I haven’t attended the CFAR unit myself but I have talked with multiple people who did. On thing I wasn’t sure of was how to go about naming the parts.
From NLP Six Step reframing I’m used to giving internal parts simply one word names. On the other hand, I heard from the people who attended the workshop that in the workshop it was recommended to give the parts names that contain more information and that short descriptions work well as part names.
Do you think it matters whether the part is named “Realist” or “Not getting the internship means no promise” (or something similar)?
That’s a good point! I abbreviated the names for ease of reading. Also, “realist” can seem to imply “the other side isn’t being reasonable”. The emotional texture was different, so it worked out fine, but that’s a failure mode to avoid (names should be affirming the position they represent, without demeaning the other side).
Perhaps
Want to avoid disappointment
We’re awesome and can do important things if we set ourselves up properly
Preserving natural parts of human experience
I don’t know how helpful these names are. When Duncan taught it, the example he gave was (paraphrased):
I’m on the couch watching cartoons, and part of me really wants to go get up and go for a run, but the other part wants to keep watching… So if I IDC this, maybe one side is I want to be healthy, and the other is I deserve rest. It’s important to avoid naming the latter something like lazy idiot.
I think finding good names is important, but in my experience, I just get names that are loosely representative of the sides’ affirmative positions and then go from there. Again, the emotional texture is important, and I think one of the reasons the names are emphasized is that it’s a good way of making sure the texture is conducive to resolution. If you can get a respectful emotional texture and clear communication of models between the sides, maybe it works out even without super-defensible names.
Thanks for mentioning Duncan’s I want to be healthy, and I deserve rest. That one resonated with me, so I immediately did it with Hardcore Comet King and I’m a human too who deserve’s comfort. Situation: Taking a cold shower to be more focused when meditating.
===============================================
Comfort: *inner scream* cold showers suck!! I don’t like it at all.
Comet King: Yes it sucks, but it’s only a temporary discomfort until ai takeoff, and then you can have all the comfort you could want.
Comfort: …
Me: Comfort could you summarize what was said?
Comfort: Cold showers suck, but once ai takeoff happens, I’ll have a lot of comfort.
[Then I remembered death]
Comfort: *inner scream*
Comet King: If you’ll allow these smaller discomforts, we’ll have a greater chance at avoiding the greater discomforts.
===============================================
And then I took cold shower.
(I don’t feel like I fully captured the conversation, and I feel it had some more dialogue)
I’m not too sure about how to mesh this idea (IDC / fusion) & meditation, specifically noticing intentions. Like I can notice “aversion of taking a cold shower” and focus on it until it fades and goes away, OR I can do IDC/fusion where those aversions/thoughts won’t show up in the first place.
I would say the second one is better, but I’m a novice in both of those so I might be mis-representing them. There might also be different relationships between those ideas that I’ve completely missed.
I’m not sure that CFAR has been through enough iterations to know what works better.
I just get names that are loosely representative of the sides’ affirmative positions and then go from there.
Does that mean that the above names (Realist/ Fire / Concern ) are the one’s you actually used?
If IDC works for you better than average and you use names like that, that would be some Bayesian evidence that those kinds of names are better.
I do have some priors that a one word name creates more emotional valence from doing parts work in other paradigms, so I think it’s worth exploring the case deeper.
Now that I think about it, I realize that I usually don’t bother explicitly naming the subagents. Rather, I have each subagent iterate on how they feel—and about what—until it’s clear what’s going on and what the concerns are. This may or may not involve actual names for the agents.
I also do IDC exclusively in my head, substituting feelings and thoughts for explicit mental verbalizations when convenient.
I wouldn’t recommend this to people just starting out—having a format in which you name the sides and write out the positions seems helpful to quantify your process. As you become more familiar with what the right emotional textures feel like, try streamlining.
For me, naming the subagents is ~85% of the work. Once that’s happened, they usually iterate back-and-forth a bunch of times (e.g. 5) and then it’s solved in a matter of seconds (i.e. <5 mins).
“Ally-building” vs “Risk-neutrality” was a recent one, where the former thought that a low probability high reward strategy was bad and so I felt bad when I failed. Once I realised this was the debate, it was easy to let risk-neutrality ask the right questions and bring ally-building around to the true position (and no longer feel bad).
It sounds like your naming process is actually focusing. For me, the names don’t matter as much, and I just have a conversation involving focusing to figure out what the parts want.
