Page 38 - NAMAH-Jan-2020

Namah Vol. 27, Issue 4, 15th January 2020

dealt with her husband quite maturely while was staying or with her father, who lived
she stayed with her own biological parents. separately. Her father tried all sorts of tricks
to disturb the mother and child from outside
This brings to a pertinent question: do we and even consulted occultists to devise some
possess one continuous unitary self or are ingenious sorcery to disturb their harmony.
we a conglomeration of multiple self-states? The mother herself suffered from depression
Current consensus in neurobiology, cognitive and impulse control disorder and could not
psychology and developmental psychology handle the child alone; she was aided by her
seem to suggest that the self in us is not unitary own mother in bringing up her child. In this
but consists of multiple self-states that emerge precarious milieu, the child suddenly declared
and alternate in accordance with which self- that she had a “wise mother” inside her who
state is in the forefront of consciousness at was guiding her to take correct decisions and
a given time. No particular self-state can who also described a harmonious past-life of
be labelled as the original personality. At the child in graphic terms. It was only after
any particular time, one or other self-state a year of intense counselling that she could
is in executive control. If these self-states are come out of this predicament.
contextually interrelated, we may say we
are in healthy control of ourselves. If there A consciousness perspective
is a disassociation between these self-states,
we can have Dissociative Identity Disorders In the consciousness perspective, the structure
(6). If this dissociation is extreme, then the of the being that emerges from Sri Aurobindo’s
manifestation presents as Multiple Personality vision holds multiple dimensions. What is
Disorder. Fortunately, all dissociative states studied as the personality in conventional
do not clearly differentiate into Dr. Jekyll and psychology is the outer or surface being in
Mr. Hyde prototypes, so we tend to think the psychology of Integral Yoga. The outer
that Multiple Personality Disorder is rare. being does not present a faÇade of unity
In reality, milder versions of Dissociative but is actually a conglomeration of multiple
Identity Disorder are far more common than self-states arising from the physical, vital
thought. Therapists need to work to help and mental planes of consciousness and
patients understand that dissociated identities their various combinations. The outer being
are part of oneself rather than pertaining to rotates around the ego which is skewed
a delusional sense of separateness. to one or other self-state and thus cannot
achieve an ideal harmony. Psychotherapeutic
Often traumatised children may experience techniques that work to facilitate inter-relations
a dissociative self-state by inventing an between different self-states can only achieve
omnipotent inner care-taker or protector. compromises but cannot attain dynamic healing.
As such protectors are experienced as real,
frightened parts may be highly attached Bromberg, a votary of multiple self-states,
to them creating an “inner world” or third argues against the concept of an integrated
reality (7). Thus one 7-year-old girl who was self: “I argue that there is no such thing as
burdened with parental separation could not an integrated self — a ‘real you’….health
cope with either her mother, with whom she is not integration. Health is the ability to

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