Changing Chairs Introject Action: This is a resource activity designed to assist patients to hold less confusion in relation to an Introject. The patient is instructed to imagine the essence of an Introject in an empty chair, to say everything that they would like to say to that Introject, then to move into that chair and speak as the Introject back to the patient, expressing how what was just said made the Introject feel. It often results in a cathartic sense of understanding.
Conscious: The Conscious is held by the Resource State that is currently aware and behaving. When a different Resource State takes over the Conscious, sense of self, emotions, behavior and abilities, change. The Conscious awareness may change from intellectual and reflective to reactive and emotional with a change of Resource State.
Conflicted States: Resources in a conflicted condition are in a level of conflict with another Resource to the extent that the individual experiences psychological distress. While it is common and appropriate that Resources hold different opinions (I would really like the car, and there’s no way I can afford a new car)Conflicted States achieve a level of conflict that becomes stressful to the patient.
Dissonant States: A Resource State that is in the Conscious at the wrong time.
Resource (State): A personality part that was created by the repetition of returning over and over again to a coping skill. It is a physiological part of the nervous system created by axon and dendrite growth and trained synaptic firings. Each Resource manifests the traits of the coping skills that formed it. Each will have its own level of emotion, intellect, and abilities. Whenever a person is Conscious there is a Resource holding the Conscious.
Resource Personality Theory: A theory that assumes that personality is composed of separate parts, called Resources. Resource therapists assume that the most direct way to promote change is to work specifically with the Resource that is troubled, rather than with an intellectual state that can easily talk about the problem.
Imagery Check: At the beginning of the intervention the Vivify Specific Action is used to locate the Resource that requires change. Following the intervention, the Imagery Check is used to return to this initial image to test the effectiveness of the intervention, to give the patient practice in a similar setting in the future, and to give the patient confidence that the intervention has been effective. If the Imagery Check reveals no change, there is an indication that more therapeutic work is required relating to the issue.
Intellectual Protector States: These are protector states that come to the Conscious to protect the personality from the emotional feelings of Vaded States. During therapy Intellectual Protector States may attempt to block the therapist from Bridging to the Vaded State that needs resolution. The patient intellectualizes, rather than feels. The Intellectual Protector State normally dislikes the Vaded State, seeing it as a state that gets in the way.
Initial Sensitising Event: This is a difficult and emotional event that has overwhelmed a Normal Resource, causing it to become a Vaded State. Later, when this Vaded State comes to the Conscious it brings with it the same negative emotional feelings that it experienced during the initial sensitizing event.
Introject: A Resource’s internalized impression of another person, an animal, or an inanimate. Most Introjects are experienced as emotionally positive, but Vaded States hold Introjects from which they have experienced negative emotion. Introjects have only the power given them by the Resource States that hold them.
Normal States: Resources in the Normal condition exhibit psychological health. They function well both externally and within the personality. They are not conflicted with other states and they do not hold psychological distress.
Protector States: Therapeutic resistance is caused by protector states. These are states that attempt to protect fragile Vaded States from coming to the Conscious where the personality would experience the overwhelming emotions they feel. Behavioral examples of protector states coming into the Conscious include anger, withdrawal, intellectualizing, and perseveration. Protector States merely deflect attention, while Retro Avoiding States conduct unwanted behavior to save the personality from the negative feelings of Vaded States.
Retro Avoiding States: Retro States that learn to hold the Conscious to avoid the experience of a Vaded State. In problem gambling, the state that gambles is a Retro Avoiding State. It has learned to protect the patient from a painful Vaded emotion filled state by filling the Consciousness with gambling activity. Other Resources will dislike this gambling Resource, but the Retro State believes its role in saving the patient from the negative emotions of the Vaded State is more important than the disapproval it endures. Other examples of Retro Avoiding States include the states that cause a patient to feel numb, states that act out OCD behavior, self-harming states, and states that are involved with eating disorder activities. These states will hold a strong compulsion to maintain their “helping” behavior as long as the emotional state they protect the patient from remains vaded.
