Parts of Yourself

Why:

We each play many different roles in life. We become more free when we realize we're bigger than any one role.

Warm-Up:

Can you name one character you relate to from a movie, book, show, etc?

Exploration:

We all have different characters within ourselves, just like a show or a play has a cast of characters. At any given time, we’re playing one role. Some days we may feel like the shy and scared one; at another time we’re the confident one laughing with friends. It helps to understand these different characters, even to label them, so that we know ourselves better, and so we don't get stuck playing only one role. You’re bigger than any one character. Could you think of three roles you play often, and either name them or find (or draw) a picture to represent them? Who is your cast of characters?

Additional Resources:

This card is inspired by the work of psychologists Tom and Lauri Holmes, who developed a therapeutic approach called Parts Work. They have a wonderful book of the same name.

Artist Sharon Eckstein produced the images which are used in Parts Work, each one representing a character or archetype that we may have within us. You can see many of those images here, and may want to use them with students to give them ideas for their own inner parts. They could select images from this website, others online, or draw their own to represent the different characters they have within them.

If this work intrigues you, there is a world of further insight and resource within Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy.