Laura J Widman

What Happens During Identity Integration Session?

Identity means I = I, across all of your relationships:
A healthy ”I” means having a free will and being present with all your senses,
In contact with your body – with your own feelings, thoughts and words.

What happens during a working session using Identity Integration (IoPT)?

Step 1:

A client gives some thought to the following questions:

  • What do I want to achieve through this therapeutic work?
  • What is my goal, my intention? What am I yearning for?
  • What would I like to look at more deeply within myself?
  • What needs healing? Resolution?

Step 2:

Client formulates a Sentence of Intention
This “sentence” can consists of words or symbols.
No further information is asked for or needed from the client.
Everything that is needed will show up in the process.
Intentions come in infinite variety, and all are allowed.
Your intention provides a safe and defined framework.

"Everything you need to know for your own trauma healing is within you."
- Prof. Dr. Franz Rupert
Dr. Franz Ruppert

Step 3:

The Client is now invited to write or draw the Intention Sentence on a flip pad or white board so it is visible to the whole group.

Step 4:

The client now chooses up to five of the words/images in the Intention sentence and copies them one by one onto different ‘post-its’ and gives them to participants in the seminar. Participants will serve as “Resonators” (representatives for the word that is now attached to their clothing for all to see).

After Resonators have their post-it visible, they await for the client to indicate their readiness to begin the process.

Step 5:

The client has the agency to give the signal to proceed, not the facilitator. Once given the green light to begin, the Resonators stand up quietly at first, and sense what is present within them. When asked by the client, they will share what is happening within them. Ruppert theorizes that the Resonators are being guided by the mirror neurons of the client.

Every word on each ‘post it’ reflects an essential facet in the client’s psyche. Often unconscious, repressed or unprocessed experiences from one’s own biography show up. This allows the client to get consciously in touch with the deeper parts of themselves. The client and facilitator exchange insights from the process.

When the client has emotional contact, a sustainable and palpable change process is initiated in the psyche. Trauma survival strategies may lose their credibility, healthy mental structures get more space, and split traumatized parts of a healthy “I” are freed from inner banishment, and parts start integrating.

The facilitator supports the client by initiating beneficial inquiry that stimulates an internal process of discovery and insight.

Being a Resonator in someone else’s process is often a valuable embodied learning experience and frequently allows for epiphany into one’s own life.