There are moments when a person can hear two truths within themselves. I want to be close to you. And: I am afraid of what closeness will cost. Or: I need to rest. And: If I stop, everything may fall apart.
The difficulty is often in the relationship between these positions. One interrupts before the other has finished speaking. One treats another’s vulnerability as a threat. A response that once helped becomes so dominant that the person has little room to choose.
YVH Parts Dynamics is the name I give here to the exploration of these relationships within Yoga Vāsiṣṭha Hypnotherapy. It brings hypnotic attention and parts dialogue into conversation with contemplative inquiry and the stories of the Yoga Vāsiṣṭha. I introduce it as a practice formulation within my developing YVH framework, with its own research questions still to answer.
A hundred dreamers learning to recognize one another
In Jīvaṭa and the Hundred Rudras, a mendicant’s imagining unfolds into a succession of identities. Each inhabits a world that feels complete. Eventually, Rudra recognizes the preceding forms, and the dreamers are awakened into an encounter with one another before returning to their lives.
The tale belongs to a philosophical inquiry into consciousness and identity. In my contemporary therapeutic reading, it also offers an image of perspectives becoming available to one another. The frightened self can discover that the capable self exists. The self that carries responsibility can learn that rest has a voice.
Rudra can serve as an image of an integrating perspective. That invites comparison with Self-leadership in Internal Family Systems, while leaving the religious meaning of Rudra and the clinical meaning of IFS Self distinct. The comparison is interpretive; it does not establish that the ancient text contained modern psychotherapy.
What would become possible if the voice that fears change could be heard by the voice that longs for it?
What I mean by a part
A part, in this article, is a useful way of approaching a recognizable configuration of feeling, attention, expectation, and action. It may appear as a bodily tension, a familiar sentence, an impulse, an image, or a sense of being a particular version of oneself.
The person decides whether this language fits. There is no requirement to discover an inner cast of characters. A sensation may remain a sensation. An uncertainty may remain unresolved. Ordinary inner conflict, by itself, does not establish a dissociative disorder.
The word dynamics directs attention to relationships: who takes over, who withdraws, what each position anticipates, and what happens when another perspective enters. It also keeps the inquiry connected to context. A response can be shaped by an unsafe relationship, an exhausting workplace, or a demand that genuinely exceeds someone’s resources.
The approaches beside YVH
Parts work has several established lineages. Acknowledging them gives YVH a clearer place in the conversation.
| Approach | Central emphasis | Relationship to YVH Parts Dynamics |
|---|---|---|
| Internal Family Systems Richard Schwartz | A system of parts, protective roles, burdens, and Self-leadership. | A valuable conversation about compassionate relationships with parts. YVH is not presented as formal IFS treatment. |
| Ego State Therapy John and Helen Watkins | Working with differentiated states and their adaptive functions. | A close neighbour for understanding self-states and their interaction. |
| Client-Centered Parts Therapy Charles Tebbetts and Roy Hunter | Hypnotic work with inner conflict, communication, and negotiation. | A particularly relevant hypnosis lineage to acknowledge. |
| Voice Dialogue Hal and Sidra Stone | Encountering different selves and developing an Aware Ego process. | A related exploration of how different inner positions can be heard. |
| Psychosynthesis Roberto Assagioli | Subpersonalities, disidentification, will, and a wider sense of Self. | A significant contemplative neighbour for inquiry into identification. |
These approaches have different theories and procedures. Similar language does not make them interchangeable. Their overlap gives us questions to investigate, rather than permission to transfer evidence from one method to another.
How I frame the work under hypnosis
Within YVH, hypnosis provides a setting for focused, experiential inquiry. The intention is to help a person encounter a familiar response closely enough to understand it, while retaining enough perspective to respond differently. The amount of absorption follows the person’s needs and responsiveness.
The questions below illustrate the stance I am articulating through YVH Parts Dynamics. They are invitations, rather than a fixed script or a substitute for clinical assessment.
| Movement | Purpose | An illustrative invitation |
|---|---|---|
| Establish contact and choice | Agree on the aim, pace, and ways to pause. | “What would make this exploration feel manageable for you?” |
| Settle and notice | Find a comfortable anchor and observe the response as it appears. | “As you notice this, what stands out first?” |
| Differentiate | Create room around a compelling experience. | “Could we stay with this response while also noticing the room around you?” |
| Listen and inquire | Explore meaning and possible protective functions without assigning them. | “What, if anything, does this response seem concerned about?” |
| Explore the relationship | Discover what happens between competing positions. | “What changes when the wish to rest hears the fear of stopping?” |
| Rehearse and return | Try a small change in imagination, reorient, and connect it to life. | “In tomorrow’s situation, what would a workable next step look like?” |
A story may enter when it helps the person recognize a pattern. Jīvaṭa can offer distance from a conflict that has become too personal to examine directly. Someone may recognize themselves in one dreamer, then become curious about another. Someone else may find no connection with the tale. Both responses belong in the work.
I describe the broader process on the YVH model page. Parts dialogue belongs within an architecture that also includes preparation, imagination, inquiry, witnessing, future rehearsal, and integration. The ladder linking contemplative stages and trance depths is a heuristic proposal, not a scale for certifying spiritual attainment.