Retro Original States: These are states that have learned a functional coping skill in childhood that is no longer wanted by the patient. Much antisocial behavior is a result of Retro Original States and examples include passive aggressive behavior and rage. These Retro States will continue to see their role as important, until they can be negotiated with to take on an altered or lesser role.
Retro States: Resources that, when conscious, act in ways that other Resources (and usually other people) find problematic. There are two types of Retro States, Retro Original States and Retro Avoiding States. Antisocial behavior, gambling, OCD behavior, and Eating Disorder behavior are examples of Retro States assuming the Conscious.
Sensory Experience Memory: This is the ‘AHA’ understanding that results when a Resource State speaks from the identity of another state or an Introject and then reflects on that experience. For example, a patient may speak to an Introject of another person in an empty chair, move to that chair and reply as the Introject. When patients return to their own chair they bring with them the sensory experiences they had while speaking from the identity of the Introject. This sensory experience memory enables a level of understanding that an intellectual investigation cannot attain.
States Vaded with Confusion: Following an initial sensitizing event, this Resource is left with a fundamental and profound level of confusion, and its response to this lack of ability to understand is a profoundly uncomfortable unknowing. While Resources Vaded with Fear, Rejection, or Disappointment hold a distinctly negative emotion, Resources Vaded with Confusion exhibit anxiety about what is not known to a level that is problematic to the patient. These states are often characterised by rumination.
States Vaded with Disappointment: This Resource takes on an overwhelming feeling of disappointment because of the gulf between what was desired or expected in life and the perceived reality. It is not the magnitude of what has happened that vades this Resource, it is the interpretation of what has happened that vades the state. These states cause psychological depression.
States Vaded with Fear: Resources Vaded with Fear are carrying internal fear everywhere they go and when they come to the Conscious they bring it to the surface with them. Resources Vaded with Fear prevent patients from feeling free to live their lives in a way that they choose, and they are the root of many psychological disturbances.
States Vaded with Rejection: Resources Vaded with Rejection feel unlovable. This feeling of not being good enough drives the patient, when it comes to the Conscious, to experience emotions of disempowerment, and they sometimes create a need to be perfect, as expressed in over competitiveness, out-of-control purchasing, and eating disorders.
Surface Resources: Surface Resources, as opposed to Underlying Resources, are those that are used frequently. They normally share memories together, and often observe other surface states when one is in the Conscious. A Resource that is out at work, and a Resource that is out while travelling are examples of Surface States.
Underlying Resources: Underlying Resources, as opposed to Surface Resources, are those that have been out frequently in the past but currently seldom come into the Conscious. Most childhood states are underlying Resources, with memories not readily available to surface states. Vaded States are most commonly underlying states, which occasionally come to the Conscious harbouring feelings of angst.
Vaded Avoided States: Vaded States are problematic for a patient in two ways, they can be Vaded Conscious States or Vaded Avoided States. Vaded Avoided States do not hold the Conscious, but when they come near or temporarily into the Conscious a ‘helping state’ (a Retro Avoiding State) uses an addictive behavior to force the Vaded State out of the Conscious, saving the patient from having to re-experience the overwhelmingly bad feelings of the Vaded State.
Vaded Conscious States: Vaded States are problematic for a patient in two ways; they can be Vaded Conscious States or Vaded Avoided States. Vaded Conscious States come into and hold the Conscious, causing the patient to feel emotional and out-of-control while they do. When they come to the surface they bring with them their overwhelming negative emotions, and this is what the patient experiences when they are in the Conscious.
Vaded States: Resources that were in a Normal Condition prior to experiencing an initial sensitising event that, because there was no form of crisis intervention, left them feeling chronically overwhelmed with the negative emotions. These Resources, while in a Vaded condition, are the cause of much pathology.
Vivify Specific: This refers to vivifying a specific instance when a Resource has been in the Conscious in order to bring it back into the Conscious during therapy for the purpose of intervention. Some patients attempt to give the therapist general times a Resource has been out, and this presentation will not bring the desired Resource into the Conscious. The Vivify Specific Action requires very specific detail relating to a time the state has been conscious. During this process present tense language is used.