Man: I'm struck by that phrase «important enough.» I know it's important intuitively, and it has already been emphasized a couple of times, but can you explain what makes it so powerful?

It's a presupposition. It presupposes that this is more important than the other. If I go «Look, you are tall enough to reach that glass," the implication is that you are taller than I am. If I say to a kid «You are strong enough to stand up for yourself now," that presupposes that there was a time when he wasn't, but he is now. If I say «You are old enough to pay your own way," it presupposes that she wasn't at some time, but now she is and she hasn't recognized it. «You want this because it's important. And that means it must be important enough for you to do these other things.»

This is a great pattern to use in couple therapy. The couple is arguing and shouting «I'm right!» So you say «You're arguing because X, Y, and Z is very important to you. But is it important enough for you to consider other ways of communicating that might work better than arguing?» It's a great double–bind. If it's not really important, then they wouldn't argue in the first place, and they can stop now. If it is important, then it's important enough to try something else that might work, since what they're doing now isn't working. All the power behind being «right» gets channeled into new behavior.

In one couple I worked with, every time her husband would give her what she asked for, she would want more. She knew that she shouldn't, but she was dissatisfied and that made him crazy. He used to offer her things, but he didn't much anymore. She had a part whose primary intention was to get him to reassure her that he still loved her. What that part was doing wasn't working very well. I decided to build a part to help it: an ally. Any time she began to have doubts, this new part would come into action. This ally reframed the reassurance part on an ongoing basis. Whenever she had doubts, the ally said «Look, is it important to be reassured?» «Yes.» «Well, good. Is it important enough for you to find out what you can do to reassure him that you love him?»

This will result in a much broader behavioral change than simply giving her other ways to feel reassured. The ally will get her to do many things with her husband that don't get reassurance at the moment, but will result in her being reassured spontaneously at other times, which is what she really wants. You can't directly get somebody to reassure you spontaneously. But you can behave in ways that will eventually get it for you spontaneously at other times. A meta–part can be a good way of doing that.

Woman: I'm trying to relate this to the six–step model, which would say «Find out what need the present behavior that you don't like is satisfying, and find a new behavior that would better satisfy the need.»

Yes, that's the six–step model. One way to think about such «problems» is as if every behavior serves a need. Or you can assume that a problem behavior has nothing to do with their needs; it's just a byproduct of achieving some other outcome. That would also lead you to use the six–step model.

The difference between when the six–step model is particularly useful and when building parts is particularly useful is the difference between building parts that stop things and building parts that do things. With the six–step model you usually start out with some behavior you don't like and get new choices so that you no longer use the unwanted behavior. That's using reframing in order to stop something. The situations where building a part is most appropriate are those in which a person wants a part that does something: he wants to generate certain desired behaviors, and he is not doing it. When people ask for a part that stops something, then the six–step model, the secondary gain model, is going to be much more appropriate.

Man: How about building a part that differentiates between professional relationships and personal friendships? College professors who lecture at you when you are chatting could use a part like that.

Yeah, I can think of some people who could use that.

Man: How about a part that will give more flexibility to a person who has a lot of polarities?

Well, you have to be more specific about what you mean. You're being very general. What you're thinking of may be really groovy, but you have to be careful about how you describe it, because we've got this other human that we're going to install it in. Does this mean that he is going to become tolerant of having his parts fight with one another? What do you mean?

Man: Let's say the person has a polarity response to situations involving groups of people; you develop a part that will allow the flexibility for that person to listen.

Oh, you mean the ability not to have the polarity response. If you do that, you have to consider the possible secondary gain. If he always has a polarity response, is there some positive function? There may or may not be. The nice thing about your example is that if something is that overgeneralized in behavior, very often you can just build a part that listens to lectures and no other part in him will object to that, because there is no secondary gain to not listening in that context.

No matter what the difficulty is, you can act as if there is secondary gain and fix it. That will always work. If you pretend well enough, you can get anything to be real. But it may turn out that there is no secondary gain. There may only be secondary gain in a polarity response when you are being lectured by parents as a teenager. The polarity response allows you to rebel. However, you overgeneralized that response to all situations.

You become one of the people who sit at the back of one of our seminars. Afterwards, you say «Well, but what about insomniacs? It works well for phobias, but what do you do with depressives?» That person will leave the lecture not knowing anything about how to work with phobias because of his polarity response.

The point I'm making is that not listening may have no secondary gain in one context; it may in another. So if you just build a part for that particular context it may work great, but to avoid objections you have to be very specific about what it's going to do.

Man: A part that will get a person to show up on time for therapy sessions, or a part to do homework on time.

Which of the three models is going to be most appropriate for the example he just gave? «People are late.» What does that sound like? … It sounds like two parts tripping over each other's toes. So you'd use the negotiation model for that.

Woman: A part to discriminate between a dangerous situation and a safe one.

A part to discriminate between what's dangerous and what's safe. What do you think about that? What does that sound like? Does that sound like a situation in which you've got to 1) reframe one part, or 2) build a part, or 3) negotiate between parts?

Man: You could do any of those.

Well, you can always use any of these models, but which one sounds most appropriate? Woman: Build a new part.

Bill: Rebuild an old part. Take the part that has kept him safe enough to get here, that kept him from getting hit by cars or anything, and—

How do you know that? She didn't say anything about that. What happens if you have someone who's always stepping in front of trains? She didn't specify any of that.

Man: He must be getting missed by trains or he wouldn't be here.

That's a pretty big assumption. You can verify that with sensory experience, but I can think of examples of people who need to have parts that distinguish between situations which are dangerous and those which are not, because they get them mixed up.