Developmental Needs Meeting Strategy - Ego States / Parts of Self

Ego States / Parts of Self

According to Daniel Siegel, a state of mind can become engrained when a positive event is experienced repeatedly; when a negative event is experienced repeatedly; or when a traumatic event is overwhelming. The DNMS assumes engrained states of mind can become sub-personalities, parts of self, or ego states with a point of view. Some parts form by reacting to others, while others form by introjecting others.

Introjection is the unconscious internalization of another person’s behaviors, ideas, values, or points of view. An introject is an internal representation of another person. The DNMS assumes an introject can form when mirror neurons fire during significantly positive or negative relationship events. Neuroimaging studies have demonstrated that certain neural circuits get activated in a person who is carrying out an action, expressing an emotion, or experiencing a sensation, and in a person who is observing that person’s action, emotion, or sensation. Vittorio Gallese, one of the discoverers of mirror neurons, calls this shared activation. He believes shared activation of neural circuits leads to embodied simulation. Embodied simulation means that internal representations of the body states associated with the actions, emotions, and sensations of the observed are evoked in the observer, ‘as if’ he or she were doing a similar action or experiencing a similar emotion or sensation. Gallese believes this process to be a basic functional mechanism of the brain, which engages automatically and unconsciously, not the result of a willed or conscious cognitive effort, not aimed at interpreting the intentions of others. This suggests that the formation of introjects of the significant people in our lives, is a biological reflex that – for better or worse – we have no control over.

Parts of self can interact with each other like family members – for example, cooperatively, antagonistically, or both. They can have competing agendas, which can lead to internal conflicts. The DNMS is an ego state therapy. Like other ego state therapies, it aims to help individual wounded ego states heal, and encourage cooperation and integration between ego states. (Other ego state therapies include Psychosynthesis, Gestalt Therapy, Transactional Analysis, Internal Family Systems Therapy, Voice Dialogue, and Inner Child Psychotherapy.)