I really liked this post :)
I haven’t attended the CFAR unit myself but I have talked with multiple people who did. On thing I wasn’t sure of was how to go about naming the parts.
From NLP Six Step reframing I’m used to giving internal parts simply one word names. On the other hand, I heard from the people who attended the workshop that in the workshop it was recommended to give the parts names that contain more information and that short descriptions work well as part names.
Do you think it matters whether the part is named “Realist” or “Not getting the internship means no promise” (or something similar)?
That’s a good point! I abbreviated the names for ease of reading. Also, “realist” can seem to imply “the other side isn’t being reasonable”. The emotional texture was different, so it worked out fine, but that’s a failure mode to avoid (names should be affirming the position they represent, without demeaning the other side).
Perhaps
Want to avoid disappointment
We’re awesome and can do important things if we set ourselves up properly
Preserving natural parts of human experience
I don’t know how helpful these names are. When Duncan taught it, the example he gave was (paraphrased):
I think finding good names is important, but in my experience, I just get names that are loosely representative of the sides’ affirmative positions and then go from there. Again, the emotional texture is important, and I think one of the reasons the names are emphasized is that it’s a good way of making sure the texture is conducive to resolution. If you can get a respectful emotional texture and clear communication of models between the sides, maybe it works out even without super-defensible names.
Thanks for mentioning Duncan’s I want to be healthy, and I deserve rest. That one resonated with me, so I immediately did it with Hardcore Comet King and I’m a human too who deserve’s comfort. Situation: Taking a cold shower to be more focused when meditating.
===============================================
Comfort: *inner scream* cold showers suck!! I don’t like it at all.
Comet King: Yes it sucks, but it’s only a temporary discomfort until ai takeoff, and then you can have all the comfort you could want.
Comfort: …
Me: Comfort could you summarize what was said?
Comfort: Cold showers suck, but once ai takeoff happens, I’ll have a lot of comfort.
[Then I remembered death]
Comfort: *inner scream*
Comet King: If you’ll allow these smaller discomforts, we’ll have a greater chance at avoiding the greater discomforts.
===============================================
And then I took cold shower.
(I don’t feel like I fully captured the conversation, and I feel it had some more dialogue)
I’m not too sure about how to mesh this idea (IDC / fusion) & meditation, specifically noticing intentions. Like I can notice “aversion of taking a cold shower” and focus on it until it fades and goes away, OR I can do IDC/fusion where those aversions/thoughts won’t show up in the first place.
I would say the second one is better, but I’m a novice in both of those so I might be mis-representing them. There might also be different relationships between those ideas that I’ve completely missed.
Glad to hear that that resonated!
I have separate thoughts on cold showers, but I do find doing IDC to permanently deal with aversions to be far superior.
I’m not sure that CFAR has been through enough iterations to know what works better.
Does that mean that the above names (Realist/ Fire / Concern ) are the one’s you actually used?
If IDC works for you better than average and you use names like that, that would be some Bayesian evidence that those kinds of names are better.
I do have some priors that a one word name creates more emotional valence from doing parts work in other paradigms, so I think it’s worth exploring the case deeper.
Now that I think about it, I realize that I usually don’t bother explicitly naming the subagents. Rather, I have each subagent iterate on how they feel—and about what—until it’s clear what’s going on and what the concerns are. This may or may not involve actual names for the agents.
I also do IDC exclusively in my head, substituting feelings and thoughts for explicit mental verbalizations when convenient.
I wouldn’t recommend this to people just starting out—having a format in which you name the sides and write out the positions seems helpful to quantify your process. As you become more familiar with what the right emotional textures feel like, try streamlining.
For me, naming the subagents is ~85% of the work. Once that’s happened, they usually iterate back-and-forth a bunch of times (e.g. 5) and then it’s solved in a matter of seconds (i.e. <5 mins).
Do you use one word names or more descriptive ones?
“Ally-building” vs “Risk-neutrality” was a recent one, where the former thought that a low probability high reward strategy was bad and so I felt bad when I failed. Once I realised this was the debate, it was easy to let risk-neutrality ask the right questions and bring ally-building around to the true position (and no longer feel bad).
It sounds like your naming process is actually focusing. For me, the names don’t matter as much, and I just have a conversation involving focusing to figure out what the parts want.