What is IFS? (Internal Family Systems)

More and more clients are coming to our practice in search of IFS, or Internal Family Systems Therapy. As word gets out about how powerful this modality of healing is, it often piques clients' curiosity.

Internal Family Systems Therapy was developed in the 1980s by Richard Schwartz, Ph.D., a family therapist who listened to his eating disordered clients talk about different parts of themselves similarly to how family structures are organized as a system. IFS is also known as "parts work", and involves understanding an individual as a system with various parts of their personalities at work, which have their own fears, motivations and thought processes.

Now I know what you're thinking. But I don't have multiple personality disorder! This form of therapy is not saying that. It asserts that to be human is to be multifaceted. Have you ever said something like, "A part of me wants to go to that party tonight, but another part of me just wants to stay snuggled up in bed"? That's parts of your personality expressing themselves, in a sense. It's very normal to feel very different ways about the same thing. Parts work is an empowering system to help you understand the underlying origins, hangups, fears, and motivations of these parts of you. This is especially useful when we see particular parts causing a lot of issues for a client.

For example, a chronically depressed client often identifies themselves as a depressed person. They take on the identity of depression. But how empowering is it to realize that your depressed part of you is just that--one part of you? You also have parts of you that delight in things and have energy and motivation towards serving others. The idea behind IFS is that we want to allow our True Self to connect with the depressed part, to allow them to be resourced and come into balance with the rest of the person's parts. This way, depression does not take over the person's whole system.

Think about it like an orchestra--a system working together with a conductor. When a particular part, let's say the part who exhibits depression, is not in connection with the orchestra conductor, they are like a violin that's out of tune and has the wrong sheet music. It's disruptive. It's loud. It overtakes the melody and does not allow the piece to be played beautifully by the orchestra as a whole. But when in connection with True Self, the violin is able to "tune up", and get the right sheet music, so they can become a contributing member of the system.

IFS sees consciousness as comprised of a True Self, and three types of parts: managers, firefighters, and exiles. True Self is something we are all born with, and embodies Calm, Compassion, Creativity, Clarity, Courage, Curiosity, Connectedness, and Confidence. When our system is in balance, True Self connects with a person's parts like the conductor connects with the musicians in an orchestra. These parts help us survive and thrive, whether they are for the purpose of detecting threat, helping others, organizing, striving, etc. These parts often take on these extreme roles in order to protect our vulnerable wounded parts (exiles) that often form during childhood, when the Self in its natural state was shamed, criticized, or rejected. When they're triggered, our protective parts serving as managers (to control) or as firefighters (to distract) will step in, afraid that the person cannot handle the intensity of their wounded part's feelings. One important facet of IFS therapy is the assumption that all a person's parts are well intentioned to protect the person (as a system does not intend to destroy itself). So as we connect with these parts, we know the parts are trying to do a good job for us (even as destructive as they may be in practice).

What does healing look like in IFS? As a person's True Self connects with various parts, the goal is healing through relationship. This often looks like staging a back and forth dialogue between True Self and various parts. Since wounding is often relational, Self offers an avenue for healing to these parts that may have been operating in isolation and fear. As parts and Self connect relationally, the parts are freed from extreme roles, trust is developed by the parts to the Self, and they begin to work together as one for the health and healing of the person, with Self in leadership.

Many times I see clients amazed at how effective IFS Therapy feels in practice. Sometimes, it can feel a bit strange initially, "like I'm talking to myself? This seems weird…" as people naturally get a little self-conscious with this practice at first. Remember though that we are taught in society how to talk to others. We generally know how to apply basic communication skills. We just aren't taught to apply these skills internally, with ourselves! We can learn to do this over time, though, and it creates an internal world of respect and compassion rather than criticism and hatred. If you will give it a try, it can be one of the most empowering, insight-building and healing experiences that therapy can offer.

Written by Mary Beth Stevens, LPCC, BCN