1. origin of various personality traits - family influence, societal influences, individual characteristics not traceable to and different from family and societal sources,
2. existing complexes,
3. of polarities, ambivalences and conflict.

The Life Script Analysis of Transactional Analysis School (Appendix 1) puts into a coherent whole various conscious aspects of the personality. The Intensive Journal Method of introspection is another structured way of seeing the continuity of one's life and arriving at "Now : the open moment".
Appendix 2 contains the psychosynthesis questionnaire which can also help in assessing the conscious component of our personality.

Subpersonalities
These are the various `selves' which compose our personality. The stresses and strains in our personalities. It is extremely useful to identify the subpersonalities, recognise their genesis and discover their needs and wants. Instead of rejecting the dark shadowy aspects of ourselves, if we can recognise their purpose and learn to accept them, their negative influence will decrease considerably if not totally.
Our team has had several positive experiences in the use of this technique to aid personal psychosynthesis in our personal growth workshops. We begin with the fantasy exercise outlined in Appendix 3. Following this exercise, the participants draw out their subpersonalities, each on one big sheet of paper. they name them, colour them according to the quality and mood of the subperonality. The experience of drawing, colouring and naming the various selves is liberating and creative - it releases positive energies that participants did not know that they possessed. As each participant gets ready with their array of subpersonality, they introduce them one-by-one to the group. Chairs for each subpersonality are set up in the Director of personality. The idea behind the Director's chair is that the person may detach herself and look at the subpersonalities in an objective manner. The Director's chair is of a different type from the others, more imposing, stuffed cushion, arms, etc. This chair symbolises the power and potency required to harmonise the subpersonalities so that their negative influences can be transformed.
And now a multi-chair dialogue ensues with each subpersonality narrating his/her origin, needs, and wants. The facilitator intervenes only when necessary to guide the dialogue or to mirror back some insight into the person's unconscious.
On completion of the dialogue - when the subpersonalities have completed their negotiations arrived at a state of positive balance - the person is asked to withdraw and reflect on the fresh insights gained during the process. Based on these learnings, the person now makes a plan or contract for changes in daily life. This is the stage of psychosynthesis.

Sangeeta's Case

Introduction
Sangeeta is a 32 year old woman. She has an elder brother and a younger sister. Her grandmother had a mental illness and Sangeeta has always had a fear of going mad herself. Her mother was rather immature, needy herself, and could not mother was rather immature, needy herself, and could not mother her children properly. Her father was very strict. Till er late teens, she was physically punished by both her parents - beaten and pinched; she left home at the age of 17 years, and has been wandering around since, trying to find peace and a purpose in life.She has been working as a counseller in a psychiatric centre and has undergone psychoanalysis herself.

Sub Personalities and their dialogue with Director

Maya - The Dancer (Picture 15) : I came early in your life. You were 5 years old at that time. You were dancing for grandmother and she did not approve of it because `Christians' don't dance!' also I like God - so there is a conflict and I stopped dancing. But on the road (when I'm travelling) I feel greatly handicapped - I've lost my ability to dance and enjoy and I've lost mybelief in God.

Director : I realise that I don't give you enough attention. I worry about so many things that it is not possible to dance. I NEED YOU ..... it is not possible to be serious all the time. I'd like to feel the diamond in myself. I need you to do more creative things: theatre, science, singing, music, feelings. I'll take you seriously. You don't worry about my believing in God - I have to do this myself.

You start dancing Maya.

Sangeeta : My second sub-personality is Bitch Witch (Picture 16). She is the most difficult one. She represents so much ugliness and negativity in me. She has so much power over me and to change people - goes too far. She doesn't give people, or me, enough space and time.

Bitch Witch : I came when your little sister took grandmother's drugs and almost died, and mother started focussing her attention completely on her. You were excluded. I was the part of you that was angry and jealous - I did things to get you their attention. you ignore me, you like to think that you don't have bad thoughts, that you are very holy. The fact is, that you need me to make you more complete.
Because they never gave you attention when you were small, you became self sufficient - you put on an act that you could make it on your own, do it all by yourself. I was your mask, your protection.

Director: You push me too much. I have always hated your ugliness and negatively. But now I recognise you - you don't need to act so big and so powerful. It is alright to be vulnerable, to need attention. We don't need get attention in a negative way for negative things. I will take care of little Sangeeta who had to withdraw into a fantasy world and protect herself from her negative family.

Director : Hey, Bitch Witch, now that I actually see you and get to know you, I think that you are kind of cute - your nose is just perfect and you are perched so cutely on you broom for taking off!

Clown (Picture 17): I was the clown of the family, and of friends at school and at work. When I don't know how to react, I just play the clown. But feel sad too, and overact, so nobody see's my pain. Like the Bitch Witch, I am another part of you which likes attention.

Director : I like you, you are a good part of me, a lot of fun. So stay with me. But don't over act. If I feel pain, I need to express this pain like it is, and not play the fool.

The Traveller (Picture 18) : I was also born in your childhood when you got no attention from your parents. Father was too busy, and mother gave all her love to sister. You were terribly lonely when you were five. I was born out of this loneliness. I was the part of you that created a dream world for you and you lived in it. In this dream world you read books, saw movies and played. I know that you used to get frightened of me - you thought that you would lose touch with reality when I was around. I changed my form when you left home and actually started travelling. I am the part of you that wanted to get away from dogmas and the village talk. I wanted to get away to see big towns and other cultures, to expose myself to different lifestyles. I was curious to discover the world and myself. You are not afraid of me anymore are you?

Director : I learnt a lot from you - I am happy to have you as my subpersonality. I like travelling ,being alone with myself in another culture, discovering the world and myself. I look forward to the day when I will find a home and make a family.

Facilitator's Comments : Although Sangeeta meant to draw the Traveller as coming away from her village down the road towards unexplored areas, the picture actually came out with the Traveller facing the sun and her village. This symbolised the Traveller returning to her village. Was it Sangeeta's latent desire to restablish contact with the roots, to return home?

Fire (Picture 19) : I came in your life with the prana, the yoga. Iam the fire to warm the people but I can also burn them, and you, if I want to, I am full of energy. Sometimes people seem to expect too much from me - can I really give and do more than I think ? I also need a fire to warm myself and fill me up energy.

Director : Fire, I need you, and I know that through you I have, and can have, a lot of energy for myself and to give to others. Sometimes you are burning too big and your flames are consuming others. If I give more attention to Bitch Witch, you won't get all her energy and hurt others. You will become a calm and steady fire. I need you help in my life very much. I am glad you warm me.

Ant (Picture 20) : I am very ambitious and hardworking. They taught me at home to work hard for life. I was only valued for what I did, not for my being - so I learnt to work very hard and be very busy and get recognition through my work. I spend a lot of energy and many times I lose myself.

Director : You are very busy and ambitious. But don't work too hard and expend all my energy, like you do sometimes. It is not good for me. I need you and your feeling but not too much. You and Maya need to be a balance - I will encourage Maya and then you will subside.

Tree : The Thinker (Picture 21) : I am the thinker, the stable tree, who grows and protects the people from the sun and rain. I change myself with every season but I am still the same tree with my roots in the ground. I can become old and wise if I feed myself well and if they help me to grow.

Director : I want to be the Thinker sometimes. I know that you think and I can feel you. I am grateful to feel you inside myself and with the help of the others, you can grow more and more.

