What is Internal Family Systems Therapy?

“If only I could show you when you are lonely or in darkness the incredible light of your own being.” Hafiz

You may have noticed while perusing my website or, if we are already working together, some mention of Internal Family Systems (IFS). A newer approach for many folks, IFS is an evidence-based psychotherapy modality that can reduce symptoms of distress for many conditions including depression, anxiety, PTSD and more, all while increasing self-compassion, healing and integration. Dr. Richard Schwartz developed the model in the early 1980s while working with people struggling with bulimia. As a family systems therapist, he began to recognize that his clients’ internal experiences mirrored the structure of a system, much like that of a family.

Most of us have described our feelings by saying something like “Part of me is really excited about this opportunity while another part of me is nervous.”

By getting to know and working directly with our different “parts”, including parts which may hold pain and other parts which strive to protect us from pain, we can create more internal harmony which can lead to greater ease and having more choices.

For example, perhaps you have a perfectionist part which works really hard to do everything right at work or in school. It functions incredibly well… until a mistake is made. This may trigger a part that feels shame, a feeling which the rest of your internal system may try to keep far away from you. A reactive part may come up to lock the shame away again, perhaps by binge-watching Netflix, numbing with food or alcohol, lashing out at a loved one or shutting down. Once the shame is locked away again and no longer felt inside (an “exiled” part in IFS terms), your internal system feels more relaxed and returns to its default way of operating.

In IFS, we connect directly with the different parts in this system and get to know them better and how they are working to help us. We honor how they’ve come to be in their present roles and move towards helping  the parts holding the pain so that our protective system doesn’t have to work as hard or in ways that feel quite so extreme. As our internal system is able to relax, we also begin to have more access to resources like compassion, creativity, clarity and confidence. IFS believes that these resources always exist within us, and by helping protective parts soften back, these innate components of our core Self emerge, just as the sun comes out again after storm clouds pass.

By meeting our pain with our own compassionate presence, significant shifts are possible.

IFS uses and increases our capacity for mindful observation of our emotional experience. This approach also involves engaging with our emotions and reactions by connecting with them directly in the body. The somatic component of IFS facilitates processing of emotion all while respecting the pace and readiness of the individual, which makes it a safe and effective approach for people who have a history of trauma. In fact, a recent IFS study which is soon to be published in the Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment & Trauma found that of patients with childhood trauma receiving IFS group therapy for 16 weeks, 92% no longer met criteria for PTSD after a one-month follow up. Read more about the study here

Interested in learning more about this transformative therapeutic approach? Visit ifs-institute.com or you may wish to check out Richard Schwartz’s new book No Bad Parts.