Therapeeyootic

I'm seeing a shrink. A real one. Not a therapist, but a real Psychologist, dealing with cognitive-behavioral stuff. Working our way through my tangled mindfield, I have met two others of me, and they are not quite the enemy. One is my adolescent self, a bit of an anarchist, an anti-authoritarian type who lives for fun, for play, and for whining. The other is my authoritarian father, the critic, the one who knows the "right" way to do things, who suffers in grumpy silence or yells at those who transgress against the "rules." They are both useful to me, but they have each been known to take over.

He asks me to talk to them directly, and then move to their chair and talk back to me in my (now empty) chair. It's a weird experience, talking to an empty chair, and then going and occupying that space, and becoming that person. The work was awkward at first, but I'm/we're getting better at it. At first, it felt like acting - fake. But when you say something to that other person within you, what that person wants to say back is almost always right there, waiting to come out, and it can be quite surprising to find out what these people who live within your brain think of, well... you.

Not sure who I expect the end result to be.