Inner team

The inner team is a personality model of the Hamburg psychologist Friedemann Schulz von Thun . The plurality of human inner life is represented in it with the metaphor of a team and its leader. This should support self-clarification in conflicting situations and thus offer the prerequisite for clear and authentic communication to the outside world.

motivation

In the first two volumes of his main work Talking Together , Schulz von Thun dealt with the topic of functioning communication. It turned out that one of the most important prerequisites for clear communication is self-clarification. In 1998 he brought out Talking Together 3 , which expands his communication theory to include the inner team. By introducing the model of the inner team, he wants to provide guidance for self-help.

The inner team is a modification of the Parts Party , a method of systemic family therapy developed by Virginia Satir in the 1970s. In addition, his model is based on the interacting personality components in a person, described by Margaret Paul and Erika J. Chopich, among others .

The inner team member

The inner team and its inner team members is a metaphor that has proven useful in self-clarification. Each inner team member stands for an inner part or aspect of the entire personality. It is neither a plural partial personality in the sense of multiple personalities , nor is it to be confused with feelings or behavior. Visible behavior is the result of an internal process. Every team member always only wants the best for the team leader. So behavior can rarely be brought into a permanent and inevitable connection with an individual team member.

Team members differ in many ways - they are loud or quiet, respond quickly or slowly, are dominant in external contact or only show themselves inward, where they appear as a thought, feeling , impulse, mood or body signal. There is a similar group dynamic between team members as in outer life. In their entirety, they reflect a person's life experiences , including the opinion of parents, friends and life partners or the values of communities to which one feels a part.

The team leader

As the team leader, Schulz von Thun describes the superordinate “I”, the cohesive authority, which either passively follows the dialogue between its team members or actively intervenes, but in any case has the final say in external decisions. Many aspects of real team leadership can be transferred to the inner team leader.

The inner team meeting

If a person is faced with a difficult decision , they more or less consciously hold an internal team meeting. Confusion, inconsistent statements (e.g. bad gut feeling versus rational argument) and a dominance of loud, fast and popular team members often characterize the unconsciously controlled team meetings in reality. Nevertheless, thanks to his practice, the team leader manages to bring about a satisfactory decision in many cases. However, this no longer has to be the case with particularly difficult or unfamiliar decisions. Then Schulz von Thun recommends a team meeting.

To do this, the team members who want to comment on the question must first be identified. This often works surprisingly well if you take a little time to listen to yourself. Then every team member should have the right to present their message without criticism. A free discussion gives everyone the opportunity to come together properly. The team leader should pay close attention in order to be able to summarize the disputed questions and the positions on them. Talented leadership is particularly important here - the team leader should remain neutral and value all positions. On this basis, as in real teams, a compromise can be considered. At the end, you can summarize the result and get the approval of all participants again.

This approach has several advantages. Because you accept yourself in your plurality, it is not necessary to neglect important needs in order to quickly come up with a unified opinion. A more authentic result often leads to greater self-satisfaction - and finally, self-clarification helps to quickly understand and deal with later discomfort in this question.

Other aspects of the inner team

The metaphor of the inner team can, however, be used even more extensively. In Talking Together 3 , Schulz von Thun also presents the following concepts:

Internal conflict management
Non-acceptance by team members and its consequences
Team building in internal and external contact
Situation-dependent team composition

literature

Friedemann Schulz von Thun: Talking to each other 3 - The 'inner team' and communication appropriate to the situation . Rowohlt, Reinbek 1998, ISBN 3499605457 .
Friedemann Schulz von Thun, Wibke Stegemann (ed.): The inner team in action. Practical work with the model . Rowohlt, Reinbek 2004, ISBN 3499616440 .

Individual evidence

↑ Schulz von Thun, Friedemann: Talking to one another. Rowohlt, ISBN 978-3-499-60545-1 ( worldcat.org [accessed April 14, 2020]).

[1] Schulz von Thun, Friedemann: Talking to one another. Rowohlt, ISBN 978-3-499-60545-1 ( worldcat.org [accessed April 14, 2020]).