Help assigning "jobs" to my alters

Within my system alters want purpose or to "do". They would love to have a job which would help them feel useful and satisfied. So far we've only thought of the following: motivator, narrator, and conflict resolution specialist. Please let me know what jobs your alters carryout of hold! Also I'm interested to hear how y'all handle this topic internally in general. Thanks!

We all have different jobs in both the inside and outside world ..some can cook better so they're the ones that come out to do dinner or batch cooking. Some prefer to stay inside to look after littles or others who choose not to front. Some manage inner world maintenance, others come out when the place needs tidying up or laundry needs doing etc.

some just like to give moral support in the background and give whoever's fronting someone to talk to, some take care of things like finances. and ordering stuff we need, others take care of 'digital communication' eg forums, text messages, emails) some speficially come out to deal with face to face interactions with the outside world...some only have one job, others have jobs both inside and out.

Each "job" my parts do are tied to the inner ressources and abilities they have access to, as well as what makes them feel fulfilled from an identity point of view.

So a good place to start is: what are your alters good at doing? what are they bad at doing? what do they enjoy? what would they like to learn to do?

Other good places to start are the books "Healing the fragmented selves of trauma survivors" and "Coping with trauma related dissociation".

Thanks for your replies! Currently we are co-conscious all the time and I always feel in sole control of our body. Because of this jobs in which an alter directly does something externally such as cooking or drawing doesn't work for us. Therefore we are trying to figure out jobs that are mainly verbal exchanges or internal. Any further advice?

This is kinda very specific and very system specific, maybe have a look at books like "Healing the fragmented selves of trauma survivors" and "Coping with trauma related dissociation" to have examples of inner work (verbal exchanges etc) and how to make them work. These books are super helpful and trying to explain the content here on the forum would about require to copy-paste the whole books xD Easier to find them online or second-hand or something.

WatertheFire wrote:Thanks for your replies! Currently we are co-conscious all the time and I always feel in sole control of our body. Because of this jobs in which an alter directly does something externally such as cooking or drawing doesn't work for us. Therefore we are trying to figure out jobs that are mainly verbal exchanges or internal. Any further advice?

Without knowing what your inner world is like, how big it is, how many others are in it etc its difficult to say what jobs they would need? Do you know how many alters there are?

If you're ALL co-conscious at the front ALL the time it doesn't sound like your alters have a seperate life on the inside whilst you're dealing with the outside life?

It's difficult to say, we work with 2-3 hosting at front most of the time (out of a system of 12 active 'individual' alters)...sometimes the co-host changes but the one controlling the body stays the same but other days/times its a different host altogether.

For our ones that never front they have internal jobs they may be caretaker of the 'littles' (child alters), gatekeeper (control who is inside and who is out/near front) at any time, may just co-host offering advice or just to keep host company.

For us when 2 are co-hosting they both feel like they did the activity eg if one likes cooking even if they werent the one controling the body, if they co-host they are the one telling the host what comes next ...eg chop the veg first, heat the oil first or whatever.

Video games particuarly with character creation helped us cos then the alter even if in background can have some say in creating a character they feel resembles them ...they may tell you a name they like (usually you get option to name your character) ..then its 'their adventure'. whenever you come out to play on it.