Astral Codex Ten

Sabby

6 min read

Sabby

Article

Sabby is a recurring concept in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 2 times across 2 issues between May 21, 2024 and May 28, 2024. The archive places it in contexts such as “the snake called Sabby … sabotaging your relationship”; “your unconscious gives it the form of a snake called Sabby”. It most often appears alongside Carl Jung, Falconer, IFS.

Metadata

  • Category: Concepts
  • Mention count: 2
  • Issue count: 2
  • First seen: May 21, 2024
  • Last seen: May 28, 2024

Appears In

Source Context

Recovered passages from the original issue text. When the raw archive preserved outbound links inside the source passage, they are listed directly under the quote.

Book Review: The Others Within Us
May 21, 2024 · Original source
For example, you might identify a Part of you that wants to sabotage your relationships. You will visualize and name it - maybe you call her Sabby, and she looks like a snake. You talk to Sabby, and learn that after your first break-up, when you decided you never wanted to feel that level of pain again, you unconsciously created her and ordered her to make sure you never got close enough to anyone else to get hurt. Then you and the therapist come up with some plan to satisfy Sabby - maybe you convince her that you’re older now, and better able to deal with pain, and you won’t blame her if you get close to someone and have to break up again. Then you see a vision of Sabby stepping aside, maybe turning off the Windmill Of Relationship Sabotage or something like that, and then you never sabotage your relationships again. It’s more complicated than that, but that’s the core.
First, this isn’t supposed to be just the therapist walking you through guided imagery, or you making up a story you tell yourself. The therapist asks you “Look inside until you find the part that’s sabotaging your relationship”, and you are supposed to discover - not invent, discover - that your unconscious gives it the form of a snake called Sabby. And you are supposed to hear as in a trance - again, not invent - Sabby telling you that she’s been protecting you from heartbreak since your last breakup. When you bargain with Sabby, it’s a two-way negotiation. You learn - not decide - whether or not Sabby agrees to any given bargain. According to Internal Family Systems (which descends from normal family systems, ie family therapy where the whole family is there at once and has to compromise with each other), all this stuff really is in your mind, waiting for an IFS therapist to discover it. When Carl Jung talked about interacting with the archetypes or whatever, he wasn’t being metaphorical. He literally meant “go into a trance that gives you a sort of waking lucid dream where you meet all this internal stuff”.
(After reading the IFS manuals, I tried most of their tricks for initiating this sort of trance and meeting Sabby or whoever. I got nothing. I notice most of the patients with great results are severely traumatized borderlines, ie the same people who often get multiple personality disorder after the slightest hint from a therapist that this might happen. We’ll get back to this analogy later.)
What Is Going On In IFS?
May 28, 2024 · Original source
[An Internal Family Systems session] isn’t supposed to be just the therapist walking you through guided imagery, or you making up a story you tell yourself. The therapist asks you “Look inside until you find the part that’s sabotaging your relationship”, and you are supposed to discover - not invent, discover - that your unconscious gives it the form of a snake called Sabby. And you are supposed to hear as in a trance - again, not invent - Sabby telling you that she’s been protecting you from heartbreak since your last breakup. When you bargain with Sabby, it’s a two-way negotiation. You learn - not decide - whether or not Sabby agrees to any given bargain. According to Internal Family Systems (which descends from normal family systems, ie family therapy where the whole family is there at once and has to compromise with each other), all this stuff really is in your mind, waiting for an IFS therapist to discover it. When Carl Jung talked about interacting with the archetypes or whatever, he wasn’t being metaphorical. He literally meant “go into a trance that gives you a sort of waking lucid dream where you meet all this internal stuff”.
The thing of 'discovering... a snake called Sabby' and having to engage in good faith negotiation with Sabby rather than deciding what the agreement ought to be also feels quite ~sensationalised. To me, IFS feels like, idk, 80% Focusing and 20% roleplaying. Focusing also involves asking yourself questions about internal things and discovering - not invent, discover - what the answer is, but for feelings and bodily sensations rather than internal parts. It's normal in the therapy that I go to, which does not involve IFS or Focusing or anything involving altered states of consciousness at all, for my therapist to ask me to check in with myself about what I need right now and sometimes the answer that comes up will not be particularly rational or something I would have wanted to choose if I'd been in control of the process - sometimes it'll be something like 'hide in the corner', which is embarrassing and undignified and yet undeniably at least some of me wants it. So internal spelunking and discovery just isn't very exotic, in my world, although my experiences of it are less exciting and vivid than they are for some people, and that might be an important distinction when it comes to stuff like demons.
Inline links: Focusing