Posted by pegasus on March 24, 2006, at 11:41:43
So, I went back to my most recent T last week, and we had a conversation about my self-destructive habits. In the past, when stressed, I've had this very large and aggressive part of me that took over and started behaving badly. Lately, though, I seem to have a new layer of myself that can often look at it logically, and say, "No, it's ok if I don't do that now. It's ok to just have a bad day."
My T says the old part is a "complex" in the Jungian sense, and the new part is my real self. We talked a lot about how I would recognize a real self, versus a complex, and what that means. We also talked about how this relates to being a mother.
So, then yesterday I got a receipt from her in the mail, and on it she attached a note, which includes this statement:
"I meant to remind you about the health in having flexible ego states. Mothering demands it!"
I'm going to see her again in a couple of weeks, probably. But in the meantime, what do you suppose she meant? I know ego states are parts of our personality, such as an "inner child" and etc. But, is she saying my complex is one ego state and my new part is another one? And it's good to have both? I'm kinda baffled.
peg
poster:pegasus
thread:624164
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20060312/msgs/624164.html