Disclaimer

We're a peer life coach. We are definitely not suggesting that you do self-help work without professional assistance, or that you go through this flowchart without any support. We offer a 30 minute courtesy session and we can help you decipher where you are and where you way wish to go next. You can definitely work through these ideas with your therapist. You can use these ideas as headwork between therapy appointments. You can work in a small (under 20-member, probably under 10) self-help support group and go through these materials together. Please find ways to support yourselves through this work.

Unfortunately to be realistic, not everyone has access to a therapist. Not everyone can approach others about their mental health issues, because of where they are in the process, or because they don't have access to anyone appropriate to talk to.

So these materials are provided in good faith with the hope that you will use them wisely, responsibly, apply critical thinking, make adjustments, not take everything on blind faith, and please question whether any pathway or materials are right for you-all, right now. You might also find it helpful or even necessary to re-take a course or re-visit materials with renewed understanding later.

That said, because not everyone has equal access to professional assistance, there are practical, financial, language and cultural barriers to getting assistance — we present y'all with every opportunity we can to get the help you need one way or another. Hence this chart, and the text is pulled out best as possible below so that those who cannot read the PDF or PNG can also get access to it.

Get/see the visual chart

Direct links: PNG PDF (we apologize because this is an awkward size/shape and probably not easily printable, we may correct that at some point) and note all ©2021-2022 The Crisses, Criss Xes, aka Criss Ittermann.

Note

This is self-help work, you can start anywhere, and make your own pathway based on your system’s needs or interests.

Having a Lot of Trouble? Start Here.

1. Are you& safe? Include physical safety, still in contact with or living with current or former abusers, emotional safety, and even internal safety like fighting and/or arguing or bullying in-system. If Yes, continue to #2, below.
   • NO — Work on getting safer, or at least being aware of and monitoring your safety, starting to create actual plans to make your life more safe. Seek external resources that will help you carry out and make plans such as domestic violence resources, nonprofit agencies to help find supportive housing, etc. Once in progress, proceed to #2.
2. Do you have a lot of symptoms? (dissociation, autoimmune, PTSD, anxiety, ADHD, ED, SH, sui ideation, pain, allergies, fatigue, emotional dysregulation, etc.) If No, continue to #3, below.
   • YES — Use the System Safety Plan course and create a safety plan to help monitor & reduce symptoms. It’s a living document, so you’ll be continually updating and tweaking it. Once started, proceed to #3.
3. Do you have troublesome relationships with your headmates? Examples include: denial, suppressing headmates (jail, pushing them away), fighting, internal violence, sabotage, wars, divisiveness, intrusions, etc. If No, proceed to #4, below.
   • YES — Go through the System Trust Issues podcast series or the UF: Building Trust course. This helps with denial, internal fighting, etc. Meanwhile, continue to #4, below.
4. Are you experiencing emotional intrusions, emotional dysregulation, flashbacks, traumaholders being triggered or fronting? If No, you may want the next section "Doing OK?".
   • YES —  Check out https://kinhost.org/Main/EmotionalRegulation for resources. Continue working on this section of the chart until y'all are "Doing OK", then see below.

Doing OK? Try these ideas for Optimization

• Are you& ready to work on how to get along as a team, group agreements, meetings, etc.?
  • Check out the United Front Boot Camp or United Front: Recruits book, and the UF: Internal Communication course.
• Burning out often, low energy, lack of direction, spinning wheels, infrequent anxiety or panic attacks, possibly depressed or cycling through life stressors.
  • Take the UF: Developing Better Spoons course. This course helps understand personal energy and motivation, and how to optimize spoon use and sourcing.
• System kid issues: fronting at work, choosing external parenting figures, inserted in romantic relationships, dominating therapy time.
  • Check out Re-parenting for resources on how to re-parent system kids within the system itself to help give your system kids 24/7/365 appropriate care and attention.
• Could use more inner world tools to improve communication, work with amnesiac boundaries/barriers, improve system functioning, etc.
  • Check out our inner world/Internal Landscaping resources or take the Inner Worldscaping course.
• Would like to explore system mapping and how to track inner world dynamics, or model making inner world changes.
  • Check out our system mapping resources (Headmaps) or take the System Mapping course.
• Hard time tracking goals, making progress on projects, deciding what to work on when, monitoring system-wide self-care needs, prioritizing or tracking tasks, etc.
  • Use the ideas in the UF: Ship’s Log Planner Course with your own planner or bullet journal to develop a system for system management & planning. You can get the Ship’s Log planner — a $5USD PDF etc. If you can’t afford it, ask the Crisses for a copy.
• Want to take your internal community that you’ve been building with all these great resources to the next level?
  • Check out our UF: Building Community course coming soon — this is an advanced course on working on very high level system goals like resilience, culture, principles/values, agreements, privileges, roles, etc.

Want to take advantage of United Front materials? Check this out.

These are recommended pathways through these self-help materials — the only requirement at this time is that folk are alumni of at least 1 live coaching group to take UF: Building Community.

By the end of 2022 the shortest recommended path to the UF: Building Community course will be to create a UF: System Safety Plan, take UF: Building Trust, work on those materials until ready, then tackle the UF: Building Community course. For now, you will have to ask The Crisses for access to the Building Community course; there's no public pathway to the course materials.

The UF: Building Community course is very challenging and dense. As an optimal path, we recommend also taking UF: Reparenting, UF: Search & Rescue (C) or Rescue Missions, and UF: Developing Better Spoons before UF: Building Community.

Key:

(C) Online Course Available
(K) Kinhost.org article
(B) Book available
(P) Podcast episode(s)
Courses & United Front books are sliding scale. Please ask if you need further accommodations.

Suggested Pathways: Enter Here

This has to be simplified from the actual chart when rendered in text. The chart has many more connection lines in it.

• towards co-consciousness: UF: Internal Communication (C) or Communication Techniques (K)
  • UF: Building Trust (C) or System Trust Issues (P) - the safety plan course is a suggested prerequisite
    • Inner Worldscaping (C) or Internal Landscaping (K)
      • System Mapping (C) or Headmaps (K)
    • UF: Reparenting (C) or Re-parenting (K)
      • UF: Search & Rescue (C) or Rescue Missions (K) - Reparenting is a suggested prerequisite.
    • UF: Building Community (C) (Capstone) - Building Trust will be a prerequisite course for this course.
• symptom management: UF: Safety Plan (C) (can stand alone)
• exhaustion & anxiety: UF: Developing Better Spoons (C) or Emotional Regulation (K)
• time management, productivity, logging/tracking: UF: Ship’s Log Planner (B&C) (can stand alone)
• from scratch: United Front Boot Camp (K) or United Front: Recruits (B) (note these books are available while in progress)
  • United Front: Rebels (B)
    • United Front: Adventurers (B)