New York Voice Dialogue Institute

The New York Voice Dialogue Institute
161 West 54^th Street, #804
near 7th Avenue

New York, NY 10019

Dassie Hoffman, PhD, LCAT

212.956.0432

dassieh@aol.com

Bridgit Dengel Gaspard, LCSW

718.522.4009

nyvoicedialogue@yahoo.com

The New York Voice Dialogue Institute offers private psychotherapy as well as voice dialogue facilitation sessions to individuals and couples. They also teach at the Open Center in New York City.

Voice Dialogue is right for you,
especially if you are...:

*engaging in self-defeating and self-destructive behaviors...

*wrestling with underachievement, addictions, eating disorders...

*suffering depression...

*can’t seem to make a decision…

*in a life transition and entering a new phase (marriage, graduation, "coming out", divorce, menopause, "empty nest syndrome")…

*in a negative bonding pattern with a partner...

*feel stuck in your career and maybe even considering changing fields

*feeling powerless over reactions and behaviors...

*having trouble controlling anger and hostility...

*knows what you don’t want, but are unable to figure out what you do want...

*having difficulty realizing your potential and liberating your creativity...

Voice Dialogue is for the chronically stressed as well as for those in crisis.

Stress can be viewed as a reactive mental habit certain Selves or Sub-Personalities maintain which heightens feelings of alienation, anger, fear, and negativity.

Voice Dialogue gives you the concrete awareness that you have the ability to choose your behavior and control your automatic reactions since

Voice Dialogue cultivates an increasingly Aware Ego that balances the importance of each Self while recognizing its role as only part of the whole personality.

For example, someone in a codependent relationship, caught up in blaming and shaming, will eventually be released from deeply rooted patterns of behavior as they relinquish their victim roles.

WHAT IS VOICE DIALOGUE?

The premise is that our personality consists of an assortment of Selves (or Subpersonalities) that live within us. This is a natural result of growing up. Over time our caretakers reinforced some parts of ourselves and rejected other parts of ourselves.

These become Primary Selves (the public face that “everyone” knows like “The Likable Self,” “The Get-It-Done Self” “The Good Parent Self”) and their opposites, the Disowned Selves (like “The Angry Self,” “The Procrastinator Self,” “The Acting-Out Child Self” or even “The Vulnerable Inner Child Self.”)

These Selves are also called Sub-Personalities and are usually experienced as inner voices.

Over time we become identified with family-approved Selves (like “The Pleaser,” or even “The Scapegoat.”) We think of a few Primary Selves as “me” and disown other Sub-Personalities.

These disowned Selves are often expressed in our dreams as well as brought into our lives by having to deal with people we detest or idolize (like your boss and your best friend.) These energy patterns are repressed, but not destroyed and live in our unconscious. Our disowned Selves often carry a lot of power and may make themselves known physically through exhaustion, mood swings, addictions, compulsions, and a bewildering sense of not being able to trust yourself.

Voice Dialogue recognizes that each Self has its own history, role, wisdom, energetics, habits, internal rules, and values with its own function, physical expression, health status, emotional needs, abilities and goals. This is true even if the individual is unaware of a particular Self and the force it is exerting on daily life.

Each Self experiences life in its own way. An example might be that an “Angry Self” may express itself as a headache. “The Inner Critic” may generate endless thoughts of self-hate, fueling the need to be perfect.

No Sub-Personality is “better” than another. Every Sub-Personality is honored as every Self is indispensable for wholeness. The goal is never to eliminate a Sub-Personality, but to integrate the Selves through expanding Awareness.

The idea is to awaken and develop an Aware Ego that evolves into a non-judgmental witness of the Sub-Personalities, unlocking personal freedom and authenticity as automatic reactions transform into active choices.

In November 2008's issue of Atlantic Magazine, Paul Bloom's article, "First Person Plural" discussed shifting from the idea of a singular 'me' to include many Selves, which advances in neuroscience continue to reinforce! And no, having many Selves with competing agendas is NOT multiple personality disorder, but the natural result of growing up in your household where certain aspects of yourself were rewarded and others were not.

The core of Voice Dialogue work

is the experience

of meeting parts of ourselves

in a structured way.

Unlike role-playing,

the experience of different Selves in Voice Dialogue is real. This safe and effective method of personal investigation involves the facilitator

engaging in a dialogue directly

with various parts of your psyche.

The aim is to discover which Selves you are identified with,

gain awareness of these parts

and

how they influence your life

you can “grow” a more aware Ego.

As you deepen your knowledge of your Primary Self system

and

discover the influence

of previously hidden Selves,

this transformational work

releases energy

that is now consciously available.

We are able

to relate to these Selves

rather than be driven by them, allowing us more choice

and more flexibility

in all aspects of our lives.

Voice Dialogue:

1. expands and deepens your horizons as you journey toward personal and creative fulfillment;

2. helps you gain clarity in order to make difficult decisions;

3. offers emotional support as you identify and release past injuries and grief;

4. heals as the direct experience of the Selves reduces symptoms that can include depression, anxiety and phsycial problems.

For mental health professionals:
These in-depth courses offer a comprehensive orientation to Voice Dialogue, a strengths-based intervention. This formally organized learning event is designed to integrate Voice Dialogue into social workers’ and mental health practitioners’ current training, expertise, and clinical practice modalities. The facilitation process is started immediately as the fundamentals of Voice Dialogue are taught by identifying and working with Selves, beginning the exploration of the Aware Ego process, learning the anatomy of a Voice Dialogue session that includes mapping and interviewing the Selves, becoming skilled in the understanding and use of energetics, and more. This experiential course in a 3-weekend, once-a-month format is taught through theory, demonstration, movement and energy awareness exercises, and supervised facilitation practice. Voice Dialogue is a powerful and effective tool to add to your clinical cache.