ABSTRACT
One of the certainties that a family brings to therapy is the knowledge that the identity of their members is unique and unchangeable, and this certainty is maintained by years of daily transactions among its members. A therapist functions as a midwife, making available alternative ways of being that increase the flexibility of a person’s relating with their significant “others.” The question becomes how to do it: how to challenge the concept of the self as a unit. One of the ways of challenging the reality that the individual is unique is by demonstrating to family members the reality that the individual is also multiple. The self is created in a context populated by significant “others” at different historical periods in the life of a person, but it has a single identity who partakes through life and is influenced—and exerts influence—on other selves.
