Sub-personalities

The existence of a sub-personality is recognized when a person finds himself, in a particular situation, acting in ways which he does not like or which appears to go against his interests, without being able to change this by an act of will or conscious decision for the period in which the situation persists (whether minutes or hours). As such a sub-personality is a semi-permanent and semi-autonomous region of the personality capable of acting as a person. It goes beyond the notion of an ego state as a coherent system of behaviours with more or less permeable boundaries, or of patterns of feelings, thoughts and perceptions coalescing in response to particular situations. It is a unique configuration or system of psychological structures to which the sense of "I" is given.