These perpetrator parts would do the same thing in their psyches to their own vulnerable, childlike parts. This process—in which protectors in one generation take on the perpetrator burdens of their parents while they were being abused by those parents—is one way that legacy burdens are transferred.

to mistake the burden for the part that carries it.

This is because parts, like people, fight back against being shamed or exiled.

They found that the behavior of the whole system couldn’t be understood from the study of each part in isolation; i.e., outside of the context of the whole system. Hence the famous saying that the “whole is greater than the sum of the parts.”1

the Self says no to impulsive parts firmly but from a place of love and patience, in just the same way an ideal parent would.

For example, clients would talk about an inner critic who, when they made a mistake, attacked them mercilessly. That attack would trigger a part that felt totally bereft, lonely, empty, and worthless.

“When people asked me if I was ready for my life to change, I don’t think I really understood what they meant. It wasn’t just that strangers would know who I was. It was this other thing that started to happen to me: when I looked in their eyes, sometimes, there was a little voice in my head wondering, Would you still be so excited to meet me if

that this essential Self is who we really are.

It’s common to believe that a person who gets high all the time is an addict who has an irresistible urge to use drugs. That belief leads to combatting that person’s urge with opioid antagonists, with recovery programs that can have the effect of polarizing the addictive part, or with the willpower of the addict. If, on the other hand, you believe