One hundred years after the first psychosynthesis centre opened in Rome, Dolma Beresford tracks the modality’s relevance to trauma work today.
© This article was first published in Therapy Today, the journal of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP). Read the original article (PDF).
Italian psychiatrist Roberto Assagioli’s seminal book is Psychosynthesis. Considered the father of transpersonal psychotherapy, Assagioli is perhaps less well known for his ‘parts model’ of the psyche, which preceded modern-day therapy approaches to trauma, such as internal family systems (IFS) and trauma-informed stabilisation treatment (TIST). While Assagioli originally trained in Freudian psychoanalysis, he was an early challenger of its reductionism. He envisioned a psychology of wholeness that embraced human suffering, development and the spiritual and transcendent, articulating a framework centred on self-actualisation and the unfolding of one’s deepest callings through personal integration and transpersonal growth.
At the heart of the model were three key concepts: Self (our stable core or essence), the Conscious Self or ‘I’ (our everyday awareness, identity and will, which has the ability to observe and engage in experience, much like mindfulness or dual consciousness) and subpersonalities (semi-independent ‘parts’ within the personality, formed around instinctual drives, emotions, images and thoughts that develop in relation to life experiences. Each carries its own aims, often in conflict, pushing towards self-preservation). A core method in working with subpersonalities is the practice of identification and disidentification. The process typically unfolds through five stages: recognition, acceptance, co-ordination, integration and synthesis.
IFS
Richard Schwartz developed IFS in the early 1980s, and it is now one of the most widely recognised approaches to parts work. Drawing on psychosynthesis and family therapy, he conceptualised the psyche as a system of parts, each with its own roles and motivations, interacting like members of a family. These include vulnerable ‘exiles’ carrying pain, and
‘protectors’ that manage or suppress distress. At the heart of the model is the Self, an undamaged essence capable of compassionately leading the system towards healing and integration.
Core IFS concepts – the Self, parts and methods of unblending – closely mirror psychosynthesis ideas of the Self, subpersonalities and disidentification. By setting aside the explicitly spiritual and transpersonal dimensions of psychosynthesis Schwartz made IFS more accessible to mainstream psychotherapy. In more recent developments, however, he has begun to reintroduce a transpersonal quality to the Self – an aspect that psychosynthesis has always held central. His work advanced the field by offering a clear and practical model of self-leadership, enabling clients to cultivate harmony among their parts and live more fully from the Self.
TIST
Drawing on neuroscience, structural dissociation theory, sensorimotor psychotherapy, IFS and mindfulness, Janina Fisher created the TIST model to support survivors in addressing self-destructive behaviours and the effects of complex trauma. She describes the psyche as comprising a ‘going on with normal life’ part alongside trauma-related survival parts shaped by fight, flight, freeze, submit and attach responses. Through mindfulness and compassionate witnessing these parts are recognised as survival adaptations and gradually integrated.
As trauma theory evolved subpersonalities came to be understood not only as natural formations of the psyche but as protective adaptations to overwhelming experiences and unmet needs. Assagioli’s oval diagram already illustrated this dynamic system, depicting the conscious self, unconscious layers and higher or spiritual dimensions. These theoretical constructs were accompanied by practical applications. Most notably the exercise of identification and disidentification allowed clients to recognise, step back from and integrate subpersonalities – an intervention similar to what later parts-based therapies would call ‘blending and unblending’.
Clinical applications
Working with subpersonalities is a core therapeutic practice for those trained in psychosynthesis. Clients are guided to recognise parts such as the Inner Critic, Peacemaker or Performer, to trace their origins in childhood dynamics and to bring them into dialogue. The goal is never to eliminate the parts but to integrate them into a greater whole.
This approach prefigured what is now widely known as ‘parts work’, positioning psychosynthesis as one of the earliest structured models of subpersonalities. Yet
despite its prescience psychosynthesis often remained marginalised, associated more with spirituality than with depth psychology, even as we have just noted how later models like IFS and TIST built upon the same essential insights.
Integration
In my own practice integrating psychosynthesis with TIST has proven invaluable. I invite clients to map their subpersonalities visually, giving names and images to parts that appear in moments of conflict or distress. We then use disidentification techniques to create mindful space, allowing the ‘I’ to relate rather than be enveloped.
For example, a client may notice a ‘compliant child’ part that consistently seeks to placate authority figures (submit response). Rather than trying to suppress it we explore its origins in childhood survival strategies, validate its protective role and then connect with the Self’s capacity for autonomy and truth. Over time the client learns to relate to this part with compassion rather than shame, reducing compulsive compliance and allowing more authentic choices.
Another client may identify a fierce ‘protector’ part whose vigilance creates relational tension. Mapping its function in the nervous system (fight response) while holding it in the field of the Self enables integration. The protector’s energy, once softened, becomes available as healthy assertiveness. Such work demonstrates how psychosynthesis, when updated with trauma insights, remains a robust and flexible clinical tool.
