Internal Family Systems (IFS) is a relatively modern approach to psychotherapy that offers a map to explore the unconscious, as well as a process to follow that can help to heal trauma, resolve unwanted thoughts, feelings, and unhelpful behaviours. I work from Bournemouth, or online across the UK, offering IFS as a recognised and effective model for working with many issues including trauma, addiction, anxiety, compulsive thoughts and behaviours, or just exploration of what’s going on “under the hood”.
What is IFS Therapy?
The model proposes that we are all of many minds. We all experience this every day – one part of me wants to eat healthy but another part wants to binge on doughnuts. Or one part wants to go out and have fun, another part wants to stay home and get an early night. These are common examples of an ‘inner conflict’ and they’re usually pretty easy to resolve. But sometimes we seem to get taken over by thoughts, feelings, or behaviours that feel like they have a life of their own, with their own sense of agency, and we find ourselves hijacked by parts of ourselves that don’t feel like ‘me’. People often say “I don’t know what came over me, I wasn’t myself”, or feel they’re experiencing ‘intrusive thoughts’.
Rather than pushing these thoughts/feelings/behaviours away, IFS welcomes them in and engages them directly as if they are valued ‘Parts’ of your internal family with their own needs, fears, and histories. Like children in need of a parent, using whatever strategies they have available to get their needs met. What might happen if instead of trying to shut them up, we gave them a voice and listened to what they have to say? As the IFS motto goes – “There are no bad parts”.
How does IFS Therapy work?
IFS works with the idea that although I feel like a single consciousness most of the time, in truth I have many sub-personalities, each with their own stories, histories, desires, fears, strategies, and talents. I am not just ‘me’, I am a family – an internal family. And each member of the family deserves to be heard, understood, and have their needs met. In IFS these family members are called Parts, and in therapy we talk with them, to understand what they’re concerned about, and how they think they’re helping you. This is done by simply paying attention to your inner voice. An example might look something like this:
A client comes to therapy as they are experiencing anxiety. We ask the client to pay attention to the feeling of anxiety, what it might look like if it were an object or a person. The client might say “like a spiky ball in my throat” (or like an angry old woman, or a snapping dog etc) and then we give it space to talk – we might say “can you ask the spiky ball what it needs you to know”, and the client will often get a feeling, or a memory, or sometimes an intuitive sense of just knowing what the concern is. They might say, “it doesn’t want me to mess everything up again like I always do”, and that may then lead to a conversation about when this happened before, which is often in childhood, and what the spiky ball needs is to be shown that the client is no longer a child, is more capable now, isn’t at risk of a punishing parent any more, and actually the anxiety is not protecting the client but making mistakes more likely, not less.
What are IFS ‘Parts’?
This is a very common psychological idea – that the mind is made of different parts – and not unique to IFS. But where other models use rather confusing terms like “super-ego” or “adapted child ego-state”, IFS keeps it simple and user-friendly.
Managers – these Parts are typically our learned ways of being in the world. Usually they come into existence in childhood, and are responsible for keeping us connected to our friends and families, which is where our sense of threat was most relevant – being loved and accepted by the tribe has always been one of humankind’s primary safety goals. Managers often have a strict idea of “good” and “bad” behaviour. They may be The Inner Critic who believes themselves to be responsible for keeping you on the straight and narrow. Or The Party Girl who believes you must always be fun in order to be valued by others. There are as many different types of Parts as there are experiences in the world – limitless.
Exiles – these are the parts that we are unaware of. Psychology understands that none of us know ourselves fully, and IFS works with the idea that some aspects of our personality were deemed so dangerous when we were young, that they were sent into exile by the Manager Parts. We push some aspects of ourselves into the shadows and pretend they’re not us. Often, these exiled parts are the source of “intrusive thoughts”. An example may be the part that carries all the guilt, or all the sadness, or the knowledge of what really happened, something so overwhelmingly distressing that it was not safe to accept or express when young. Exiling these Parts was a short-term safety strategy when young, but the Exiles didn’t disappear, and the Managers are now desperately trying to keep them exiled using the only strategies they know, in an adult environment and context where it doesn’t make sense any more.
What is the IFS ‘Self’?
Many psychological models have an idea of some balancing or executive part – IFS calls this The Self. It is the adult in the room. The Inner Leader, the captain on the deck. The Self is the part of the psyche that is capable of adult leadership, that the other parts need, and it is the part that IFS pays most attention to. When a client is able find and feel their Self, they experience qualities such as Calmness (the other Parts are present, but no longer in control), Curiosity (not banishing thoughts, but wondering what they might be trying to say), and Compassion (wanting to help, to heal, not punish or exile). The Inner Family then begins a process of rearranging themselves around The Self as inner parent – the Parts stop trying to take control, accept that it was never their job to do so long-term, and learn to trust The Self (the client’s own sense of calm and compassionate adult leadership) to do so instead.
How can IFS Therapy help me?
The goal of IFS is Wholeness – that means understanding yourself more fully, integrating the different parts of yourself that are currently exiled away, and helping the manager parts to find a different job they can do for you. It is not about banishing behaviours, but understanding what they are doing for you, and reworking their energy into something better.
The problem behaviours are often not the problem at all, but the solution you’ve found to a deeper problem. In my Bournemouth practice, IFS helps clients to go deeper, and rework things from the ground up.
My Approach to IFS Therapy
I offer IFS-informed therapy from my office in Bournemouth, or online across the UK. I have been a member of the IFS UK Online Circle training program, and undergone various other online trainings with Dick Schwartz, founder of IFS. But as an Integrative Therapist, I tailor each session to a client’s needs. IFS informs how I work, but we don’t stick to it dogmatically (unless you want to).
Ready for the next step?
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