Internal Family Systems Therapy (IFS)

How does IFS therapy work?

In IFS, certain parts of you hold the distress and wounds from difficult past events and painful experiences. These precious parts that hold hurt and fear, called exiles, may have been pushed down and silenced in order for you to get through childhood, survive a difficult family situation, or feel socially acceptable. However, the exiles’ desire to self-express and be healed is often bubbling just below the surface. Because they are burdened with shame, anger, terror, and other painful feelings, though, their re-emergence can threaten the everyday calm and wellness we all wish to feel.

In addition to exiles, other parts of your system take on protector roles. Protectors either try to prevent the wounded exile from breaking through or take out the pain when it does get triggered. The parts that proactively prevent the pain from getting activated are called managers. They are the ones that often drive behaviors such as perfectionism, self-criticism, or people-pleasing. Their job is to help you avoid shame, failure, abandonment, humiliation, and other forms of exile pain.

Firefighters are also protective parts that try to prevent the wounds of the exile from flaring. They work in a more reactive way, though. Firefighters swoop in to dampen the painful feelings of terror, shame, abandonment, unlovability, or sadness that have broken through, and they do this in whatever way works. Substance use, addictions, dissociating, doom-scrolling, overeating, raging, and the impulse to hurt yourself may be protective firefighters doing their key job: distracting you from the pain of the exile coming to the fore. It’s important to recognize that no parts are bad. In contrast, all parts intend to help you, but some may do it in an extreme way that causes you distress and suffering.

IFS works by helping you get to know all these different parts of yourself with curiosity and compassion, rather than judgment and criticism, and by unburdening the exiles. You might wonder how this is possible when you so hate certain parts of yourself or when the wounds feel so deep. In IFS, the Self is a core part of all of us that is able to lead with clarity, creativity, courage, curiosity, compassion, confidence, connectedness, and calm, qualities known as the 8 C’s. Your core Self is able to develop a healing relationship with all your parts, and it is this Self-to-part connection that leads to growth and change. As an IFS therapist, I facilitate this process but the healing comes from within you.