None of us is a single “I”: each of us is made of several parts, each with its own needs, drives and stories, an inner tribeInner Tribe. The community of parts-of-self that a human being actually is. Health is not one part’s triumph but a well-run tribe: every member honoured, every member doing its proper job, the Adult in charge. Read the full answer. Therapeutic Shamanism focuses on four main parts, one for each realm: Spirit (the Upper-World), Soul (the Lower-World), and the body and the middle-world selfMiddle-world self. The everyday self (ego, persona, head-and-heart), made of our stories and experiences. A genuine and needed part of the Inner Tribe: of service, not in command. Read the full answer (the two sides of the middle-world). Health means every part being honoured and its needs met, with none in charge of the others; psychotherapy helps the middle-world parts, and shamanism adds Soul, Spirit and the wider world.
What are parts of self? #
The different selves within us. “Each of us is made of several different parts of self, each part having their own needs, drives, agendas and stories. As we go about our daily life, we are constantly moving our sense of self from one part to another, usually without being consciously aware we are doing so.”1 Shamanic cultures understood this too, recognising several ‘souls’ within a person: “Some cultures recognised us as having as few as three parts, whereas others recognised as many as fifteen or more.”
A part of self belongs in us, unlike an intrusion: “Parts that are not intrusionsIntrusion. Something lodged in us that should not be there, having entered through the holes soul-loss and Power-loss leave. Four broad types: unhelpful thought-forms, introjects, foreign-body energetic intrusions, and entity possessions. More about this, but which belong in someone are known as ‘parts-of-self’.”2
What are the four main parts? #
One for each realm. Of all the parts of self, the focus is on “the four primary ones. From a shamanic perspective, each of these four corresponds to (and is an aspect of) one of the main shamanic realms.”3 “We are comprised of an Upper-World Spirit, a physical middle-world body, a middle-world ‘soul’, and a Lower-World Soul.”4
Spirit “is pure consciousness. It is a fragment of Father SkyFather Sky. The sacred Masculine pole: pure consciousness, from which the Upper-World arises. Paired with Mother Earth. ‘Father Sun’ is the older name for the same pole, found in the first three books. More about this (or God, if you like)”. The middle-world self is made of stories, our own and those society gives us. The body is “a conscious part of us; a part of us that has its own wisdom and intelligence.” And Soul, the Lower-World part, “is our true Self-identity. It is part of Mother Earth, but it is also the unique individual that Mother Earth intended (and still intends) us to be.”5 See What are Soul, Spirit, the middle-world self and the body?
What about the part of us that watches? #
It is a capacity rather than another part. When we hollow out to journey, “it is the ‘aware self’ who journeys, not our middle-world (ego) self.”6 This witnessing awareness is best understood as our capacity to notice what all the parts are doing without being caught up in them, rather than as another part with needs of its own. See What are hollowing-out and stalking our stories?
What is the inner tribe? #
The parts of us seen as a community. “There is in fact no one single “self”, no single “I”. Rather, we are ourselves a community, an inner tribe. Any healthy tribe is one where all tribal members feel welcome, respected, and have a voice.”7 Just as we belong to the greater Tribe of all the PeoplesThe Peoples. The Animal People, Plant People, Standing People (the Trees) and Stone People: our elder kin, of whom the Human People are the youngest and least wise. A family, not a hierarchy. Read the full answer, “within each of us we also have a tribe of different parts-of-self.”8 A healthy inner tribe has no part lording it over the others. See What is the inner tribe?
Are there bad parts? #
No part that truly belongs in us is the enemy. There are no bad parts of self: all the parts of us are doing their best to protect us, even when a part’s way of protecting us might actually not be helping any more. Even the ego is not the enemy: “The ego is not “bad”, it just needs to be of service and not in charge.”9 Parts we reject grow stronger in the dark, and “The only way to heal Shadow wounds is to face and embrace the repressed and disowned parts of self.”10 Paul Francis has come to have the utmost respect and admiration for the fort-holderFort-holder. A protective part of the self that stayed behind to ‘man the fort’ when we were wounded: the inner critic, perfectionist, pusher, pleaser: the loyal soldier still fighting a war that ended long ago. Usually the part that sent an orphan away, so no deep healing holds without its consent; befriended, never extracted. Read the full answer, the part that stayed to cope with a hard childhood.11
What can be harmful is something that only looks like a part, such as an intrusion. That is why the difference matters: “Taking away a part of someone is to create soul-lossSoul-loss. The sending-away of parts of the self in order to survive: through shock or trauma, or (the chief modern cause) exiling our own parts to fit in. With Power-loss, one of the two root causes of shamanic illness. Read the full answer and leave a hole in them that an intrusion (or worse) could then get into.”12 See What are child, Orphan, fort-holder and protector parts?
How does psychotherapy help parts of self? #
It is made for the middle-world self. Psychotherapy is “a set of tools that we have discovered and developed that are specifically designed to deal with these problems”, and “The dismantling of a wonky middle-world self and replacing it with a healthier one – that is what psychotherapy is made for.”13 Therapy helps someone notice which part is speaking, “separate their internal parts out and negotiate a healthy resolution to the conflict between them.”14
Take someone anxious about work who realises the anxious part is their five-year-old self. Their adult part can go to work instead, and check in with the child part afterwards. “Every part has a voice, every part can be what it is meant to be.”15
How do parts appear in shamanic journeys? #
Often as our younger selves. We may meet them, or become them: “we can also shapeshift into different parts-of-self at different times”, and “any part of us that carries childhood wounds is a child-part, not an Adult.”16 Healing work can include “journeying back to meet the fort-holder in childhood”, asking the Guides to help that part.17 The work of the Adult is to look after such parts: “Your wounded inner-child needs your Adult to arrive and parent it.”
What is the relationship between parts work and the under-world? #
The under-worldUnder-world. The realm of our repressed and disowned psychic energies, personal and collective: Jung’s Shadow and the unconscious, mapped shamanically. A part of the middle-world, created by the Fall, not the Lower-World, and psychotherapy’s proper territory rather than shamanism’s. Read the full answer is where our disowned parts end up. “The under-world is the realm of our repressed and unconscious middle-world psychic energies.”18 It is not the Lower-World: it is part of the middle-world, made of what we have pushed away. So some of the ‘demons’ people meet are not outside beings at all: “They are someone’s disowned and repressed parts-of-self.” And “inner ‘demons’ need facing, embracing and integrating, not further demonisation.”19 See What is the under-world, and how is it different from the Lower-World?
