Identifying your Healing Fantasy and Role Self -- An exercise by Lindsay Gibson:
Healing Fantasy exercise:
Background: As children, we make sense of the world by putting together a story that explains our life to us. We imagine what would make us feel better and create what I call a healing fantasy—a hopeful story about what will make us truly happy one day.
I wish other people were more ________________ . Why is it so hard for people to ________________? For a change, I would love someone to treat me like ________________ . Maybe one of these days I’ll find someone who will ________________. In an ideal world with good people, other people would ________________.
Role self exercise:
Background: If your parents or caregivers don’t adequately respond to your true self in childhood, you’ll figure out what you need to do to make a connection. Instead of just being who you are, you’ll develop a role-self, or pseudo-self (Bowen 1978), that will give you a secure place in your family system. This role-self gradually replaces the spontaneous expression of the true self.
I try hard to be ________________. The main reason people like me is because I ________________ . Other people don’t appreciate how much I ________________ . I always have to be the one who ________________ . I’ve tried to be the kind of person who ________________.
After completing the sentences, use the words and ideas from your responses to write two short descriptions, one for your healing fantasy and one for your role self. These descriptions will reveal your secret ideas about how other people should change in order to make you feel valued and how you think you must behave to be loved.
Finally, write a short summary about what it’s been like trying to get others to change and how it has felt to play the role-self you’ve described in this exercise.
