By Francesca Starr, MA, LPC, BCPC, Voice Dialogue Topic Expert Contributor

Click here to contact Francesca and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile

Why did I choose Voice Dialogue as the cornerstone of my counseling and coaching practice?

1. Voice Dialogue is a brilliantly constructed method that allows me to draw on all of who I am. All the skills, insight, knowledge, and wisdom I have gleaned from a lifetime of personal and professional growth express through me as I facilitate a Voice Dialogue session.

2. Voice Dialogue makes sense. Co-created by psychologists Drs. Hal and Sidra Stone, Voice Dialogue is based on 40 years of study, clinical experience, and mapping of the human psyche (our inner world). It is founded on the premise that humans are not a single entity. Rather, they are made up of an organization of numerous and distinct structures called Inner Selves, sub-personalities, parts, or energy patterns. Each is born with a purpose, has its own beliefs about us and reality, and carries certain characteristics and behaviors. We develop and identify with our Primary Selves, while we bury or repress equal and opposite Disowned Selves. For much of our lives the Primary Selves are who we think we are. They are making our choices and driving our psychological car. By the very nature of life there comes a time where this imbalance creates problems and makes us blind to many new options or choices. Until we have choice, we are not free. Read the rest of this entry

By Mary Disharoon, MA, LMFT

Click here to contact Mary and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile

Author’s Note: This article was written as a way of introducing the idea of inner selves and the benefits of Voice Dialogue to my new clients.

The word multiplicity means “the state of having many parts or aspects”. Recognizing that you have many different parts or aspects that make up the wholeness of who you are indicates that you are complex and that you’re able to accept that fact.

You might have grown up hearing about someone in the news or a character in a book or a movie who had “multiple personalities” and you learned to associate it with being crazy. You chose to think of yourself as one coherent self, with one inner identity, operating in one body because that was your idea of psychological health and normalcy. Read the rest of this entry