Facilitator's Comments : Through this exercise, Sangeeta came to realise that she needed to go back in memory and heal her childhood traumas - she needed to nurture the child Sangeeta back into wholeness.
This gradual process would help her to tame Bitch Witch who is not really bad, but just a manifestation of unfulfulled basic childhood needs to love and acceptance. This was a very powerful insight.
Sangeeta realised that this would heal her feelings of loneliness and bring her closer to God whom she had valued since childhood but felt alienated from. She said at one point, `God and I had a lot of fight - I asked him : Why don't you change the world?"
She realised too that her search for a purpose and meaning for her life would stop haunting her, once she was able to heal her childhood traumas and come to terms with them.
About this exprience of psychosynthesis and transformation, at the end of the workshop, Sangeeta had this to say: "I expected difficulties to be open as a lay woman. But I opened myself completely, I felt so secure here. Although I had spent 10 years in psychiatry and undergone psychoanalysis, I had never opened myself so much before. Here I felt that I was in God's hands - I never felt God within me in my earlier experiences.
" I knew my negative parts, the Bitch Witch, and tried to get rid of her, but now I see the positive side - I recognise her as the child in me who needs to be taken care of.
"Through psychoanalysis, I learned a lot about myself. I found that my mother and I had a lot in common-we were both acting. I used to hate her. I learned that she had had a very difficult time she was hurt when I said that I was independent and that I did not need her. I saw the other side of my earlier life, and began loving my mother and sister. I forgave my father for his strictness."

Facilitators' Comments
The facilitators felt that a srong force for Sangeeta to take the risk and go forward in her jourey towards wholeness, was their own strong spiritual groundness. Their own sureness  and conviction was an aid which led her through her gropings. A therapist who is spiritually inclined, or has at least an understanding of and a sympathetic attitude towards the higher achievements and realities, can be of great help to the client. This is specially true when a person has lost interest in life and is groping.

 Training of the Will 1
Even after knowing what changes we need to make to achieve a state of harmonised living, many-a-time we are unable to effect those changes. Herein lies the importance of Assagioli's concept of the WILL.
Will, according to Assagioli has the following stages: The first stage is having a clear purpose or conscious aim which is valuable enough for us to achieve. The second stage in the training of the will is deliberation or consideration; i.e., is this aim achievable?is it realistic? (These two stages are accomplished trough the Sub-personalities exercise when the various subpersonalities negotiate with each other.) The third stage is one of decision. In this stage we choose the changed path and/or changed behaviour and take the responsibility voluntarily. (The role of the Director in the Subpersonalities exercise becomes important here). The fourth
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1 RobertoAssagioli. The Act of Will. Penguin Books, England, 1979.

stage in the act of willing is affirmation : a conviction, faith and sense of adventure at what is being attempted. The fifth stage is planning, the organising of activity according to a clearly outlined programme with all its steps and stages of partial achievements. And the final stage is direction of the execution. At this stage two outsanding qualities of the whole will are required: one-pointed driving energy and persistence or endurance. Some people have more of one quality than the other. Also, some tasks chiefly require the dynamic aspects, while other tasks of less strenuous but more protracted nature call for the patience and persistence aspects of the will. Thus in the training of the will, we have to put the accent on the one which is relatively less developed or the one more required for the task. The way in which the dynamic will manifests itself is through assertion and command. The persistence aspect of the will can be strengthened through positive imagery and visualisation.

Technique of Imagination and Visualisation
The imagination, in the precise sense of the function of evoking and creating images, is one of the most important and spontaneously active functions of the human psyche, both at the conscious and unconscious levels. Every image has initself a 'motordrive' or 'images and mental pictures tend to produce the physical conditions and the external acts corresponding to them'.1 Thus the technique of creating positive visual images can be used powerfully to strengthen the will and to achieve the goals of personal psychosynthesis.

Technique of Ideal Models
The ideal model is a model of a person that one can become. Many times this is based on an 'external'or 'indirect' model-an unconscious imitation of a person whom we consider ideal, or a person whom we hero-worship. In utilising this technique in a therapeutic situation, it is necessary that the facilitator prevents a passive or too close an imitation of the external model : no one should become wholly like another. Another danger to be avoided is a personal attachment to the human representative of the model - the concept, the idea or the qualities have to be a blind following of the inspirer of the model. The internalisation of the model come through a process which is dynamic and creative.
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1 Charles Baudoin. Suggestion and Auto-suggestion. Allen and Unwin, London, 1920.

