Internal family systems (IFS) therapy is a type of psychotherapy that understands each person – or mind – as having multiple parts. These inner parts are all valuable, but sometimes experiences like trauma can push parts into more extreme roles. This can cause a person to feel and act in negative or harmful ways and pull them away from their genuine, authentic self.
IFS provides a conception of the self that encourages compassion towards ourselves and others. Every person has an authentic self and inner parts, but for some people these are disorganised. IFS therapy seeks to bring forward each person’s authentic self to lead the other inner parts in a meaningful and purposeful life.
Understanding Internal Family Systems Therapy
IFS conceives the human mind as divided into multiple parts led by a core self. There are two main types of inner parts: wounded or ‘exiled’ parts and protective parts.
Wounded Parts
Wounded parts are parts of us that experience painful emotions, such as fear, shame, unworthiness, or loss. These burdens are left by painful experiences where parts of the self-system have been harmed and hurt.
Protective Parts
Protective parts try to prevent vulnerable, wounded parts from experiencing pain. There are two main types of protectors: firefighters and managers.
Managers try to protect wounded parts by proactively preventing pain from occurring. They might attempt to control situations to avoid encountering triggers of pain. Or they may over-think a situation again and again to try and find ways to avoid painful encounters.
Although managers serve a protective function, they become maladaptive (harmful) when they work in excess. Some examples of maladaptive managers are:
- Over-control
- Anxiety or over-thinking
- Perfectionism
- People-pleasing
- Coercion or manipulation
Firefighters step in when wounded parts have already been hurt. They seek to extinguish or distract from the source of pain, usually in more extreme ways. This might include angry reactions to other people or threatening behaviours. When other options fail, some people engage in self-harm or suicide attempts to try and stop their pain.
While firefighters are coping mechanisms for pain and distress, they are also harmful – and cause even more distress in the long run.
Self Essence and Energy
Alongside our inner parts, every mind also contains ‘Self’ – a form of pure consciousness and fundamental humanness. IFS conceives Self as an authentic essence with specific qualities or self-energies. These are:
- Compassion
- Creativity
- Curiosity
- Confidence
- Courage
- Calm
- Connectedness
- Clarity
When a person embodies their best self-system, Self comes forward and leads the other inner parts. With compassion and clarity, Self leads protective parts to fulfil valuable roles, helping to prevent pain and harm when it’s needed in a considered and helpful way. It’s also trusted by the wounded parts, enabling self-soothing and self-compassion in difficult times to ease the intensity of pain.
What Happens to Our Parts When We Experience Trauma?
When we experience trauma, our parts can become disorganised. The authentic self is separated from wounded parts and protectors, which are left to act alone. Without the leadership of the self, protective parts can move to more extreme roles, going to whatever length is necessary to prevent pain, even if it causes harm.
For example, firefighters may react with intense anger if they sense that a person is distancing themselves from a relationship, protecting an inner fear of abandonment or loss. Unfortunately, in practice, this anger can harm relationships and cause even more hurt. Equally, managers may attempt to control every part of their environment to prevent pain, causing stress and anxiety that disrupts their daily life and stops them from pursuing the things they care about.
Wounded parts are also affected by trauma. They can become frozen at the time of the trauma experience and detach from Self. In cases of childhood trauma, they may continue to experience child-like emotions as the person grows older.
Detached from Self, wounded parts lose (or never develop) trust in the authentic self and its ability to make things better. When Self tries to treat its parts with compassion or calmness, they may reject it and push it away. This can lead to intense and uncontrollable emotions that are hard to regulate or alleviate.
Bringing Self Forward with IFS Therapy
The aim of IFS therapy is to restore self-leadership. It seeks to build relationships between Self and the inner parts, so that the inner parts feel safe to step back and Self can come forward. It does not try to get rid of parts, but to transform them (back) into valuable and useful roles.
The role of IFS therapy isn’t to lead the inner parts themselves but to facilitate the leadership of Self. Therapists use various techniques to restore self-leadership.
One technique involves discovering and understanding wounded parts. Therapists may ask a person to find where a wounded part is in their body, such as grief or rage. This can help to restore the mind-body connection in a trauma survivor.
They may then seek to understand the part further – what is its story and what does it fear? This can help to locate traumatic experiences where parts may have been frozen and detached from Self. It also helps to understand what function the part fulfils now and why these emotions are experienced. This encourages compassion and acceptance – as opposed to dismissal or frustration – of wounded parts.
