Selbstanteile – eine Herausforderung in Theorie und Praxis der Personzentrierten Psychotherapie

Abstract

Inner Parts — A Challenge in Theory and Practice of Person-centered Psychotherapy. The following article elucidates the bases for the understanding of “inner parts” in person-centered theory. Especially in the English-speaking area, the ongoing discussion on Rogers’ unitary conception of self and personality is outlined and, based thereon, the further development of Rogers’ theory of the self in the direction of a pluralistic self. In the course of this, special attention is given to Mearns’ “Dialogical Theory of the Self” and the so called “configurations of self”. Thereafter, possibilities of therapeutic work with inner parts are illustrated, as they are described by Mearns and other representatives of the self-pluralistic perspective on personality.
The presentations of this paper refer to persons with a well-integrated self and stand in a clear demarcation to those with dissociative identity disorder and other disorders like schizophrenia or borderline personality disorder.