Wisdom Strategy Research Institute

Traditionally in NLP, one the things we do in some of the techniques is to talk to, and work with our internal "parts". This is fine, especially because many people already use this metaphor. People will often spontaneously say things like "On one hand, part of me wants to xyz, but on the hand part of me wants abc."

If you are working with people on their areas of difficulty, it is quite common that you'll see someone say something like that.

Here's the thing though, the notion of parts, put us a bit at the effect of whatever pattern we are running in our mind that we call our parts.

A much more causative metaphor to work with, using the same techniques is that of Intentions. Just substitute the Intention for part, and do the same technique. Another metaphor that works well is "pattern", or another is "frame". Pattern, and frame are a little less powerful, and less causative than Intention, but I find those words are more empowering for clients than parts or sub-personalities.

Sometimes the word "part", or even sub-personality is a better match for a particular person, in that case it's totally fine to use those words. If you can get away with it, the words intention and pattern are more powerful.

Other words that you might choose to use that are also more empowering that "parts" include behavior, notion, idea, thought, purpose, goal, value, identity, decision, mission.

In addition to being empowering, these words act to associate.

One place where parts is useful is when you want to dissociate the person from something negative. Shift to something like Intention as soon as you can, especially after you have elicited the positive intention.