Persona Interviews

What it is

A practiced conversation — solo, in a dyad, or held by a partner — with one of the practitioner’s own personas. The interview treats the persona as a part of the self with its own logic, history, and needs, not as a problem to defeat.

The premise is simple: what we resist persists; what we have relationship with we can influence. A persona that is fought stays. A persona that is met can soften, complete the feeling it was defending against, and release.

The move

The basic structure of an interview:

1. Choose a persona to meet. Often the one currently active, or one surfacing on the practitioner’s Persona Chart. Name it specifically — The Pleaser, The Critic, The Fixer, The Hiding One.
2. Locate it in the body. Where does this persona live? What is its posture, its breath, its sensation signature? Letting the body embody the persona makes the interview honest.
3. Speak as the persona / let the persona speak. The practitioner or the partner asks questions; the persona answers in its own voice. Sample questions:
   • Who are you? What is your name?
   • How long have you been here?
   • What is your job? What are you protecting?
   • What do you want?
   • What do you require of the world (and of me) to keep doing your job)?
   • What feeling are you keeping me from feeling?
4. Find the feeling underneath. The persona’s purpose is to avoid a specific feeling. Locate that feeling. Often it is an old one — fear that was unsafe to feel as a child, sadness that did not get to complete, anger that had no acceptable expression.
5. Run sew through the feeling. With the persona’s permission, let the feeling move. See experiencing-your-feelings, emotional-cycles.
6. Thank the persona. It has been working — often for decades — to keep the practitioner safe. The work is meeting and loving the persona, not erasing it.

What the interview is for

• Distinguishing self from persona. The interview itself is the move that creates distance between the practitioner and the persona doing the talking. Identification softens.
• Surfacing the requirement. Most personas have a clear requirement of the world (to be needed, to be admired, to be unseen). Naming the requirement reveals the persona’s hidden contract with reality — and the recurring complaints that come from that contract.
• Reaching the underneath feeling. Personas are sustained because a feeling did not get felt. The interview is the structured way to find that feeling so it can move.
• Working with clusters. Once the practitioner knows several personas, the interview can shift to working with a cluster collectively — how can everyone here get what they want?

In dyads and groups

The curriculum uses dyad practice as the primary form: one practitioner holds the questions, the other answers as the persona. The held space matters — meeting the persona requires the practitioner to drop defenses, which goes more easily when someone else holds the form.

A meeting may hold persona interview practice as a segment of the container (see meeting-script when that piece exists).

Why this matters

Persona interviews are the practical bridge between knowing about personas and actually working with them. Without the interview, the persona stays abstract, and the practitioner remains identified with defenses they have never met directly.

Facets served

• facet-navigating-inner-world — the dedicated practice form of this facet.
• facet-aligning-with-essence — what becomes available once the persona is met and the feeling has moved.

Related principles

• principle-2, principle-3 — SEW runs through the feeling underneath the persona.
• principle-5 — share experience, not advice. The partner holds questions, not answers.
• principle-19 — group is not therapy; the interview is a practice form, not psychological treatment.

Related tools

• personas — the parent framework.
• persona-to-essence — the depth move from persona to the essence underneath.
• projection-work — the outward face of what the persona does in the world.
• sew — the move-through that runs once the feeling is located.
• karpman-triangle — persona families map to triangle positions; interviewing a persona often releases a triangle stance.

Source and attribution

Primary source: raw/2025 ILC Version AT Master Curriculum.docx.md, Weeks 10 and 11. The curriculum references a Persona Interview handout — needs-export as a separate asset when the team is ready.

Status notes

canonical — promoted from needs-export 2026-05-24 from the ILC master curriculum (Weeks 10 and 11). The interview’s exact question list as the team uses it is partially in the curriculum and partially in the referenced handout; this page captures the move and the typical questions, with the handout still to export.

Referenced by