We may completely cut off from other subpersonalities. We may be told in our youth that our sexual side is inappropriate or ‘dirty’, leading us to shove this part of ourselves into a drawer away from public eye. Or perhaps you have a selection of darker, nastier, pettier subpersonalities hiding under a guise of what is socially acceptable. On the flipside you may have a strong leader type, a class clown, or magnificent potential that never gets to see the light of day for fear of being judged - because you were told it was ‘too much’. I first discovered the idea of the Four Subpersonalities 3 years ago, in Edmund Bourne’s book about Anxiety & Phobia. At that time I was struggling to overcomewhatI believed was a bad case of general and social anxiety. Since then, I have largely overcome this fear by becoming mindful of my negative self-talk – and the Four Subpersonalities that exist in differingdegreesin all of us. These Subpersonalities are: reincarnation that is in line with the oriental philosophy of skandhas, which are residual attachments to former identifications that incarnate in search of liberation. What am I then? What remains after having dis-identified from my body, my sensations, my feelings, my desires, my mind, my actions? It is the essence of myself—a centre of pure self- consciousness. It is the permanent factor in the ever-varying flow of my personal life. It is that which gives me a sense of being, of permanence, of inner balance. I affirm my identity with this centre and realise its permanency and its energy. Notes on your experience with the various stages of the will, and evaluation of your areas of strength and weakness. Note any occasions and their distinctive circumstances in which you were aware of yourself making use of the will, and record your results with the exercises for developing the will.

In Assagioli’s words (p. 37): ‘All main tendencies, all main vital drives, tend to become personified, as Jung says, and to aggregate to themselves, in addition to the main instinctual or psychological drives, emotions, mental pictures and thought elements, all of which contribute to the realisation and self-assertion of that which we can really call a “subpersonality”. In ourselves we can find an aggregation of subpersonalities, each endowed with tendencies towards self-preservation and self-assertion, and which are, of course, necessarily in constant conflict with each other.’ I am not saying the darker subpersonalities need to come out and steal the show, or make your life any more difficult than it needs to be. But what I will say is this: every subpersonality needs something, wants something, and is ultimately trying to express something core in YOU.

We have different types of relationships throughout life – for example, at each new psychological age – and we correspondingly develop a new self-image, which is often experienced as a conflict between established subpersonalities and new roles. So Assagioli links these different emergent self-images, or self-perceptions, to the formation of new subpersonalities. Subpersonalities are composed of psychological functions, tendencies and qualities that are organised around a central drive and connected to the ‘I’. Readers of the following essays and lectures by Roberto Assagioli will note some redundancy and repetition of some ideas and practices in these essays. The reason for this is that we felt it was important to present Assagioli’s original essays and lectures unedited, so that the authenticity of the material is assured. However these essays and lectures were presented at different times and locations to different types of audiences: some were public lectures, some were published articles, and some were recorded conversations or interviews. Assume a physical attitude of serenity. Relax all muscular and nervous tension. Breathe slowly and rhythmically. Allow serenity to express itself on your face. It may help to visualize yourself with that expression. Obviously these exercises can be combined with other practices, drawn from a wide range of psychological and spiritual disciplines, East and West, nor do they represent a complete compilation of available psychosynthetic practices. But these particular twelve have proven central, again and again, to work in psychosynthesis, and they are published here in the hopes that they will continue to be of such use in the decades ahead.

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? 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? Description: This person isextremelyjudgmentalof themselves. They put themselves down constantly for any flaw, limitation, or failure they perceive in themselves. They fall into the mental trapofoveremphasizing their weaknesses and filtering out their strengths.Resolve as much as you can to remain serene through the day… to be a living example of serenity…. to radiate serenity. Which subpersonality was the most dominant in you? It could have been two of them equally – this is normal. Or it could have been just one like me (The Perfectionist). First is the importance of practice itself, the consistent “doing” of certain exercises that support the process of psychosynthesis within oneself over time.