ABSTRACT
A popular undergraduate textbook on psychology attempts to stimulate the interest of potential students with the following statement (Coon, 1992: 1).
You are a universe, a collection of worlds within worlds. Your brain is possibly the most complicated and amazing device in existence. Through its action you are capable of music, art, science, and war. Your potential for love and compassion coexists with your potential for aggression, hatred....Murder?
This focus, on the great variation of potentials within an individual (in contrast to variation between individuals; Bailey, 1987; Rowan, 1990), is the starting point for many psychotherapies. Most clinicians are familiar with clients describing themselves as having ‘different parts’, or experiencing ‘intense inner conflicts’. And clinicians themselves also view the psyche as made up of different elements that can be labelled in different ways. For Jung there was different archetypes, (Jung, 1954/1993; Stevens, 1982, Chapter 5, this volume) and sub-personalities (Rowan, 1990); for cognitive therapists there are different schema (Young, Beck & Weinberger, 1993) and for evolutionists there are different motivational systems and strategies (Gilbert, 1989; McGuire & Troisi, 1998; Slavin & Kriegman, 1992; Stevens & Price, 1996). Few clinicians see the psyche as a single integrated system but rather view it as made up of various, and often competing, motives, desires, cognitive processes and action tendencies. Conflict and competition are not just operative interpersonally but intrapersonally (Bailey, 1987). We say ‘part of me wants to do this (e.g., speak my mind, be assertive, have sex with a neighbour) but part of me worries that this will bring rejection, guilt or shame’.