Each of us has a moments when we are talking to ourselves (someone even out loud). I mean not just scroll minds in your head, but meaningful dialogue. We convince ourselves, ask the questions and give answers to ourselves, argue, try to make the right decision looking at the things with "another" eyes. You are not alone in your head, it's filled with subpersonalities. The basis of subpersonality is not her character, it's her priorities in life and principles based on which she performs certain actions and behaves accordingly in different situations.
The Family.
One of my favorite concepts of subpersonalities is the theory of Eric Berne. According to this theory, every mature person has three basic subpersonalities: Child, Adult, Parent. All ingenious-is simple. Each of them has own priority, which characterizes their actions.
Child guided by emotions and desires. Thanks to him within us, we learn, explore, create. It's hard to resist to child's desires: buy something useless, spend your time on a games, naughty. Do not forget that children love to act upon, they are easily offended, they can't solve a problems, preferring to ignore them. In the same time, they can create a problem out of the blue. The Priority is to play, to have fun.
Adult works with facts, use logic, is able to restrain the impulses of Child and brakes the Parent's conservatism. This personality begins to actively shape in adolescence, is strengthened when we begin to live separately, work, become independent. The Priority self-development.
Parent is a duty, moral, norms and rules. He is responsible for himself and others, knows how to do, but does not think why, he appreciates and requires. Personality of the parent can form even if you have no children. We frequently used parent in relation to our second halves, or a beloved pet. The function of the parent is to be able to accept responsibility for others. The Priority - the care, control.
Between subpersonalities, like in a real family, can be disputes and misunderstanding. Child may not obey the parent, Parent may neglect child, adult can forget about the important things and other people.
These subpersonalities can fight for power, to interfere with each other, as well as to care or help. But, each in this family is necessary and useful, if not exciting power, or simply does not start to behave non constructive. For example: Adult can protect Child, and Parent will support both of them. Or Parent will give an advice to Adult, thanks to his wisdom. Each of these subpersonalities comes to the front plan in a given situation. Go to the interview - Adult. Will ride at the amusement park- Child. To buy medicine to a sick dog - Parent.
Ego.
There is a particular personality Administrator or Ego. Administrator - it is you, who see and understand that he contains a few people. It's a person with the name from his birth, a person who you see in the mirror every morning, he is the foundation. Administrator controls outputs of subpersonalities and their switching depending on the situation, or their suppression.
We have at least 9 possible combinations, when we are talking with another human (Child-Child. Child-Adult. Child- Parent etc.). The success or failure in communication will depend on which one Administrators will choose their representatives. For example: a serious conversation between Adult with his logical layout (from one side) and Parent, who only knows how to rebuke and punish (from another side) will be a difficult. *Or with Child, who is naughty and fooling around.
Normally, the owner of three subpersonalities easy to switch between them for effective business or personal communication. And all the crashes happen when Administrator is getting stuck only in one role, either at an unsuccessful combination of the selected for communication "representatives".
That's why we have such a variety of relationships with different people. We can sympathize to Child and hate Adult in one and the same person. Sometimes friendship and sympathy can occur only after a few meetings, when the right subpersonalities will meet each other finally.
It happens that the same actions of a loved one cause a different reaction - congratulations, it's a view on the event with your different subpersonalities. For example: today (you are Adult) you like how she screams on you because of mess, she is so beautiful. Tomorrow ( you are Child) you hate when she screams. The main personality at the moment determines almost everything - what you like or don't like, your habits and the manner of communicating, your state of mind and thoughts.
It is difficult to say which of the subpersonalities is more important. You should too know that first one is a Child. She formed in the first months of life, and from her depends what subpersonalities you will create in a future. The main task for each of us to find harmony between them, to create a friendly family. It will allow the administrator to choose them right.
***
Of course, besides these three subpersonalities, there are many others, that created from your profession, hobbies, fears, experience… Take your profession‘s subpersonality. You definitely have it, we spend 2/3 of our time on a job. For maximum concentration and efficiency we create a personality with the right skills. This personality pushes others into the background. The main priority is make your job good, fast, with maximum results. She's always ready to take a place in front your mind, when you find yourself in a situation, which seems that you can use your professional skills. A good example of her constant presence and loss of control over her in some people - professional deformation.
There are subpersonalities that can be used once, when you need someone to pretend, or to overcome a shock in certain situations, after they will be erased as superfluous.
You even have a collective subpersonality, which forms from behavioral according to the society in which you are. Example - the Nazis, the same workers and peasants, as elsewhere, but embarked on the path of genocide. Many of them felt a sense of guilt and remorse, were understanding that it's wrong, but still were continued to kill and bring destruction as a collective personality.
The Lords of subpersonalities.
What people have the most developed skills of creating and managing the sub-personalities? The actors. For that skill they get an Oscar. Why do you think Stanislavski's system is so popular? It teaches to create the most complete and realistic subpersonalities. It looks like that you live a life of another person, create him from pieces of all his victories, defeats, experiences, and let him into your body. Then just as easily create another one. When you don't need this subpersonality, you close it or completely erase.
Writers are brilliant creators too, but there is one difference, they do not give control to the created sub-personalities on own bodies, they release them on a paper.
