That's just like saying «Well, there's a member of a family I can't really talk to.» That's always a function of your communication. Sometimes a person will go inside and he'll say «Well, nothing happens.» There are a number of things that you can do. One thing that almost always works is to say «Well, I know that for years now you have not gotten along with this part. You've insulted it and fought with it, and I wouldn't talk to you either if you did that to me. So I recommend that you go inside and apologize and tell it that you misunderstood its intentions and now you would sincerely like to communicate with it.» After a person goes inside and apologizes, nine times out of ten he'll get a response.
Sometimes a person goes inside to reframe and says «All right, you cruddy stinking part.» And of course that part goes «If you want a response, take that! Pachchh! Do you want me to intensify that?» Your communication with your own parts has got to be as graceful or more graceful than what you do with other people.
Woman: Yesterday you mentioned finding a part that didn't seem to have a function. What do you do then?
In principle, what you do is really easy. Since the part doesn't have a function, you just give it a positive function that it will agree to. In practice, doing this can sometimes be a bit confusing.
About four years ago I worked with a woman who told me that when she was alone, she couldn't decide what to do. She became nervous and distraught and paced the floor. When her husband was home, she would sit down and read a magazine, or go outside. But when she was by herself, she couldn't sit down and read a magazine.
I said to her, «Well, it seems like you go to a lot of trouble to get nervous when people aren't around. How do you remember to do it every single time?»
She just stared into space because that was such a weird question. «I don't know. I never thought about that.»
«Well, obviously some part of you must be making you do it, and it seems silly to me that the part would do it for no reason at all. It must be trying to do something for you that's useful, and we need to find out what it is.»
So we went into six–step reframing. We went through a phase where the signals disappeared and then came back six or seven times. Finally, since I couldn't get to the next step, I had her go inside again. «Ask this part if it knows what it is trying to do for you that is useful.» She got no response. So I said «If it doesn't know if what it is doing is useful or not, have it answer yes–no–yes–no.» She went in and asked it, and it went «yes–no–yes–no," back and forth like that, repeatedly. She looked kind of confused, because on one level she was getting these nonverbal responses, and on the other, she didn't know what it was about.
Then I said to the part «Would you be willing to tell her the function so that she can tell me? As long as she has to tell me what the function is, and I promise you that I will be the one to decide if what you are doing is useful or not, and not her, would that be all right?» I got an instant and emphatic «yes» to that without her even going inside. Then suddenly she clapped her hands over her ears and got a weird look on her face.
«What did it tell you?»
«Well, I don't really want to say it.»
«Well, you have to. I promised, you know. And I keep my promises.» The logic in that statement is pretty twisted, but it got her to tell me.
This part said something very metaphoric. «You are always alone with other people, and in a crowd by yourself.» I thought about that for a minute, and it didn't make much sense to me, but it seemed like it was trying to get her to do something better with her time when she was with other people. So I asked some questions. «Is it that when she is with other people she doesn't really talk to them, she just sits around and feels secure? And when nobody's there, she spends all her time trying to figure out who she could be with and what she could do? So are you trying to get her to utilize resources when they are more available? Is that it?» Again I got an immediate and emphatic answer: «No.» So I had her go inside and ask if it was something else. It said «I don't want to answer that question. What you said just before sounds good. That sounds like something good to do. I get so annoyed when I don't know what to do.»
«How is it useful to get annoyed; what is the intention of that?»
«I don't know.»
«Well, then, what's the point in getting annoyed?' «Well, everyone else gets annoyed when I don't know what to do.» «So if there's no one else there, you get annoyed for them?» «I guess so. I don't know.» It still sounded unconvinced, but it sounded agreeable. «Would you rather do something else?»
«Yeah, that would give me something to do, so that I wouldn't have to be annoyed and anxious.»
So I just gave the part some ways of deciding what would be useful to do. That part didn't seem to know what its purpose was. The closest I could come to an understanding was that when she was with other people, they got annoyed if she didn't do something, so she was always doing something. When no one was around, then she got annoyed and anxious but didn't do anything. It was systematic, but there didn't seem to be any useful function that I could detect. It was like a piece of motivation that didn't lead anywhere.
Mary: I'm thinking about someone that about ten of us are working with—
Ten of you are working with someone? That's the first thing I would stop. That would make anybody crazy!
Mary: This woman has a lot of nausea, which doesn't have medical causes. I know a number of reasons why she is keeping her nausea—
Well, just think, if she gives up her nausea, she'll lose ten friends. That's the first thing that occurs to me!
Mary: If this woman didn't get nausea, she would have to have sex with her husband, and she gets a lot of other goodies by having the nausea. I tried reframing everything. She keeps coming back again every two months saying «Hey, I have it again» so I'm thinking—
Dealing with the nausea, as far as I'm concerned, is inappropriate. The only thing that makes it possible for her to have the nausea is that she doesn't have positive sexual relationships with her husband, and that she doesn't have all these other goodies. So I'm not even going to mess with the nausea. I'm going to go after all the other stuff that makes the nausea happen. If she had a good sexual relationship, and if she had whatever else is missing in her life now, then the nausea wouldn't happen. That's what reframing is all about: finding out what else needs to happen so that the client won't need the symptom anymore.
Mary: She was resistant to all the things we did. We had the husband in with her, and all the time she was resisting. She's not going to leave him—although she hates him—because he provides security.
Clients don't resist, Mary. It is very important that you understand that. Clients demonstrate that you don't understand.
Mary: The parts resist, I think—
No, parts don't resist. No part of a human being resists a therapist. All they ever do is demonstrate that you are on the wrong track. That's the only thing they do. I have never seen a client who resists. What clients do is say «Hey! Not there! Over here!»
You said «I reframed with her.» It's impossible for you to reframe with somebody and not deal with the basis for what you are calling resistance. The reframing model has built into it that you don't go after the change, you go after the parts that object. All the reframing models do that.