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The McCanns offer
workshops, seminars, and trainings in Voice Dialogue and the
Psychology of Selves and the Aware Ego. The Level One training (which carries CE units for MFTs,
LCSW's and RNs) is required by Drs. Hal and Sidra Stone for
advancement and participation in their Level II and III workshops
and seminars.
What is Voice Dialogue and
the Psychology of Selves and the Aware Ego?
Voice dialogue is a
powerful, transformational technique which increases
self-awareness and ultimately advances personal freedom, choice
and balance in yourself and in your life.
Developed by the American
psychologists, Drs Hal and Sidra Stone, Voice Dialogue and its
underlying theoretical base, the psychology of Selves and of the
Aware Ego, have their roots in Jungian theory. The Stones
discovered that not only are our personalities made up of many
different subpersonalities or selves, but it is possible to
dialogue with these selves and separate them out one from another.
By accomplishing this through the Voice Dialogue technique, one
can then create space for another aspect of consciousness called
the Aware Ego.
Starting an Aware Ego
process through Voice Dialogue, enables you to stand between
opposite parts of your psyche, and not identify with either
“voice”. The
choices opened are real choices as you are not just carried along
with the beliefs expressed by one particular self.
Voice Dialogue is an
experiential technique in which a facilitator engages in a
dialogue directly with the various parts of your psyche. The aim
is to discover the parts of your psyche with which you have become
identified, to gain awareness of these parts and discern how they
have been affecting you and your life. And then to ultimately
separate from these parts so that you can start to take charge
rather than one of your selves or subpersonalities serve as the
decision-maker.
The Voice Dialogue
facilitator can ask to speak with your Inner Critic, your
Perfectionist, your Pleaser, your Responsible Parent or whichever
self with whom you are identified. After you have separated from
these primary selves), and you have what is now a more Aware Ego
from which to make your decisions, you can meet the many other
aspects of you psyche perhaps previously unknown to you or with
which you might not have had access to previously.
These members of your
'inner family' of selves are just as real as the members of your
outer family; they are complete selves in themselves, with their
own feelings, opinions and needs. By communicating with them using
the Voice Dialogue method, you become aware of how they have been
affecting your feelings and behavior. You also discover what you
can do to satisfy the needs of each self so that each self is your
ally, working with and for you rather than against you.
So if you sense that you
are not expressing yourself fully, or that one part of your
personality is dominating your life — perhaps your Pusher, your
Pleaser or your Lazy Self — you can discover the needs of that
self. When you have a good understanding and are no longer
completely identified with that self, you can access the opposite
self which yearns to have a voice. When conscious of the
mechanisms at work, you can assume more responsibility for your
feelings and actions. You have choice.
The goal with Voice
Dialogue is to expand your awareness so that you can embrace all
the selves within you; your
more Aware Ego can begin to orchestrate your life, you will
experience greater personal freedom and choice, and you will
develop self-acceptance and self-understanding which will lead to a more fulfilling experience of life.
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