Life Scripts & Parts Matrix Inventory (LSPMi)

Let's say an 8-year-old boy walks into a dark room, there is the scent of garlic in the air, the door slams shut and it becomes pitch black – then he gets badly beaten. 30 years later, a 38-year-old man walks into a dark room, there is the scent of garlic present, and the door slams shut – PANIC ATTACK!

Pattern Match Activated: Dark Room+Door slam+Garlic = Get Badly Beaten

The 38-year-old man’s awareness left the adult core chunk of self and into the wounded 8-year-old boy fragment of self. He then re-lived the trauma as if he was back there again. He had access to only the resources available to the 8-year-old part of self because of the disconnect from his adult self. This is what we often refer to as being triggered.

The LSPMi

I created the Life Script and Parts Matrix Inventory™ (LSPMi) to collect a lot of actionable information quickly to save time in selecting primary targets for change. Education and good data collection techniques are critical in the helping process because targeting the wrong areas for change will result in very little change and those changes we do make do not last because "Whatever is on top, runs everything underneath (See my post on the Logical Levels of Change)

The LSPMi is NOT a personality inventory. It is simply a data collection tool that can accomplish in an hour or so what might take 15 to 20 sessions to accumulate with traditional talk therapy. When we work on the right target (at the highest level), the changes we make can and quite often do generalize to other areas of dysfunction. I suspect this is because our configuration of 'life scripts', 'cognitive maps', 'survival skills', ego-states, parts-of-self, defense mechanisms, or whatever you prefer to call them are encoded on a system of dysfunctional neural networks that are connected to one another. When you change one part of a system it can, and often times does, affect all other parts of the system underneath it.

Task: Complete the LSPMi

To complete this lesson, download the LSPMi from the files section of your Client Portal and it fill out (or download it from the 'Lesson Materials' button on the top-Right corner of this page). The file is a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. In addition to MS Excel, it works with Google Sheets, and other software compatible with MS Office documents. Complete the document on a tablet, laptop, or PC. The document is too big to complete on many cellphones.

(Rename, save, and send your completed LSPMi by using the upload link in the files section of your Client Portal. I will review it asap and post your Summary MySPS in the files folder in the files section of your portal.)

My Self-Preservation System (MySPS)

The SPS is a summary of the primary Life Scripts and other Parts-of-Self that need to be our initial targets. As we move forward and work with these primary target parts we will surely discover other parts of self-protecting certain vulnerable parts - IFS calls them Managers (aka, defense mechanisms) and Exiles (wounded child-like parts of self that have been disowned, suppressed, or repressed.)

I will send you a completed SPS based upon the work you did with the LSPMi in the previous lesson. We will work with those in therapy at the proper time, not just yet. We are still in the discovery phase at this point. We need to "explore the inner landscape' further to get our bearings and develop a rapport with these parts - especially the managers/defenses.