If you've ever had a blind reaction to someone or a situation; if you've ever said later, "I don't know what came over me"; chances are you've experienced an ego-state. Since ego-states are not "things", I can't show you one. They are created of consciousness, not matter, and their power to affect a person is in their perception – or misperception, if looked at from a conscious point of view.

In Soul-Centered Healing, ego-states are a central focus in the healing process. They exist at an unconscious level, but their perceptions and reactions can affect the conscious person and be a source of conflict, pain, or confusion. During hypnosis, ego-states present as personalities. They are conscious and perceiving. Most perceive themselves as having a body and being of a certain age. They also carry past experience. The best way I have found to describe them is to call them "psychic beings". They are able to communicate, think logically, and feel.

As conscious beings, ego-states live in a reality outside time and space. They live in a psychic realm which is governed by the laws of consciousness, not matter. It's a realm where a ten year-old can fly, and a child can hide in a thimble. This realm is more akin to the dreamworld, where consciousness lives unfettered from the flesh. In fact, our ego-states often present in our dreams and give us glimpses into this psychic world.

The problem with these psychic beings is that the world of consciousness that each lives in is quite narrow and limited. Most ego-states are still living in the world in which they were created. The purpose of their creation is to protect the conscious self during experiences of trauma, pain, or terror. An ego-state is created to "take over" consciousness in those critical moments and protect the conscious self from being overwhelmed. It's as though the conscious self escapes the moment, and the mind creates a "stand in", a clone of the self, to take over. Once the trauma has passed, then, the conscious self steps back in and resumes consciousness.

Once created, however, the ego-state does not just dissolve or disappear after the trauma has passed. Endowed with consciousness, the ego-state moves to an unconscious level where it continues to exist. A five-year old ego-state, for example, created during a bicycle fall, is still living in that bicycle world of pain and hurt even though the conscious self has recovered and moved on. The next time, however, the person moves toward a bicycle - in thought or action - that five year-old ego-state may be triggered and respond with all its fear and panic. A person can be thirty-five years old and that five year-old, still living in her bicycle world, is still reacting in that moment.

Ego-states do not grow along with the conscious personality. Their world is timeless. Most ego-states are not aware of the conscious personality or the body's development. But when something happens in the physical reality that in some way is too close to their own experience, an ego-state can be triggered. Problems arise when ego-states are too strong and dominate entire areas of a person's life, or are being triggered too frequently by events in the conscious reality leading to interference and disruption for the person. Depending on its strength and intensity, an ego-state's response can significantly affect the conscious person's perceptions, feelings, and choices.

One of the central aims of Soul-Centered Healing is to help a person identify when there are ego-states causing blocks, emotional pain, or interfering in other ways at a conscious level. The aim is to identify and work with these inner beings for their release of pain and distress and integration with the conscious self. This transformation, the healing, is brought about through an ego-state's sharing of its experience with the conscious self. Once an ego-state shares what it needs to, it is freed of its original purpose of keeping the experience separated (dissociated) from the conscious self. It is freed also from carrying the pain of that experience and is able to release it. Soul-Centered Healing differs from most other approaches that view integration of an ego-state as a melding or dissolving into the conscious self. Soul-Centered Healing recognizes that these inner beings continue to exist after their sharing and release. Just as when they were created, they do not dissolve and disappear once there has been a release. The ego-states continue to exist and there are places of integration they can move to at psychic level, places of safety, comfort, and light.

For an ego-state, the process of healing is an altering of perception and a transformation of consciousness, a kind of "being brought up to date". For the conscious self, this sharing and release also results in a transformation of consciousness. In reclaiming parts of themselves, a person becomes more clear about who they are, where they came from, and who they choose to be now.

This makes it sound simple, but it's not. Working with ego-states is not an easy path. Given the choice, I suspect most people would avoid it unless it was the only way to resolve the problem. Ego-states hold the pain and distress that we naturally avoid, that we would just as soon forget; that are too painful to face; or that threaten to take us over when things are too much. Opening up the inner world of ego-states is like pulling up the carpet and getting under the floor. There's a natural resistance.

Besides the natural boundary between ego-states and the conscious self, there is another barrier to working with ego-states. As conscious beings, they can relate to each other. In the inner world, you will find that ego-states form groups and networks. Some ego-states remain isolated, but many form connections with others based on the principle of attraction. They share some commonality, whether it's a common feeling, situation, time-frame, or purpose. All the ego-states in a group, for example, may carry experiences of rejection. In another group, they might all carry injuries to the body.

In the healing process, this complexity of groups and networks form a labyrinth of paths. And because the world of ego-states is, at base, a defensive and reactive system, one can encounter blocks and resistance from any ego-state in the network who is strong enough, and even from the network itself, if enough ego-states have been triggered.

What adds another level of complexity and depth to this labyrinth is the fact that many ego-states one encounters in the inner world were not created in a person's present life, but in a past or different lifetime. Past and present-life ego-states are interwoven in the groups and networks, again, depending on the particular person's inner world. I have worked with clients where only present-life ego-states presented, and with others where only past life presented, but most people usually present a mixture of both.

Past-life ego-states operate the same as those from present-life, and are worked with in the same way, i.e., through sharing and release. The difference is that when past-life ego-states have released, they do not integrate with the conscious self, but will move into integration within the soul and within the lifetime in which they were created. There is a place there where they fit.

Soul-Centered Healing differs from many approaches to regression therapy. Rather than accessing a past life personality, it is believed that the person is most often accessing ego-states that are fragments from past lives. These ego-states are carried within the soul and can become active in future incarnations when the soul returns to physical reality in which they were originally created. You might look at them as the soul's unfinished business.

In the healing process itself, there is no predicting what ego-states you will encounter. By definition, each person's inner world is absolutely unique, created out of their own subjective experiences in this lifetime and in their soul's journey through other lifetimes. The aim in Soul-Centered Healing is not to predict one's inner world or healing path, but to help a person navigate the labyrinth, resolving blocks, and bringing light into areas of pain, confusion, and fear.