I often have clients in Couples Therapy and Counseling that might say to their partner: “part of me feels so much love for you and another part of me really hates you.” In Individual Therapy, this past week I had a client say: “part of me really loves my father. I admire him, he has taught me so much about life, about how to be a man. Yet another part of me feel resentful to him because he didn’t teach me how to be a sensitive, emotional man.” We all have parts of ourselves that have different thoughts, feelings and opinions about the same thing just like this. We may have conflicting feelings about our spouse, our family, our job. We usually all find some kind of equilibrium with these conflicting feelings to a relative extent. Some days we might feel one way more than the other and the following day could be the opposite. These inner conflicts can lead to a considerable amount of confusion and anxiety, especially when they remain unexamined. Many modalities in psychotherapy di...