Stories that open different doors
The Atlas concordance identifies ten tales under “Parts / ego states.” The following selection adds Cūḍālā as a related story of role, voice, and receptivity. The final column offers present-day questions; these are interpretive applications rather than protocols prescribed by the text.
| Story | Textual point of contact | A question it can open |
|---|---|---|
| Jīvaṭa and the Hundred Rudras | Identities awaken to one another. Mitra VI.1.63–64. | Which perspectives in me have not yet had an opportunity to meet? |
| Vipaścit, the King Who Became Four | Differentiated selves assist one another. VI.2.124–125. | What might one capacity offer another? |
| Janaka and the Song of the Siddhas | Janaka addresses his mind directly. V.9–11. | How does the way I speak inwardly shape what I can hear? |
| Vītahavya and the Body in the Cave | Mind and senses become interlocutors. V.82–83. | What becomes noticeable when I attend to this bodily response? |
| Kundadanta and the Hermit of the Kadamba Tree | Blessing and Curse take form and dispute. VI.2.183. | Can opposing expectations become curious about each other’s reasoning? |
| Cūḍālā and Śikhidhvaja | Teaching is received differently through a changed form. VI.1.85–87. | Which voices do I grant authority to, and which do I dismiss? |
The complexity of these stories matters. Vipaścit does not end with every self safely home; the concordance records continued wandering. Cūḍālā’s story raises questions about gender and authority as well as inner dialogue. A careful reading keeps these tensions alive.
From a rigid strategy to an available capacity
In my Shadow → Gift → Essence language, a useful question concerns the capacity caught inside a rigid strategy. A controlling response may carry organisational ability. A withdrawing response may be sensitive to limits. Anger may reveal a boundary that needs attention.
These are possibilities to explore with the person. Naming a “gift” before someone has had room to describe their pain can make the language of transformation feel like another demand.
The Integrative Transformation Model keeps attention on development over time. Here, that means asking whether a discovery becomes available during an ordinary disagreement, a difficult decision, or an evening when the body needs rest. An experience in trance becomes practically meaningful through what follows it.
The witness remains connected to life
Witnessing, as I use it in this formulation, means making room to notice an experience while remaining able to respond. It should support contact with the body, the present environment, and other people.
Fear may concern a real danger. Exhaustion may require a change in workload. Anger may call for a boundary. The work must leave room for those realities. If someone becomes detached, overwhelmed, or less able to orient, the immediate task is to restore contact and reassess the exploration.
Hypnotic imagery also requires care about memory. A scene can be emotionally meaningful without establishing that an event happened. Kihlstrom’s review describes how suggestions to enhance recall can increase false recollection and confidence. I treat material arising in imagination as experience to explore, rather than historical evidence. [1]
A developing framework with an open research question
My review with Saamdu Chetri examines hypnosis, emotion regulation, and self-integration. It offers a research foundation for questions about attention and emotional experience, rather than direct evidence for the newly named YVH Parts Dynamics formulation. [2]
The Supreme Yoga and the Science of Suggestion sets out the wider YVH proposal. [3] My accepted Frontiers in Psychology Hypothesis and Theory article, From Wound to Essence, proposes IEAF as a framework for investigation. Its final formatted version is forthcoming at the time of writing. [4]
YVH Parts Dynamics now gives one area of that programme a clearer name. Its next task is to specify what is delivered, examine acceptability and adverse experiences, and test whether story-supported hypnotic parts work offers benefits beyond credible comparison conditions.
The return is where the story continues
The dreamers in Jīvaṭa return to their lives. For me, that return gives the image its practical force.
A person may leave an exploration able to recognize a frightened response without surrendering every decision to it. They may be able to hear the wish for connection and the need for a boundary in the same conversation. These are the kinds of changes the framework invites us to look for and evaluate.
In a difficult moment, a small opening may be enough to begin: There is more than one perspective here. I can make time to listen before I decide.
Explore the work
Begin with the YVH research programme, browse the Vāsiṣṭha Atlas, or read The Sixty-Four Tales of the Supreme Yoga. The YVH publications page gathers the related papers, and the research library situates them within my wider work.
References
- Kihlstrom, J. F. (1997). Hypnosis, memory and amnesia. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 352(1362), 1727–1732. doi:10.1098/rstb.1997.0155.
- Gallardo, L. M., & Chetri, S. (2026). Hypnosis as a mechanism of emotion regulation and self-integration: An integrative review of neural, cognitive, and experiential pathways to Fundamental Peace. Behavioral Sciences, 16(3), 395. doi:10.3390/bs16030395.
- Gallardo, L. M. (2026). The Supreme Yoga and the science of suggestion: Bridging the Yoga Vāsiṣṭha and modern hypnotherapy through consciousness, narrative, and neuroscience. Journal of Happytalism and Fundamental Peace, 1(1), JHFP-2026-001. doi:10.68220/whf.2026.001.
- Gallardo, L. M. (2026). From wound to essence: A hypothesis and theory article proposing the Integrative Emotional Alchemy Framework (IEAF) for psychotherapy integration and transformation. Frontiers in Psychology. Accepted 25 October 2026; final formatted version forthcoming. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2026.1933416.
- Gallardo, L. M. (2026). The Vāsiṣṭha Atlas. Contemporary concordance and interpretive practices based on Vihari Lala Mitra’s translation. Parts / ego states evidence and passage locations. Tale numbers are Atlas identifiers.
- IFS Institute. The Internal Family Systems model outline.
- Ego State Therapy International. Frequently asked questions and the Watkins lineage.
- Roy Hunter archive. Article library on client-centered hypnosis and Parts Therapy.
- Stone, H., & Stone, S. Voice Dialogue International. Primary resources on Voice Dialogue and the Psychology of Selves.
- Institute of Psychosynthesis. What is Psychosynthesis?
This article presents a developing integrative formulation and educational interpretation. Clinical work requires appropriate assessment, competence, and care; narrative and contemplative practices should be adapted to the person’s needs and beliefs.