IFS therapy is also about transforming wounded parts (by releasing their burden) and protective parts (by changing their role). By understanding a wounded part and treating it wit compassion, intense emotions such as grief or self-worthlessness may be released. This part of the self-system continues to exist but without the painful burden left by an earlier trauma.
For protective parts, therapists may ask a person to think about how this part could be valuable. For example, a manager that is over-thinking and causing anxiety could instead engage in productive problem-solving that looks for solutions but understands its limits. In this way, parts move from extreme and harmful roles into balanced and valuable ones.
Throughout therapy sessions, therapists aim to build connections and trust between Self and inner parts. When exploring the previous topics, its important that a person is always using their self-energy, which can be identified by its eight characteristics. As Self and its parts continue to relate and interact, parts start to trust Self and its ability to protect and lead them.
With this trust, they can begin to step back and let Self come forward. They’re also able to listen to Self and believe its compassionate advice. This facilitates emotional regulation and self-soothing.
IFS and Borderline Personality Disorder
Young people with borderline personality disorder (BPD) may experience a changing or incoherent sense of self, patterns of unstable relationships, and impulsive or self-destructive behaviours. Around 3% of adolescents and adults may meet the diagnosis for the disorder. When untreated, BPD can seriously harm a young person’s health, social, and school or work life, both at the time and in the future.
Internal Family Systems understands BPD as a disorganisation of parts that happens as a result of trauma. Separated from Self, firefighter parts often take the foreground, leading to impulsive behaviours and extreme reactions that can harm interpersonal relationships. At the same time, wounded child-like parts carry intense emotional pain that can’t be self-soothed, sometimes leading to self-harm or suicide attempts.
Without the leadership of Self, parts are disorganised and switch between ‘leadership’. This can explain why people with BPD may lack a clear and stable sense of self.
IFS treatment for BPD focuses on restoring self-leadership and transforming the roles of extreme, maladaptive parts. This leads to more stable and fulfilling relationships, fewer impulsive and self-destructive behaviours, and better coping mechanisms for emotional distress. As other parts step back and Self comes forward, people with BPD develop a coherent sense of self with core values, purpose, and goals.
IFS and Eating Disorders
Young people in eating disorder treatment often experience deep internal conflicts where they both want and don’t want to recover. These inner conflicts can present challenges in treatment programs and be distressing for the individual.
IFS helps us to understand these conflicts as different parts of the self-system. The feelings (such as unworthiness or emotional distress) that underpin an eating disorder are wounded, inner parts, while disordered eating behaviours are protective – but harmful – parts that try to distract from or extinguish the pain. At the same time, Self understands that disordered eating behaviours are also harmful and wants to recover, but this requires other parts stepping back.
By treating inner parts with compassion and curiosity, Self can understand what functions disordered eating behaviours serve and transform them into healthier, constructive mechanisms. It can also befriend the wounded parts that drive disordered eating behaviours to soothe them and release their pain.
IFS for Adolescents and Young People
While IFS is increasingly included in mental health treatment programs in different parts of the world, there is still a lack of studies on its effectiveness, especially among adolescents and young people. That said, research so far has, in general, shown promising results.
For example, a 2016 study among college women found that IFS treatment led to a decline in depressive symptoms, with similar effectiveness to cognitive behavioural therapy and interpersonal psychotherapy. As such, it may offer a valuable alternative approach for young people living with depression, especially those who do not respond to other forms of psychotherapy.
The Wave Clinic: Transformative Recovery Programs for Young People
The Wave Clinic offers specialist mental health support for young people, helping them plan and build fulfilling futures. Our residential and outpatient programs offer a diverse selection of evidence-based modalities delivered by experts in child and adolescent psychiatry from around the world.
At our residential space, just outside of Kuala Lumpur, we combine exceptional clinical care with education, social responsibility, and an international gap year experience. Through creativity, exploration, adventure, and teamwork, young people grow in self-confidence and resilience as they discover and follow their dreams.
Our outpatient space is open for children, adolescents, young adults, and families that require extra support in their mental health and well-being. Combining carefully selected modules, we focus on family systems as a source of support and stability for young people’s well-being and futures.
If you’re interested in finding out more about our programs, get in touch today. We’re here to help.
