge. Imagine that we’re out at sea, on a ship. Imagine that there is a big storm—­just like we’ll all face stormy times in life—­and that there’s thunder, and rain, and water sloshing over the side of the ship. These emotional selves (gesturing toward the 189CFT Made Simple chairs) are passengers on the ship. It’s scary, and they’re freaking out—­doing the only things they know how to do. Your angry self is raging and blaming. Your anxious self is shaking and worrying. Your sad self shrinks into a corner, hopeless. They’re doing their best, but they don’t have what it takes to steer us to safety. And here you are—­the compassionate self. Imagine that the compassionate self—­this kind, wise, confident version of you—­is captain of the ship. You’ve spent a lot of time on ships, and you know that storms just happen sometimes. More than that, you know what to do. You know how to get the ship through safely, and how to rely on your crew when you need help. This compassionate captain is also kind. You understand how scary this can be for the passengers (gesturing), and that they’re doing the best they can. Josh: (Nods.) Therapist: Looking at the other passengers—­the other versions of you in this stormy situation—­does it make sense that they’d be freaking out? Josh: It sure does. Therapist: How do you feel about them? Josh: I feel bad for them. They’re scared and they don’t know what to do—­and what they do know how to do doesn’t help. Therapist: So as this kind, wise, courageous captain, what would you do? How would you reassure them? What would you say? Josh: I’d tell them it’s going to be okay. I’d tell them not to worry—­that I’m going to handle it. Therapist: How do you think they’d feel, hearing that? Josh: Maybe a little better. Therapist: Now let’s think about your current situation. You’ve had this argument with Karen. Your angry self is raging—­at her, and at you—­and wants to just storm off. Your anxious self wants to apologize, but is scared to do so, and scared to be rejected if he does. Your sad self is ready to give up, feeling like a terrible husband and father, like nothing is working. What do you have to say to them? How would you reassure them? Josh: 190 I’d tell them that this isn’t the end of the world. Deep down, I know that I want to be with Karen, Chloe, and Aiden, and that they want to be with me—­they’ve told me so. While we still go at each other sometimes, it happens a lot less than itExploring Affect: The Multiple Selves Practice used to. Even last night, I let it drop rather than keeping at it. Karen knows I’m trying, and she appreciates it. She told me last week that she was proud of me for going to these sessions, and for keeping at it. Therapist: So you’d reassure them that all isn’t lost, and that things are getting better? Josh: (Nods.) They are getting better. We had a really good weekend—­went to the lake, went swimming and fishing. It was the best time we’d had in a while, and I didn’t get angry once. Therapist: Do you normally get angry at the lake? Josh: Well, Aiden’s a little kid, and so he’s always getting his fishing line tangled, or losing lures. In the past I’ve gotten irritated and lectured him about how he needs to be more careful, which always shuts things down. This time, I didn’t even mind. I reminded myself that even I get tangles sometimes, and he’s just a little kid. He doesn’t do it on purpose. Therapist: That’s great, Josh. That’s just what compassion looks like—­trying to understand what’s going on from the other person’s perspective, and to be helpful. Josh: Well, it worked a lot better than getting all worked up about it. Therapist: If you could go back to the situation last night and work with it from the perspective of your compassionate self, would you do anything differently? Josh: I would. First, I’d try not to get worked up in the first place, and try to remind myself that she wasn’t purposefully trying to criticize me—­she’s probably just noticing the grass getting longer and wondering when she might be able to mow it. Therapist: What if you had gotten worked up, and had the conflict. Would your compassionate self have handled things differently afterward? Josh: Yeah. I’d apologize, tell her I’ll get to it as soon as I can, and ask her to be patient with me. I think she could do that, as long as she sees that I really am trying. The vignette above demonstrates several characteristic aspects of the Multiple Selves exercise. The therapist guides the client into the perspective of various affective “selves,” beginning with physical sensations, and then prompting the client to explore feelings, thoughts, and motivations associated with these emotions. Transitions are eased via the use of breathing exercises, and making things a bit lighter through a bit of banter about football. Although a mental “palate cleanser” was used once, the therapist was able to find easy transition points the rest of the time, taking advan- tage of natural shifts in the client’s dialogue to move fluidly from one emotional self to the other. 191CFT Made Simple Sometimes our clients will be reluctant to explore an emotional “self” that feels particularly threatening or unfamiliar. When Josh became hesitant to enter the perspective of the sad self, the therapist offered encouragement, providing reassurance to the client that he had support. The therapist followed up on this later, reinforcing the client for his willingness to enter these vulnerable perspectives, and linking to the ongoing work (“That’s the courage of compassion.”). You may have also noticed the therapist beginning to explore the dynamics of self-­criticism through considering the interactions between different selves (“How does your angry self feel about you?”). This explo- ration could be deepened when time allows (“How do your sad and anxious selves feel about your angry self?”). Finally, the therapist spent a fair bit of time paving the way for the transition to the compassion- ate self via the “captain of the ship” metaphor, and through various suggestions (“How would you reassure them?”). Depending on how deeply the client has been able to connect with the perspec- tive of the compassionate self through previous therapeutic work, the therapist will be more or less active in facilitating this perspective—­not “feeding him lines,” so much as suggesting particular affective orientations (“Can you understand how they’d be scared? How would you reassure them?”). If things go well, by the time the transition is made to the client’s problematic situation, he’ll be ready to offer a compassionate perspective, as Josh did—­bringing compassion both to his own feelings about the situation and to how he might handle similar situations more helpfully in the future. One thing the therapist could have done (but in this case didn’t) was to have the compas- sionate self speak directly to the other selves, reassuring them and offering to help. Debriefing the Exercise It’s important to follow this (and all such exercises) with a debriefing. We want to explore what the experience was like for the client, and what he learned from it. If a client struggled with enter- ing the perspective of a particular self, or has any other problems, we can offer validation and encouragement—­this is tough stuff! This is a good time for the therapist to draw upon the per- spective of her own compassionate self, connecting with sympathy and empathy around the diffi- culty of what she’s asking the client to do in exploring these feelings, and considering what might be most helpful in helping him make sense of the experience. Here are a few questions that can be useful in the debriefing: • What was that like for you? • Were you able to connect with the emotional selves? Which were easier, or more difficult? • Did you find yourself able to shift from one self to another? What challenges showed up as we did that? 192Exploring Affect: The Multiple Selves Practice • What was it like looking at these emotions from the perspective of your compassionate self? • Were you able to see how each of these reactions makes sense? • What did we learn from this that we can take forward into our work? When it comes to the Compassionate Self work in the exercise, we want to focus on reinforcing the effort—­validating the challenges, and acknowledging the triumphs. The key is to try and help the client consider how he might bring compassion to both aspects of the experience: the feelings he has, and the situation itself. SUMMARY I’ve placed the Multiple Selves exercise toward the end of the book because it allows us to tie together many of the themes that run through a course of CFT. Rather than avoiding uncomfort- able emotions and situations, clients are helped to compassionately turn toward these scary experiences—­with warmth rather than judgment—­so that they can really understand them. Clients can develop the confidence that comes from learning they can feel these emotions without getting trapped in them, and consider how it makes sense that these feelings might arise in them. Emotional conflicts can be explored, and clients can be guided to see how different emotions can serve as triggers for other emotions—­for example, how they might shift to anger in the effort to avoid sadness, or experience anxiety when faced with their own rage, sadness, or fears. They can learn to relate to these emotions as valuable parts of themselves that nonetheless aren’t equipped to “steer the ship.” Finally, the exercise can help clients learn to empower the compassionate self as a helpful perspective for working effectively with challenging emotions and the situations that trigger them.