Unblending

Unblending is a therapeutic technique used in parts work approaches to healing (e.g., #IFS, #TIST). These techniques encourage us to view distressing thoughts, feelings, emotions, and actions (or urges to act) as communications from different (often younger) parts of ourselves. Doing so often helps to create some distance from intense emotions. So, for example, rather than feeling fully identified with and consumed by despair, you might be able to view a part of yourself as feeling hopeless. This gives you some space from the feeling and (ideally) invites curiosity about the part/emotion and often (eventually) compassion. For example, viewing suicidal and addictive behaviors as messages from young parts doing their best to try to protect you from feeling vulnerability and pain typically invites empathy rather than stigma and blame. But it can take some time to fully wrap your head around this approach and the language of parts.

Although there is no one “right” way of doing parts work, I find the framework developed by Janina Fisher, to be the most useful for me. She describes parts as “encapsulated self-states” or “embodied memories of how we survived.” The initial split happens after the first #trauma, when one part carries on with normal life while the other part holds the intense emotions and sensations and fragmented memories of the event. During the event, our body deployed one of its innate defensive strategies. Dr. Fisher identifies five: fight, flight, freeze, submit, and cry for help. The way the body felt during that particular defensive nervous system state while enduring the trauma gets encoded in memory in an unintegrated way.

When we are blended with a part, we see the world through their (defensive) lens. Their emotions and feelings feel like our emotions and feelings. That can make it really hard to notice when you are blended. Thankfully, there are some tell tale signs, including:

• If you're really honest with yourself about it, your emotional response seems outsized to the actual circumstances, and/or you're really finding it impossible to reign it in. Defensive parts are often young, so if your emotional regulation skills have suddenly disappeared on you, there's a good chance you're blended with a defensive part.

• Your thinking is very rigid and black-and-white. (If you're using words like "always" and "never," or "good" and "evil" a lot, it's time to be suspicious.) Again, these are both signs a younger, defensive part of you has taken the reigns.

• You are acting impulsively. When we're under stress, our brain favors habitual responding over goal-directed-behavior. This is on purpose: act first, think later saves us from hungry lions, but it does not necessarily help us achieve our long-term goals or behave in line with our values.

• You are dissociated. This is a pretty clear indicator you've blended with a part that relies on the freeze response for protection. Meanwhile, if you find yourself apologizing for existing or feeling more compelled than normal to be helpful, it could be a sign you've blended with a part that uses the submit (or "fawn") strategy to try to stay safe.

At first it can be hard to tell whether you are blended with a part or not, but it gets easier as you begin to get a feel for, well, how it feels. Below is a protocol described by Dr. Fisher which can be helpful in starting to build this skill the next time you feel more dysregulated than you'd like:

1. Assume that the distressing thought, feeling, image, voice, urge (etc.) is a message from a part.

2. Focus your attention on that part just briefly and put that part’s feelings into words. (“She is feeling hopeless.”)

3. Try to externalize the part somehow.* Find an object that can represent the part, or draw the part, or picture yourself looking at the part. Do you see it, feel it, or hear it? Does it have a color associated with it? Where is it located (in or around your body)? Does it move around or have a shape associated with it? (Everyone experiences their parts differently.)

4. If you can, notice yourself noticing the part. (“Here’s me noticing the part of me that feels hopeless.”) I know it feels weird, but it’s helpful, I swear!

5. Be curious about the part. How old is the part? What is this part’s job? What is it protecting you from? What are they worried will happen if they stop? How long have they been doing their job?

6. How do you feel towards the part? What does that part want or need from you?

As you begin to get a clearer picture of your parts and their defenses, you can work (ideally with a therapist) to find ways for your parts to coexist more peacefully with each other and with your core self.

The ability to be with, rather than in, one’s difficult emotions and traumatic memories is an essential component of healing. Parts work is one way to get there. It makes sense to me, but it doesn’t for everyone. Thankfully, there are other options that work well too, so don’t feel discouraged if you think all this sounds like nonsense. :)

*If you find yourself struggling to get some distance from a part, Frank Anderson, another expert in trauma, suggests first inviting the part to blend with you and letting it share what it's feeling either in writing or to your therapist. Typically once a part feels heard, they’re more likely to step back and unblend.