Alanis Morissette asks which version of her I wish to hear from: “The hormonal bitch who has a lot to say? The people-pleasing, kind, amenable part? They’re all here.” It’s 9am in sunny Los Angeles and the Canadian-born singer-songwriter is wearing a slouchy top, her wavy hair loose. She’s long been aware of these different “parts”, that her life is full of contradiction. “I have 14 different opinions about one thing.” It’s why, aged 19, she wrote Hand In My Pocket (lyrics include: I’m high, but I’m grounded / I’m sane, but I’m overwhelmed), one of several anthems on Jagged Little Pill, the album released 30 years ago this month. Back then, in the unenlightened 90s, people found this sort of talk unnerving. “They were like, ‘Whoa, that’s scary. What are you talking about?’”
“They called it my ‘psychobabble’. I’m like, ‘I’m going to stay the course with my psychobabble.’” It’s what she sees as her “karmic assignment” and feels not a little vindicated now that these ideas are welcomed by the mainstream. There’s a whole seam of psychotherapy that views the mind as composed of distinct “parts”, called Internal Family Systems. Morissette speaks at the symposiums, as well as summits on trauma, or wholeness versus wellness, career, art and feminism. She hosted a podcast devoted to this stuff. “The healing arts,” she says, adding drily: “I am from California, never forget that. California, because if I were in any other state my head might explode.”
