A TWELVE WEEK PSYCHOSYNTHESIS PRACTICE
Compiled and Edited by Thomas Yeomans, Ph.D.
No. 3 – THE EVENING REVIEW
This exercise is best done as the last thing in the day. Just before going to sleep, review your day in your mind, playing it back like a movie, but backwards, beginning with where you are right now, then the time of late evening, then the time of early evening, then the dinner hour, the afternoon, and so on till the morning when you awakened.
The exercise
This evening review can be used to examine yourself and your life as a whole, or it can be modified, as in the example below, to focus on some aspect of your self, on some pattern you’d like to know more about, on some specific inner process you may want to explore. The attitude with which you do the exercise is most important.
When you examine your day, do it as much as possible as the detached objective observer calmly and clearly registering each phase of what has happened. Then move on to the next phase without excitement, without becoming elated at a success or depressed or unhappy about a failure. The aim is a calm registering in consciousness of the meaning and patterns of the day, rather than a reliving of it.
Many have found it of value to write down, perhaps as part of their Psychological Workbook (No. 1), points observed and any insights or impressions that come. By reviewing the notes written over a period of time, you may observe patterns and trends not otherwise apparent.
Review on Subpersonalities
This modification of “The Evening Review” consists of reviewing your day from the point of view of your subpersonalities.
Subpersonalities are the many diverse personages or psychological formations within our personality, which have their own semi-independent activity, needs, and aims. Many of them are quite individual. Others are fairly common, such as the Child, the Parent, the Seeker, the Clinger, the Poet, the Lonely One.
Before doing this exercise the first time, we suggest a period of introspection to look for the subpersonalities (perhaps two or three of them) that you consider most active or most important at this time in your life. If you are keeping a psychological workbook, or journal, you may find some insight on this by reviewing your recent writings.
Review on Personality Aspects
This is a modification of ‘The Evening Review”. It consists of reviewing your day from the point of view of the three main personality aspects: your body, your feelings, and your mind.
Some of the points you might want to consider are:
1. With which aspect am I identified most of the time?
2. Were different aspects predominant in the various circumstances of the day? What has been the relative activity of each?
3. What were the valuable qualities and the limitations of each? How did each help me or get in my way?
4. Were there any conflicts between them?
5. What part did I take in harmonizing and directing them?
You can either consider these points during the review itself, or if this gets in your way, you can think about them at the end of the review. These points are meant to give you a choice of perspective, and need not all be covered, except for (1), which is fundamental. We suggest that, particularly at the beginning, you keep the exercise fairly simple, and give it no more than 15 minutes a day.
In the evening review itself, some of the points you might want to keep in mind are:
1. Which different subpersonalities were predominant at different times during this day? What circumstances (inner or outer) made them emerge or withdraw? Were there any conflicts between them?
2. What were the valuable qualities and what were the limitations outstanding in each subpersonality? How did each help me or get in my way?
3. What did each want? What would it like my life to be if it could have fully its own way?
4. Were my subpersonalities in harmony with what I wanted to do, or did I have to go along with them? What part did I take in harmonizing and directing them?
You can either consider these points during the review exercise itself, or, if this gets in your way, you can think about them at the end of the review. These points are meant to give you a choice of perspective and need not all be covered. The main purpose is to get well acquainted with your subpersonalities. We suggest that particularly at the beginning you keep the exercise fairly simple, and give it no more than 15 minutes a day.