Don't loose control.
The loss of control over the sub-personalities and their creation can lead to incredible consequences (remember a professional deformation). The Most striking example of such effects is Billy Milligan - one of the most famous people with a diagnosis of "multiple personality" in the history of psychiatry.
There was 24 subpersonalities in one body (Including Billy=Ego), 10 of which were the Main and captured mind control and body, sometimes. These personalities were constantly fighting among themselves , some subpersonalities could exclude others, which was recognize like a dangerous or useless for the body. Not all subpersonalities had full access to the consciousness and memories, i.e., they could not know what others did. He is worthy of a separate article (or rather his 24 subpersonalities), thats why I will give briefly a list of them from WiKi
These ten are the alters whom personalities "Ragen" and "Arthur" decided were not "undesirable." They freely shared consciousness, and doctors quickly learned of their existences.
- Billy Milligan (William Stanley Milligan) is the core personality.
- Arthur is an extremely sophisticated and educated Englishman. An expert in science and medicine, with a focus on hematology. He is in "the spot" – that is, in charge of the shared body – during times that required intellectual thinking. Arthur is one of only two personalities who could classify a person in the group as an undesirable.
- Ragen Vadascovinich is the "keeper of hate". His name comes from the words "rage again". Ragen describes himself as Yugoslavian, has a Slavic accent, can write and speak in Serbian and is extraordinarily strong. He controls the spot in dangerous times and can designate group members as "undesirable". He admitted committing robbery in order to support "the family", but had no knowledge of the rapes.
- Allen is a con man and a manipulator. He is the most common person to talk to the outside world. He plays the drums and paints portraits. Also the only right-handed self. He is the only personality that smokes cigarettes.
- Tommy is the escape artist; he is often confused with Allen. He plays the tenor sax and is an electronics expert. He is also a painter, specializing in landscapes.
- Danny is afraid of people, especially men. He only paints still lifes and never paints landscapes. He says this was because Chalmer made him dig his own grave and buried him in it.
- David, age eight, is the "keeper of pain". He comes to the spot to take the pain of the others.
- Christene, age three, was the one who would stand in the corner in school when "Billy" would get in trouble. She has dyslexia, but Arthur taught her to read and write. Ragen has a special bond with her.
- Christopher, Christene's brother, plays the harmonica.
- Adalana, a lesbian, cooks and cleans house for the others, and writes poetry. Milligan's attorney claimed that Adalana had admitted to committing the rapes without the knowledge of Milligan or the other alters.
The Undesirables
These people were labeled "undesirable" after breaking the rules laid down by Ragen and Arthur. These alters were no longer allowed "on the spot" (that is, to hold consciousness) and only revealed themselves after Milligan was sent to the hospital.
- Phil is a thug and took part in planning some small time crimes. Has a Brooklyn accent. Marked due to him being a criminal.
- Kevin is a criminal planner; he helped devise a plan to rob a drug store. Labeled also because he is a criminal.
- Walter is Australian. He calls himself a big-game hunter and has an excellent sense of direction. Was often used as a spotter. He was labeled because he shot and killed a crow.
- April only has thoughts about destroying Billy's stepfather. Declared an Undesirable when she convinced Ragen to kill Chalmer. Luckily though Arthur was able to talk him out of it at the last second.
- Samuel is a Jewish person and the only one who believes in God. Was marked because he sold some of the other people's personal paintings.
- Mark is the workhorse. He is often referred to as the zombie because he does nothing unless he is told, and will stare at walls when bored.
- Steve is the impostor, he uses imitations for comedy. Steve never accepted that he was an MP. He was made to be undesirable because his comedy caused the family problems.
- Lee is the prankster and his practical jokes normally get the family into trouble. He does not care about consequences for his actions. He was made an undesirable because one of his jokes put them into solitary confinement.
- Jason is the pressure valve. He was used at the beginning to release tension for the family, but he caused them to get into too much trouble and was marked as an undesirable.
- Bobby always dreams of leading some adventure or fixing some global crisis, but he has no ambitions and was labeled due to that fact.
- Shawn, who is four and deaf, makes buzzing sounds so he can feel the vibration in his head. He was labeled an undesirable because there was no benefit from being deaf later on in life. (Even though he is an undesirable he was never cast into the shadows beyond the spot; he was just never allowed to take the spot.)
- Martin is a snob, from New York. He wants things just handed over to him without earning them.
- Timothy worked in a florist shop until he encountered a gay man who flirted with him. He went into his own world after that.
- The Teacher (Not an Undesirable). The Teacher, was by far the greatest milestone to helping Billy achieve fusion. He is the sum of all 24 people put together, and has almost total recall of all the other people's actions and thoughts.*
***
Today, there are a lot of theories about the sub-personalities within us, about the mirror, the shadow, Critic and Censor. The main thing to realize is that we are a collection of images that we create under the influence of our life experience. By reliving the events, meeting people, discovering and exploring the world. Awareness itself, with all your angels and demons is the path to the harmony. Which is very difficult to achieve. 
Follow Me
sources:
Transactional analysis based on Erik Bernes's theory.
Billy Milligan WiKi