Before dealing with the ideal model, we need to dwell on the models of which we are a composite. These are -

1. What we believe we are : our over-evaluation and undervaluation of various ourselves.
2. What we should like to do : the idealized unattainable models.
3. What we should like to appear to be to others: the models for each of our important interpersonal relationship.
4. The images that others project on us: what others believe us to be.
5. Images that others make of what they would like us to be. We may resent the above two models because we recognise that these are forces which pressurise us to behave or act in certain ways.
6. Model of that which we can become. This constitutes the goal of the technique. (See Appendix 4 for a fantasy on evoking an ideal model.)

Before dealing with the ideal model, the client is helped to become aware of all the other models. Many of the models may be in conflict, some way be unconscious. Realising the conflicts and uncovering the unconscious models helps to release the energies which can be utilised to became the ideal model.
The therapist's role is extremely important in dealing with an idealized external model. the therapist needs to give data - or to lead the client - to arrive at more realistic picture of the `idol'. This is important because the client is helped to free themself from hindrances to becoming their better and truer self. An important point to remember is that the therapist should not project his or her concept of what the client should be, on them.
And now, once the client knows what qualities they want to build or develop into himself, they are led on to the exercise of visualization. The visualization should be as vivid and sharp as possible - not only should the person see themself possessing that particular quality or using the particular psychological function, but also hear and feel themself as they would like to be - all the sensory faculties including tactile and olfactory should be persent in the visualization. The length or duration of the visualization is not what is important, what is of signification is the intensity of the image. the client has to do this imagery exercise at least three times a day.
In addition to the visualization or imagery exercise, the client is asked to enact or role-play the ideal model. Thus from imagination, the client is brought to the level of action, but in a safe environment. This helps the client to translate the images into concrete reality. The next stage is actually living out the new model with a small group of friends and with an attitude of watchfulness and experimental detachment - not being too attached to the results, helps to overcome the anxiety of failure. Drawing reinforcement from this supportive stage, the final stages is of being this way with all person in all situations.
The ideal model technique cannot be used when there are present in the subject, drives or attitudes which are in direct contrast to the ideal model. The result would be either a repression which would manifest itself in other unconscious ways, or the arousing of active opposition which would sabotage the success of this technique. An intermediary stage is necessary self. They give themself permission to feel and experience fully these negative forces and not to fight them. When this is done over and over again, the force of the negative energy is spent and the client is ready to move on to the positive visualisation.

Ajay's case which follows, illustrates this principle of desensitisation very aptly.

Ajay's Case

Ajay writes about his subpersonalities and his experience of transformation.

1.Prime Minister (Picture 22) : This is my strongest and oldest subpersonality. I had it since my birth. The reason is that all three of my elder siblings were girls. I was the only male child in the family and I was the youngest. I had a lot of advantages in the family. This favourable head-start (plus my efforts) helped me to stand first continuously during my school years. Now I am in my medical profession. Now I am Head of the Department and head of my family.
I am not happy with my superiority complex. The reason is that in certain situations when I was forced to take a subordinate position, I felt very frustrated and hurt - so much so that in one situation I actually had a breakdown.
I realise that I cannot always be a boss for everything - it is just not possible. But, although I know this, I cannot really accept these situations and live gracefully in them.
In this psychosynthesis exercise, I was able to speak face-to-face with the emotions and feelings of Prime Minister. As the Director of my personality, I could explain the reality to him that all are equal, and that we need to accept other's qualities. As I sat in the Director's chair, I was able to understand all these things very clearly.
I feel happy now and I will practise this in my life. I will not bother about the position that I occupy, but I will care for ` what I am '
(The facilitator described what a struggle it was for Ajay to transform this part of himself - while his head wanted him to change, his heart! resisted! He was given an overnight task of mediating upon what happens in his life when the Prime Minister takes over his personalities completely - he was to assess how dysfunctional this part of him is. He was asked to report to the group the next morning. After this overnight reflection, Ajay was able to appropriate the Director's power from Prime Minister and able to dialogue clearly with him.)

