Community of Selves in Constructivism

We’re not one person.

We’re a community — a shifting, sometimes chaotic council of different selves, each with its own history, fears, and strengths. Some are loud and decisive. Others are quiet, barely whispering until we listen closely. Together, they make up the mosaic of who we are. Learning to hear them — all of them — has been one of the most transformative things I’ve ever done.

The idea of seeing yourself as a mosaic — made of different perspectives, fears, and motivations — has been one of the most influential, helpful, and integrating perspectives in my own process.

Before I explain why, I should note that the community of selves didn’t originate in constructivism. Its roots run through several other traditions:

• Dialogical Self Theory (Hermans) in narrative psychology — the self as a society of “I positions.”

• Internal Family Systems (Schwartz) in systemic therapy — the mind as multiple “parts” led by a core Self.

• Ego State Therapy in psychodynamic practice.

• Jung’s archetypes and Moreno’s role theory in psychodrama.

Still, the core idea works beautifully in a constructivist frame because:

• The self is actively constructed, never fixed. You are not in motion — you are the motion.

• Multiple, context-dependent self-aspects (subsystems) are normal.

• Change happens through reconstructing meanings and relationships between these parts.

• Inner dialogue is a powerful way to explore and loosen constructs.

Discovering the Community

The magic starts when you look at yourself through these sometimes wildly different parts. Follow a thread in your thinking back to its source and you might discover a “self” somewhat separate from the others — maybe even with its own name, color, or image in your mind. The more of these selves you uncover, the more your inner conflicts, contradictions, and unmade decisions begin to make sense.

When you converse with these parts, you realize they all have your best interests at heart — but their knowledge and lived experience can be vastly different, so the options they offer may be vastly different too. Sometimes they even contradict one another.

From Antagonism to Listening

This is where the shift begins: moving from antagonizing yourself for what you “can’t do” to actually listening — to noticing the different feelings a situation evokes in different parts of you.

If you have a self that’s highly driven and resilient, maybe they were forged in survival. They might offer clarity and structure, but also rigidity. You may not want them making all the decisions — or even driving at all.

The community of selves teaches you to hear everyone’s opinion, to choose the right driver for each moment, and to stop suppressing important signals from your mind. Over time, you start noticing the quieter selves — the ones that live just below conscious awareness. You begin to integrate what was once subconscious, and in doing so, you connect more deeply with yourself.

Softness, Capacity, and the Seat at the Table

As you understand yourself more, you develop softness and empathy — even for the critic. That voice, too, gets a seat at the table. You know why it’s there, and in understanding it, you loosen its power.

This approach also builds capacity — the ability to hold multiple feelings, even contradictory ones, without projecting them onto the world. In a time when psychology is popularized and often reduced to neat labels and fixed categories, this technique accepts messiness. It reflects life: complex, evolving, often contradictory.

Just as psychology contains many frameworks — sometimes in harmony, sometimes in tension — your inner world is a living representation of constructive alternativism: no single solid truth, but many possible perspectives.

Living the Multiplicity

For millennia, we’ve been observing the world, trying to make sense of it, and still we only ever form assumptions. The community of selves reminds us not to stop trying — not to close down in favor of simplicity, but to expand our internal capacity to meet complexity.

It’s messy and it changes. So do you. As you build your cathedral of selves, brick by brick, learning every nook and cranny, you begin to notice more. You absorb more of life. You can feel yourself growing, and you appreciate that growth in a way that is uniquely yours.

I wish everyone could feel what this technique has done for me. And I’m always excited to lay it at someone’s feet — to see what they might build with it.