Internal Family Systems (IFS) – What is it and what does it do?

Internal Family Systems is a therapeutic approach created by Richard. C. Schwartz that works well with both EMDR and Gestalt Therapy. It explains that we all have different parts, for example a happy part, an anxious part, a sad part. Jacob Moreno, the founder of psychodrama first refers to the ‘parts’ of us. Sometimes our parts are very polarised, destructive or unhelpful. This might be an eating disordered part, a depressed part or a panicky part, amongst others. This is when intervening therapeutically can be effective. We do that by first getting to know the part. We find out how long it has been around, how it developed, and most importantly what it is doing for us. However unhelpful a behaviour seems, all of our parts have a benevolent intention. They developed in childhood or adolescence as a creative adjustment to our life situation at the time. We might have developed a controlling part to help us cope with overwhelming anxiety that our caretakers were not available to soothe. Perhaps we developed an angry part to protect ourselves by scaring an abusive parent. We might have developed an anxious part to try to stay hypervigilant and stay. These parts want to help us but are stuck in the past. They think we are still the vulnerable child and teenager and are unaware that we are better able to support ourselves now. They are called protector or manager parts Often they don’t want to give up their role as they are covering up even more painful parts which are called exiles. These may be feelings of deep grief, utter helplessness, or burning shame, amongst others.  We don’t want to feel these painful feelings, who would after all? Through the IFS process we are able to process these underlying painful feeling states. By doing so, we also find that the unhelpful protective behaviours cease.

What can IFS be used for? 

It can be used to work with any unhelpful behaviour like addiction, depression, anxiety, relationship issues, anger, OCD, amongst many others. 

Case Study

This is an amalgamation of several client’s experiences. All identifying information has been changed. Tom, a father of two, came to see me as he was getting disproportionately angry with his partner when they didn’t ‘back him up’ on parenting decisions. He felt disrespected and as if he didn’t matter in these moments. Using Gestalt Therapy we looked at ways that Tom could communicate the message in his anger in a calmer yet assertive way. We then dialogued with the angry part to see what it was trying to do for him. He imagined the angry part as a younger version of him with a red face, wearing rugby shorts and vest. The angry part told us he’s been around since Tom was 14. He developed in order to stop other kids at school bullying him. He’d also developed to stop his father shouting and him and criticising him.  The angry part didn’t want to let go as he feared if not that Tom would feel powerless and vulnerable. It did eventually let us talk to the powerless and vulnerable part that was around 6 years old. It described how difficult life was at the age when Tom’s parents were divorcing, and they didn’t have much time for him. The is part was scared and lonely. We helped this part to unburden by sharing its’ feelings. We added some bilateral stimulation to this unburdening.  By the end of the session Tom imagined that part in a safe place, it felt a lot lighter.  When I asked him to consider the recent moment when he felt triggered by his partner, he felt less angry about it. As the weeks went on he developed more choice about how he reacted to the triggering situation and  he was able to speak calmly with his partner to resolve it.