2. Tight Hand with the Key (Picture 23) : This subpersonality was born since I entered my professional life. I get extremely annoyed and disturbed when somebody takes decisions in my absence. I do not appreciate it even though the decisions made by others are exactly what I would make myself?
I don't want to continue with this character in my life because during my absence, people are afraid to decide anything and things are kept pending. The consequence are sometimes very bad.
I seated Tight Hand with the Key in front of me and asked him the reason for his being. He said that he wanted to safeguard my power, position and security. I understand and appreciate him. And then explained some of the undesirable consequences of his existence. This exchange and sharing helped us to understand each other. I decided that I could safely trust a few persons close to me - they could play may role and decide for me during my absence. I would accept and appreciate decisions if they are correct. And if not correct, I would tell these persons in an assertive way, how differently the decision could have been made.

3. Thunder (Picture 24) : is with me for the past three years. Thunder's frightening effect was very dramatic in a few situations so now he is trying to occupy more of my personality. When people, especially the subordinates, disagree with me or ignore me, I raise my voice and shout at them - after I make my presence felt then there is quietness and calm! I hate this part of me. After Thunder has acted, I regret it, because the others are also human beings, and have a right to be respected.
I'll tell you an incident ... In one of our handicraft units, a girl worker was creating trouble. She was arguing with the instructor. When I (Head of the Department) entered the place, she did not stop but continued to argue with me too. Her point was quite simple - she was asking for an extra worker to be appointed for doing chores like fetching drinking water and keeping the place clean. I got very angry with her, shouted at her and sacked her. Then everything became normal except me, I felt very bad for that poor girl. This is just one example - several things like this happen in my life.
During this psychosynthesis exercise, I spoke to this subpersonality. There were arguments, consoling, advice between me and Thunder. I told Thunder that he is not bad, he is power, but that he should not frighten people with his loud noise. The light in him can be enlightening without the loud noise. I told Thunder that he can be assertive and not aggressive.
(The facilitator adds that during the exercises on Assertive roleplays, Ajay did a role assertively with the girl in the handicraft unit. Instead of shouting at her, he gave her the responsibility to analyse the situation in all its depth and find a solution for her demand. He decided that his role should be one of a helper so that everybody is satisfied).

4.Automatic Wristwatch (Picture 25) : This is one of my most precious subpersonalities. This symbolises my various responsibilities - the several departments that I am incharge of and my family responsibilities. The Wristwatch feels that I should be in touch with all the departments and execute my duties conscientiously - it does not mean that I am physically required everywhere, but that my actions and thoughts should be present, there, that my support should be available for the people who look for me.
I am happy to keep Automatic Wristwatch with me.

5.Free Bird - (Searching bird) (Picture 26) : This is the other precious part of me, like a bird, I wish to fly over and search for new things. I know God has created richness in the world. I want to search things for mind, for my senses. I am happy with Free Bird.

Facilitator's Comments
Ajay's life history reflects how strong cultural and social influences are in the construction of a personality. Strong patriarchal forces and value for males put Ajay on a pedestal his family right from birth. He was the youngest, yet he was considered the most superior, way above his elder sisters
Ajay's concept of his Ideal Self was unrealistic - to be the `best' in every situation is just not possible. His inability to cope with a situation in which he is not acknowledged as the `best' resulted in him having a breakdown once. During the chosynthesis experience, through much effort and reflection, he was able to realise that is achievable.
Along with this major change, came a few other complimentary insights -- that he needs to trust others and delegate and share his power, that he needs to subdue his Thunder and let Lighting shine forth, that is, use his power to enlighten rather than frighten others.

Assertiveness Training
In working with group we have found that once they have harmonised their subpersonalities and set up an achievable Ideal Model, They need practice in playing the new self. For this, we use Assertiveness Training as powerful technique. The next chapter covers this topic in detail.

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