Internal Family Systems (IFS) Therapy
What is IFS?
Internal Family Systems (IFS) is an empowering and non-pathologising psychotherapy developed by Dr. Richard Schwartz after noticing that clients naturally spoke about different "parts" of themselves in therapy. Schwartz discovered that we all have parts; it is the norm, not the exception.
IFS understands the mind as an internal system made up of different parts, or subpersonalities, each with their own feelings, beliefs, motivations, and memories. These parts engage with one another in their own internal community, operating much the way families and larger groups do. In this sense, IFS combines systems thinking with compassionate, inner-focused, experiential psychotherapy.
What Are the Parts in IFS?
IFS identifies three broad types of parts: Managers, Firefighters, and Exiles. Managers and Firefighters are known as protector parts; they work to keep us from feeling pain and hurt again. The parts they protect are called Exiles, who carry the pain of emotional wounds.
Exiles
Exiles are vulnerable, younger, wounded parts that hold the pain of our early experiences including trauma, attachment injuries, and the impacts of the world around us. They are stuck in time at the moment of their initial wounding, and as a result of that wounding, they absorb mistaken thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and energy. This can be understood as emotional learning.
Because of our need for nurturance and connection to survive when we are children and adolescents, we are particularly vulnerable to being hurt. We can be quick to interpret neglect, or the pain of emotional, physical, or relational transgressions, as information about our own inherent value. As a result, these younger, vulnerable parts come to feel profoundly alone, carrying heavy burdens: beliefs that we are worthless, weak, undeserving, unlovable, or bad, alongside painful physical sensations, memories, and feelings.
It is these beliefs, feelings, physical sensations, and memories that protector parts fear most. Managers and Firefighters work to keep Exiles, along with their unintegrated memories and unhealed attachment wounds, out of everyday awareness. The energy protectors put into this work is proportional to the depth of the exile's wounding: the more severe the wound, the harder protectors work.
Managers
Managers are proactive protector parts. They try to prevent pain from re-occurring by organising our inner and outer world in ways designed to keep us safe. They are purposeful, future-oriented, and work to maintain control before distress can arise. Their strategies can include perfectionism, caregiving, intellectualising, self-sacrificing, criticising, problem solving and overworking. No matter how skilled a Manager is, however, Exiles can still become activated, which is where Firefighters come in.
Firefighters
Firefighters are reactive protector parts. Where Managers work to prevent pain, Firefighters respond to it immediately and urgently once it has broken through. Their strategies are impulsive and present-oriented: retail therapy, addictions to food, alcohol, drugs or gambling, numbing through social media, or self-harm.
Because of the impact these behaviours can have, Firefighters are often judged or misunderstood. It is important to recognise, however, that neither protector type is better or worse than the other; they simply do their jobs in different ways.
All protector parts can be understood as survival experts. They fashioned solutions at a time when we had no other options. When children are not protected externally, they create internal protection from whatever tools are available. Although these strategies may create difficulties in the present, protector parts always carry positive intentions. Every role was necessary for the survival of the system.
What is the Self?
A central concept in IFS is the Self; an undamageable, inborn resource within every person.
The Self is not a part. It is our inner core of deep consciousness, the very essence of who we are. IFS proposes that we are all born with a Self and that it does not need to be cultivated; it is already there. The Self is the healing agent within the system.
Just as the body naturally knows how to heal physical wounds, the mind (or psyche) also has an inherent capacity for healing through the Self. Once protectors allow the Self to reach the exiles, healing can occur naturally, in the same way the body heals physical wounds. Neuroscience research increasingly supports the understanding that IFS is not simply a metaphor.
When we are connected with our Self, we naturally embody qualities such as curiosity, calm, courage, compassion, creativity, connection, confidence, and clarity; what Schwartz called the 8 C's of Self-energy. A ninth C has also been suggested: choice.
In day-to-day life, our access to Self naturally fluctuates. Some of us may find ourselves in Self more often than others. When parts come to dominate our inner world and daily functioning, they obscure the Self. But as Dick Schwartz reminds us, like the sun, the Self can be temporarily obscured; it never disappears.
How Does IFS Work?
How Does IFS Work?
IFS is something that is perhaps best experienced rather than talked about. At its heart, the therapy centres on building relationships between the Self and the parts of the internal system. The therapist acts as a guide, helping the client access Self-energy so that the client, not the therapist, can build relationships with and heal their own parts.
Central to this process is helping protector parts feel genuinely understood and respected, while also gently helping them recognise that there may now be alternative ways of responding; ways that no longer require such extreme protective roles. As protectors begin to trust Self-leadership, they can allow the Self to reach the exiles they have long protected. Parts can then release, or unburden, the emotional learning they have carried from past experiences, and real healing becomes possible.
Rather than simply treating symptoms or teaching people how to cope, IFS aims to get to the root of emotional difficulties. As healing occurs within the internal system, people often experience:
-
Greater emotional regulation
-
Less automatic reactivity
-
Increased choice and flexibility
-
Improved relationships
-
Reduced inner conflict and self-criticism
-
Greater balance and harmony within
-
A deeper sense of connection to themselves and others
At its core, IFS is a loving way of relating; internally, to your parts, and externally, to the people in your life.
