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The Creativity of Voice Dialogue –
within a psychotherapy relationship
by
Mary Disharoon, MFT and Alice Simmonds,
MFT
Authors’ Note: This article was written
as a way of introducing the work to psychotherapists.
Voice Dialogue is a way of working with clients that creates change
by shifting energy. This happens when the different inner parts
of a person’s personality are directly experienced through
dialogue and a powerful capacity for centered choice is awakened.
In this article, we would like to convey the creativity of this
way of working with psychotherapy clients. Unfortunately, writing
about an experiential method doesn’t quite do it justice because
the energetic component isn’t present. As you continue reading,
keep in mind, the magic is in the experience.
In traditional talk therapy, a client comes into your office and
sits down across from you and talks about herself and her life.
If you were to look at this same scenario through a Voice Dialogue
lens, you would say a client comes into your office and sits down
across from you and lets her many different inner selves talk about
herself and her life.
With Voice Dialogue, the therapist/facilitator invites the different
selves to speak one at a time. As you listen to your client, you
might say – “Janice, it seems like you have two sides
to your personality that are in conflict, a part that wants you
to find another job and a part that doesn’t want to leave
what you already have. Would you like to speak from these parts
and hear what they each think and feel? Voice Dialogue can help
you know these parts of yourself and stay conscious of them as you
make your decisions about your future.”
The beauty of using Voice Dialogue is that the client can hear
directly from the inner selves and feel how each self offers a distinctly
different energetic experience. The therapist becomes a facilitator,
not trying to change anything but “holding” the process,
asking questions that elicit each self’s fuller story, including
any particular thoughts, feelings, history, wants, needs, and body
sensations.
As the facilitator, there is a protocol that you can learn that
will support your holding of this experiential process and make
it safer for the client’s selves to come out and be heard.
One important aspect is that when a self is going to talk, the client
moves to another seat and gives that self its own space in the room.
When that self is done talking, the client always returns to her
original seat that is now referred to as the Aware Ego. From this
center position the client has more awareness, more balance and
more possibility of choices to draw upon.
Here is an example of an abbreviated Voice Dialogue facilitation
with Janice, who is considering changing jobs.
Facilitator: Why don’t you move over so I
can talk to the part that wants change?
Part that wants change: (Moves to another seat.)
Facilitator: So you’re the part of Janice
that wants her to change jobs?
Part that wants change: Yes, I really want her
to change jobs. That’s not a good place for her to be. Her
boss doesn’t appreciate the job she does. He’s always
on her case about something, and doesn’t recognize her talents
because he feels threatened by her abilities.
Facilitator: Are you afraid at all?
Part that wants change: No, I like change. I think
you have to change to get something better. And I believe in her,
or (pause), I guess it’s me I believe in. I know I can do
it. I think what I’m actually afraid of is that Janice will
listen to that other part and stay in this job and never change
and I’ll be left feeling this way forever.
Facilitator: Do you have any sense of how long
you’ve been in her life?
Part that wants change: Well, (pause), I think
I have been with her since she was very young. I am a very alive
part of her. Sometimes I really think I am her. I’m happy
and I’ve always been interested in learning new things. When
her parents got a divorce when she was 10, she got very depressed,
but that’s another part of her, that’s not me. Back
then, I helped her adapt to the changes. Even today, I help her
adapt and handle change. Have you noticed how life always has a
lot of changes?
Facilitator: Yes, I have noticed that. What does
the energy feel like in your body right now, as you sit and talk
with me?
Part that wants change: It feels really good, really
powerful. I feel alive, especially in my arms and legs. I can feel
the energy right now.
Facilitator: Thank you for moving over and talking
to me. I’m glad you are there for Janice. She needs you in
her life and now it’s going to be easier for her to know that
you are always in her, available to be tapped into if she needs
to adapt to new situations or wants to feel the aliveness and excitement
about living that you hold for her.
Janice moves back to the center seat/Aware Ego position. The facilitator
asks Janice to notice how the part’s energy is still over
there in the chair and they discuss this part from the vantage point
of the Aware Ego position. Once this discussion has strengthened
Janice’s ability to see that as just a part of her, the facilitator
asks Janice to move into the part that doesn’t want to leave
her current job.
Facilitator: So you’re the part of Janice
that doesn’t want her to leave her job?
Part that doesn’t: Yes. I just don’t
want her to, and I don’t want you to try to convince me I
should let her.
Facilitator: I agree with you. I definitely will
not be trying to convince you to change your mind. Instead, I want
to help Janice know what you think and feel about this idea of hers
to change jobs.
Part that doesn’t: Well, I am so comfortable
there. I have lots of friends, and I would miss everyone. This is
like a family for me. I don’t mind that she’s not appreciated
by her boss. I care more about my co-workers. I enjoy them. I like
the way we are friends and support each other.
