What is IFS?
A Brief Overview of How Internal Family Systems Therapy Works
If you have ever heard of IFS, or Internal Family Systems therapy, or maybe you just saw it mentioned on my website, you might be curious about what makes it different than other therapies. At its core, IFS aims to make you more aware of different aspects of yourself, often referred to as “parts”, and helps you get to know them and how they protect you, eventually healing you from what they are protecting you from. It is a very gentle therapy, helping you create space for self-compassion.
In IFS, it usually starts with getting to know your protective parts. There is a lot of checking in with your body, and how you are feeling as you are there with that part. It is asked that way in order to help you notice that not all of you feels that way, and to encourage you to occupy a more curious mindset. You are asked to pay attention to how that part is showing up, with a visual, a sound, body sensations, and just notice their presence around your own. It might feel a little awkward at first, because we tend to not think that way, but it is key to the process, and it takes some time to move through that awkward feeling (usually it involves getting to know a part of you that dislikes not knowing what to do, because it is trying to protect you from feeling dumb).
Eventually, you get a better understanding of how those parts are protecting you, how they feel about the job they do for you, and what they are afraid of if they were to stop doing their job. Approaching these protectors with curiosity and compassion is what helps make these answers clear.
As you get to know these parts and build trust, they will let you approach what they have been protecting you from. What they have been protecting you from are usually referred to as “exiles”, because they are parts of you that took on a burden, a feeling or belief about yourself, that hurts immensely when you feel it. In other therapies, these might be called core beliefs, and might sound something like, “There is something wrong with me”, “I am unlovable”, “I am unsafe”, “I am worthless”, “No one will help me”, “Everyone will leave me”, or “I am not enough”.
Think about the last time when you were triggered. An exile had been touched or brought up, and then our protectors tend to shut it down with rage, shutting down, zoning out, self-harm, or suicidal thoughts, protecting us from having to feel that pain. Helping unburden those exiles is delicate work, and so it isn’t a fast process to get there.
When we actually look at healing those wounds, releasing those burdens being carried by an exile, the healing process involves steps of sharing those moments when you took on that belief about yourself growing up, re-doing it better now that you can be there with that younger version of yourself, taking that younger version out of the past, and releasing those feelings in a ceremonial way, making room for beliefs and feelings you want instead.
That earlier step about noticing how you feel being there with a part, noticing the way it looks, sounds, or feels in your body, is all very important for making it work. You need to actually feel your feelings to heal. How do you expect to feel different, if you don’t actively feel differently?
If you want to learn more, you can always buy a book on the topic. I got these ones off of Amazon, but it isn’t hard to find some on IFS at your local bookstore (the last time I went inside the Barnes & Noble at the Chandler Fashion Center mall, around Chandler Boulevard and the 101, I had seen them selling Richard Schwartz’s latest IFS book called “No Bad Parts”).
It is one thing to have the knowledge about how to heal, and it is an entirely different thing to actually be able to heal. This is where entrusting a therapist to help you through the process comes in. If you are local, especially in the East Valley near Mesa, I would be more than happy to set up a free consultation to talk about whether or not IFS would help you. You can reach out to me through the contact page on my website, and we’d set up a time to talk in further depth!
