subpersonality

thumb|200px|Matryoshka doll|Stacking dolls provide a visual representation of subpersonalities. A subpersonality is, in humanistic psychology, transpersonal psychology and ego psychology, a personality mode that activates (appears on a temporary basis) to allow a person to cope with certain types of psychosocial situations. Similar to a complex, the mode may include thoughts, feelings, actions, physiology and other elements of human behavior to self-present a particular mode that works to negate particular psychosocial situations. American transpersonal philosopher Ken Wilber and English humanistic psychologist John Rowan suggested that the average person has about a dozen subpersonalities.

Many schools of psychotherapy see subpersonalities as relatively enduring psychological structures or entities that influence how a person feels, perceives, behaves, and sees themselves. John Rowan described it as a 'semipermanent and semi-autonomous region of the personality capable of acting as a person'.