Inner team

Inner team

A meeting in your head

Do you have to choose something, and one voice in your head says yes and another says no? Seat them at the table.

  • You put your question on the table.
  • You choose who joins in: the Worrier, the Doer, the Child and others.
  • They take turns to speak. Then you decide, as the chair.
  • At the end you have minutes of the meeting.

You open an earlier meeting with the file you saved yourself. It stays on this device.

How it works

  1. Put your question on the table: a choice or a situation you are unsure about. Choose an example or write your own question.
  2. Choose who sits at the table: two to seven team members, such as the Worrier, the Doer and the Child. You can give them a name of your own, or draw your own team member.
  3. Put them close by or further away, and choose how loudly they talk: whisper, talk or shout.
  4. Give each team member a turn to speak and write down what they say. Then draw lines between those who agree and those who clash.
  5. See what each one needs and make a decision. You see who gets something from it and who starts to sulk. At the end you have minutes: to print, copy or save as a file.

Where the idea comes from

This comes from ‘the inner team’ by the German psychologist Friedemann Schulz von Thun. The idea: there are different voices in your head, and each voice wants something good for you, even if it sounds difficult. The Worrier wants to keep you out of trouble, the Critic does not want you to embarrass yourself. If you hear them all, you can make a better choice. We made the team members and the texts in this tool ourselves.

The table

Whoever sits close to you has a lot of influence right now. Whoever shouts is drawn bigger than whoever whispers. Whoever is speaking leans forward, and the others look at the speaker.

A team member who gets nothing from your decision starts to sulk. You can change the decision, promise the team member something, or leave it as it is.

With a client

As a care worker, you can ask questions: what would the Worrier think of this? Each team member also has two questions you can ask as the chair.

Good to know

  • This is about thoughts and feelings that are talking to each other. Do you really hear voices, or do thoughts tell you to harm yourself? Talk about it with your GP or with someone you trust. Are you thinking about suicide? Call 113 or 0800-0113 (113 Zelfmoordpreventie, the Dutch suicide prevention line). In immediate danger: call 112.
  • You can skip any step and come back later.
  • Everything works with the keyboard. You do not have to drag the figures: the buttons Closer, Further away and Other side do the same.
  • Below the table is The table in words: who sits where, how loudly they talk, what they said and which lines there are.
  • You can tell team-ups and clashes apart by the shape: a solid line or a zigzag. Each line has a number.
  • If you close or refresh the page, everything you have not saved is gone. The browser asks you first.

Your data

What you fill in stays on this page, on your own device. Nothing is sent and nothing is stored in your browser. If you close or refresh the page, everything is gone.

  • The file is saved on your device, in the place you choose. Everything you filled in is in it, including what your team members said and your decision. With Open a file you load it again. That also happens only in your browser.
  • If you choose ‘Save as PDF’ when you print, your minutes are saved as a file on your device.
  • If you copy the minutes, they stay on your device’s clipboard until you copy something else.
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Is something missing?

Does something not work, or are you looking for a tool that does not exist yet? Let us know, a few words is enough. We read everything.

Send us a message [email protected]