Survival responses
Since the 1990s advances in neuroscience, brain imaging and clinical practice have deepened our understanding of how overwhelming experiences can fragment consciousness, dysregulate the nervous system and shape personality development. In particular, research into early relational trauma has highlighted its impact on the capacity to socially engage, self-regulate and feel safe. Techniques that are commonly adopted in modern-day approaches include mindfulness and self-observation, which support activation of the prefrontal cortex and enable clients to observe and disidentify from their experience without becoming overwhelmed. Somatic and implicit memory work also play a central role, recognising that trauma is often held in bodily sensation and reaction, not only
in narrative. Alongside this, the relational field is understood as fundamental, with safe and compassionate witnessing supporting traumatised parts to reconnect with the Self.
Through this lens we can view the concept of subpersonalities in psychosynthesis as survival adaptations where parts form not only through development but also as protective responses to overwhelming experiences.
Dissociation
Theoretical understandings of multiplicity and inner division in the traumatised psyche are well established. Janet, Ferenczi and Winnicott each describe the lifesaving split we now call dissociation, where one part of the child withdraws while another adapts prematurely. As
Kalsched noted, ‘The psyche’s normal reaction to a traumatic experience is to withdraw from the scene of the injury. If withdrawal is not possible, then a part of the self must be withdrawn.’
In psychosynthesis the Inner Child model offers a framework for how unmet needs or abusive caregiving leads the child to adapt for survival. Authentic expression is suppressed and protective strategies emerge – what Winnicott termed the false self, Firman and Gila the survival personality and Schwartz a protector part. The survival personality comprises subpersonalities driven by defensive responses that become so entrenched over time we mistake them for our true self. As Assagioli observed: ‘We are dominated by everything with which our self becomes identified. We can dominate and control everything from which we disidentify ourselves.’ For this reason disidentification is central to healing. It allows clients to see through the adapted self we’ve become imprisoned by. Through disidentification clients can begin to relate to protective parts with compassion, honouring their survival role while reconnecting with their spontaneity, authenticity and whole self.
Lineage
Psychotherapy is often presented as a series of competing schools. In reality it evolves through cross-pollination and synthesis. Recognising this allows us to see how models influence one another. Assagioli himself anticipated this need for evolution, describing psychosynthesis as ‘something with many aspects still incomplete, yet with a great and promising potential for growth’ and appealing to colleagues ‘to actively engage in the needed work of research, experimentation and application’. His vision extended beyond therapy to the collective.
Assagioli is credited by some as the first Western thinker to articulate the idea of the mind’s multiplicity. By 1911 he’d presented a paper on the unconscious at the Fourth International Congress of Philosophy in Bologna – the seed of his subpersonality concept. His thinking was shaped by William James, whose Principles of Psychology described ‘social selves’, which Assagioli saw as an early expression of what he would later call subpersonalities.
John Rowan then brought the concept to wider attention in 1990. Initially introduced to the idea of subpersonalities through psychosynthesis practitioners, he identified more than 20 existing terms for ‘subpersonality’, which he described as clusters of attitudes and behaviours (‘people inside’) often in conflict. He distinguished them from pathological dissociation, stressing their universality within ordinary personality structure. Rowan also comprehensively reviewed influential psychotherapeutic models, showing how many theorists had recognised distinct internal structures within the psyche: Freud divided the psyche into id, ego and superego; Jung spoke of complexes, archetypes and the shadow; Federn, Berne and Watkins described ego states; Perls described a ‘topdog’ and ‘underdog’
dynamic; Klein and Fairbairn explored internal objects; and Winnicott and Laing examined the false or unreal self. Despite using different vocabulary, what they shared in common was one similar insight: the human mind is not a singular, unified entity but a multiplicity
of interacting parts.
In all, Assagioli’s Psychosynthesis deserves recognition for articulating the first structured ‘parts model’, anticipating and influencing many of the most widely used approaches in trauma therapy today.
References
Assagioli R. Psychosynthesis: A manual of principles and techniques. London: Turnstone Books; 1975.
Schwartz RC. Internal family systems therapy. New York: Guilford Press; 1995.
Fisher J. Healing the fragmented selves of trauma survivors: overcoming internal self-alienation. New York: Routledge; 2017.
Janet P. L’automatisme psychologique. Paris: Félix Alcan; 1889.
Ferenczi S. Confusion of tongues between adults and the child. International Journal of Psychoanalysis 1933; 30: 225-230.
Winnicott DW. The maturational processes and the facilitating environment. Milton Park: Routledge; 1990.
Kalsched D. The inner world of trauma: archetypal defenses of the personal spirit. London: Routledge; 1996.
Firman J, Gila A. The primal wound: a transpersonal view of trauma, addiction, and growth. Albany: SUNY Press; 1997.
James W. The principles of psychology. New York: Henry Holt; 1890.
Rowan J. Subpersonalities: the people inside us. London: Routledge; 1990.
About the Author
Dolma Beresford MBACP, MUKCP is a psychotherapist and couples therapist with
an MA in Psychosynthesis Psychology. She works in private practice in north
London, offering online and in-person sessions, and delivers trainings on trauma-informed approaches to working with subpersonalities.