Facilitator: Do you know how long you’ve
been in her life?
Part that doesn’t: I suppose I go way back
into her childhood. I can remember being so incredibly sad when
my parents divorced. Our family was never the same after that. My
mom was so sad too. And I didn’t get to see my dad that much
after that.
Facilitator: That must have been really hard for
you. How old were you when your parents divorced?
Part that doesn’t: I think I was 10. You
don’t even know how sad it was. I can feel that feeling right
now. Kind of like a heavy weight in center of my chest.
Facilitator: (holding the heaviness of that energy
with her) Yes, I can feel what you mean. (Pause to just be with
the energetic experience.) So you want to preserve the family feeling
that you get at her work. And you want Janice to know that about
you?
Part that doesn’t: Yes, I want her to know
that and remember me as she is weighing her decision. I want her
to know that I like to form connections with people. I feel safer
when I do that. I hope she doesn’t change jobs, but if she
does, I hope she picks one that has a family feeling for me.
Facilitator: Thank you for moving over and talking
to me. Janice has been listening. You are a very important part
of her, a part that really experienced the pain of her parent’s
divorce. She needs to listen to you too, and take good care of you
if she decides to change jobs. You have a vulnerability about you
that needs to be cared for.
Part that doesn’t: Yes, I feel young as I
sit here and talk to you. And I like what you just said. I do want
her to take care of me as she makes this decision.
Facilitator: Thank you, and when you are ready,
move back to the Aware Ego position.
The part moves back and the client and the facilitator again talk
for a while so that Janice can live into this newly forming Aware
Ego, which will give her a capacity for centered choice. The more
time she can spend here, the more she’ll develop her ability
to live between these opposite selves and learn to access them as
she makes choices in her life.
In Voice Dialogue, the selves are accepted and appreciated for
who they are. A facilitator never sides with one part against another
part, or judges, fixes or makes any part wrong. Change occurs when
the client develops an awareness capacity to know her inner selves
and develops an ability to stay separate enough from them to live
in an Aware Ego process. She learns to hold the opposing selves
in a dynamic tension, which supports integration and transformation.
The concept of an Aware Ego process is the most innovative aspect
of Voice Dialogue. It is what distinguishes it from Gestalt Therapy
in which the selves talk to each other and try to reconcile their
differences. The experience of living within an Aware Ego process
is similar to being the conductor of an orchestra. Voice Dialogue
helps a person experience their inner selves so they can conduct
and channel them through an Aware Ego process.
An Orchestra Conductor can creatively manage the
full range of musicians in an orchestra. An Aware Ego process
can creatively manage the full range of selves within a person’s
ever expanding personality. An Orchestra Conductor
embraces all the different tones, sounds and vibrations available
through the various musicians. An Aware Ego process
embraces all the different thoughts, feelings and body sensations
available through the various selves. An Orchestra Conductor
leads the musicians, some to play solo, some to blend with others
and some to be still, depending on the musical effect wanted. An
Aware Ego process leads the selves so they can
join in at different degrees, some more - some less, to be able
to creatively meet the challenges of living and loving.
Voice Dialogue is compatible with most any psychological orientation.
Its clinical uses vary depending on the presenting facts, the client’s
ego strength and the clinician’s training, experience and
creativity.
Some basic uses are: 1) to help a client expand awareness by recognizing
the different selves that come forth in regard to a particular life
issue, 2) to support a client in letting go of negative behavior
patterns by opening to new selves that can create the desired change,
3) to give voice to the different figures that show up in a night
or daydream and as symbols in a sand tray, 4) to guide a client
into managing an out-of-control critic, 5) to enhance a client’s
spiritual awareness with direct experience of transpersonal energy,
and 6) to be used in relationship work, when a couple is polarized
and each person needs to open to a disowned self that lives more
dominantly in the other person. And in every case, Voice Dialogue
can be used to help a client grow beyond their “either/or”
mindset into the limitless creativity of “both/and”
thinking.
Mary Disharoon, MFT,
707-525-4789
MaryDish@comcast.net
www.VoiceDialogueCalifornia.com
Mary specializes in Phone Voice Dialogue with new and experienced
people throughout the country. She has offices in Petaluma and Santa
Rosa, California, where she offers individual and relationship sessions,
weekend VD Trainings, Case Consultation for psychotherapists, and
Conscious Eating selves work.
Alice Simmonds, MFT
415-389-9428
alice@explorevoicedialogue.com
www.ExploreVoiceDialogue.com
Alice offers Voice Dialogue sessions with individuals and couples,
in person and by phone. She also offers groups for teaching, learning
and working with Voice Dialogue and Dreams in San Francisco and
Mill Valley, California.
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