The Parts We Name: Magical Realism, and the Psychology of Our Inner World
What if the characters in your inner world weren't problems to fix but parts of you worth understanding?
By Janeth Nuñez del Prado, LCSW | Desert Bloom Psychology & Consulting.
WHERE IMAGINATION WAS NEVER "JUST IMAGINATION"
I grew up in a world where imagination wasn't escapism. It was knowledge.
In my childhood and in the culture I was shaped by stories, characters, and unseen presences were not confined to books. They were woven into everyday life. They had texture. Detail. Emotion.
They were real.
My grandmother spoke of magical beings that moved quietly alongside us guiding us, teaching us, protecting us. These were not fantasies to dismiss. They were ways of understanding the world. Ways of making meaning.
Looking back, I can see how deeply this shaped me. This way of seeing — imagination as knowledge, story as wisdom — is at the heart of how I work with people, especially those navigating high-stakes, high-pressure situations. Not only in how I move through life, but in how I sit with people in therapy and consultation.
WHEN STRENGTH BECOMES STRAIN
The story that follows is a composite, drawn from clinical themes. All identifying details have been changed or omitted to protect privacy.
I once worked with someone whose mind had been trained to anticipate conflict — to think in point and counterpoint, to stay one step ahead.
That way of being made him exceptional in his work.
But at home, it meant he was always bracing — responding to conversations as if they were arguments, preparing for tension that wasn't there.
So we began by getting curious about this part of him.
We came to know it as The Warrior.
The Warrior was not chaotic or out of control. It was disciplined. Strategic. Protective. It knew how to prepare, anticipate, and keep him safe.
And it had served him well.
But it didn't always know when it was no longer needed.
IMAGINING SOMETHING DIFFERENT
So we didn't try to get rid of The Warrior.
Instead, we began to imagine another way of being. Not something entirely new but something deeply familiar.
An abuelo.
A presence that felt steady, warm, and unhurried. A kind of authority that didn't come from force, but from grounded presence.
An abuelo does not brace for conflict. He softens the space around him. He protects not through readiness for battle but through presence, patience, and quiet wisdom.
FROM REACTION TO CHOICE
Over time, my client began to recognize these parts more clearly.
He could feel when The Warrior was activated in his body, in his thoughts, in the way he spoke. He could also begin to access the presence of Abuelo slowing down, softening, choosing a different response.
He didn't lose The Warrior.
He gained something more important: choice.
And in that choice there was freedom.
That shift didn't stay contained within him. It moved into his relationships — into conversations that softened, into people around him who felt more able to come toward him rather than brace against him. There was more room for connection.
THIS IS NOT "JUST IMAGINATION"
What we were doing was not simply using imagination. And it was not avoidance.
It was a different way of relating to what lives inside us.
A way that includes the body, the senses, emotion and the deeper wisdom we carry, often without words.
For many of us, especially those shaped by cultures rich in story and symbolism, this way of knowing is not new. It is something we already understand even if we have never named it.
WHY THIS WAY OF WORKING HEALS
When we give shape to our inner experience, something important happens.
We create space.
Instead of being overwhelmed by a feeling, we can begin to relate to it. Instead of becoming the reaction, we can observe it.
This softens intensity. It reduces shame.
Our parts are not all of who we are. And they are not problems to eliminate. They are adaptations — ways we have learned to survive, protect, and move through the world.
When we imagine them — when we see them, feel them, understand them we access something deeper than logic.
Because real change does not happen only in the mind. It happens in the nervous system.
Through imagination, image, and sensation through curiosity and felt experience. This is where safety lives. And this is where healing begins.
A GENTLE INVITATION
As you read this, you might pause and wonder:
What parts of you are present? What did they feel like? What did they look like? What did they need?
And what might shift if you related to them differently?
WHERE THIS WAY OF KNOWING LIVES
For many of us, this way of relating to experience isn't new. It lives in the stories we grew up with in books like Like Water for Chocolate, where feeling doesn't stay contained inside the body… it moves through the world.
Maybe your healing doesn't have to look so different.
A NOTE ON HOW THIS WORK HAPPENS
What I've described here is not traditional therapy. It is consultation focused, time-limited, and conducted outside the traditional clinical record.
No diagnosis. No formal documentation. Just two people in a room, working on something specific, with focus and intention, over a defined period of time.
For professionals who carry confidentiality concerns of their own attorneys, executives, and first responders — this distinction is not incidental. It is part of the reason the work becomes possible at all.
Whether you are navigating a high-stakes situation, carrying the weight of others' trauma, or noticing a part of you that keeps showing up in the same way —
we can work with that.
Together.
