What is Internal Family Systems Therapy?
Imagine a microphone in your head. What would it say? Perhaps it would be an inner critic yelling at you to get moving. Or maybe it would be a sad voice reminding you how alone you are. Most of us have a variety going on in our heads and bodies.
Rarely do we take the time to get to know these voices, we just believe we exist with them. Internal Family Systems Therapy looks at these voices as different parts of your personality communicating with you. This therapy works towards creating inner harmony between you and the different parts of you within.
What Are Parts?
You may have felt conflicting emotions, thoughts, or sensations at times. In my office, I have clients who consistently come to me and say “A part of me feels…but another part of me feels…”. IFS looks at this as parts communicating within you. They form a system within you, similar to a family.
Just like a family they take on different roles for you. Think about your family for a moment. You probably have someone in your family that is the more demanding person compared to others. Another family member might be a bit softer. You could have someone in your family that works too much or another person that is always showing off what they achieved.
But what if you had a similar family WITHIN yourself? A part of you that is always perfectionistic, or a part of you that is always anxious about the future. You could have a depressed part that never wants to leave the bed. Or an angry part of you that yells at people.
IFS looks at this through a perspective that all of these parts coexist with you inside of you.
Manager Parts
We have a lot of different parts, but we do see similarities among the jobs that parts do for us. One of those parts we call Managers. We describe these parts as Managers because they try to manage our inner system from being overwhelmed.
Take for example an inner critic voice in your head that is always trying to get you to look good for others or lose weight. It may say some nasty things to you, commenting on how fat you are or reminding you how much you need to lose weight. This part is trying to manage your appearance. Manager parts strive to prevent you from feeling overwhelmed, in this case, the inner critic trying to shame you into getting you in shape so that you are likable and don’t experience the feelings of worthlessness.
These Manager parts will go to great lengths to prevent overwhelm and to do what they believe is right for you. Our culture rewards a lot of our manager parts such as perfectionism, workaholics, and being in shape. When Managers achieve results and praise this offers a temporary buffer from the feelings of worthlessness that can occur.
It can make sense why these Manager parts are so protective and take charge. This comes at a price however as they get tired from all the responsibility they feel and how hard they work. Managers are terrified of giving access to vulnerable parts because of how overwhelming they are. Therefore they are stuck between a tiresome job and all the responsibility for preventing overwhelm.
Firefighter Parts
The other group of protective parts that we normally see are what we call Firefighters. These parts get their name based on the fact that they normally show up after you feel overwhelmed and try to douse the flames of emotion. They can do this by numbing us out or taking us higher than the flames of emotion. Common Firefighter activities include drinking, sex, binging, purging, drug use, suicidality, cutting, and pornography to name a few.
The Firefighters main job is to get you out of the overwhelm and they will do this in whatever means available. Our society tends to try and demonize these parts of us for the harm they can cause, but society fails to realize these parts of us are trying to take us away from the internal pain we feel.
While it is possible to lock up a firefighter part, it normally is replaced with another firefighter part to manage the system. Firefighters often don’t want these extreme roles but they don’t see any other option.
Exiled Parts
Lastly, we get to the parts that the Managers and Firefighters protect which we call Exiles. Exiles get their name because at one point these parts were shown they couldn’t be themselves. Our system trying to cope with the shame, locked these parts of us up. Exiles carry tremendous overwhelming feelings, and when triggered, flood the system. This overwhelm gets our managers and firefighters on high alert.
The trigger normally gets our protective parts to up their game and go to even further lengths to put the Exiles back in their proverbial jail. Exiles have heavy emotions or beliefs attached to them from when they experienced overwhelm. We call these emotions or beliefs “burdens”. Burdens attach to the Exile like a virus, and when doing IFS its not uncommon for the Exiles to tell you where they feel this burden in their body. Parts and society make the mistake to think Exiles are the burden but the are not.
Our goal in IFS therapy is to then heal the Exile from this burden they experienced so that all parts can relinquish their rigid roles and have the freedom to choose what role they want, thus making the system harmonious.
Systemic View of Parts: Social Anxiety
Now that we’ve described the parts and their roles we can look at an example of a three-part system and how it interacts inside of you. Perhaps you have social anxiety and have this voice in your head that is constantly scanning the room you are in. The voice might pummel you with questions like “Do they like me?”, “You’re being too shy.”, “They hate you.”. These are just examples of course of what this part might say. This part would be a manager because it is trying to prevent you from feeling the inadequacy by getting you to constantly be alert before your embarrassment happens.
Social anxiety symptoms might feel like sweaty hands, increased heart rate, mind going blank, along with being self-conscious. When you feel this overwhelm you may have a part of you that wants you to get out of the situation you’re in. You may run out of a party, or immediately cancel plans at the last minute. This part that is trying to get you out of the feeling of overwhelm would be your Firefighter part. Its job is to take you away from the feelings of overwhelm.
Finally, we get to the overwhelm itself which could be an exiled part breaking out and flooding the system. The Exile carries the heavy emotions that the other protective parts try and relieve or prevent. When something triggers it the firefighters spring into action to take the pain away, and the managers then demean the firefighters for the extremes they behaved in.
So this looks like you getting overwhelmed by your social anxiety feelings of inadequacy (Exile), you then leaving the party (Firefighter), and then an inner critic telling you that you are no good for leaving the party (Manager). See how all three parts interact with each other?
The Self
Along with parts you have what we call The Self. Self with a capital “S”, is a state of being that we access in IFS therapy to speak with these parts. Everyone has a inherent Self that has beautiful qualities and knows how to heal parts. It may seem to0 good to be true but I have seen countless clients access this state and speak to their parts in a non-judgmental way. When asking “Which part is this?”, clients will say “Oh that’s not a part, that’s just myself.”. Hence the name Self. The Self also is undamaged and knows just what to do to heal. It seems to be true to some extent that us humans can self-heal. Similarly to our body knowing what to do when we have a cut, our Self knows how to heal exiles.
8 C’s of Self Leadership
The Self has 8 qualities to know when we have accessed it. All of these qualities begin with the letter “C” hence the name “The 8 C’s”.
Calmness
Curiosity
Clarity
Compassion
Confidence
Courage
Creativity
Connectedness
We have seen these qualities stretch across a multitude of people once they access The Self. It really throws a wrench in attachment theory because traditional therapy would say that you had to have someone model these characteristics to you for them to be present. These are not our findings at all, for I have seen some people who have had unthinkable childhoods access this state and become compassionate with their parts. Thus bringing Self energy to our exiles is how we heal.
How can I start healing?
Seek out a trained IFS therapist in your area here.
Get to know some of your parts safely by noticing from a place of curiosity. If a microphone was in your head what would these voices be saying? Give a name to your parts if it feels right to do so. Befriend your parts.
Offer your parts compassion and acknowledgment as you get to know them, see how they react to this.
Look at your surrounding environment and how it brings parts out within you or pushes parts of you away. Helpful starting places could be school, your work, your relationship, your family, or your culture.
These are just some of the initial steps in going on the healing journey. If you are a Florida Resident and want to work with me click the button below.