Internal Family Systems and no bad parts

Internal Family Systems - what does that phrase mean to you? It may mean who is in your “internal family” as opposed to your “external family”.  It may mean to you who is in your “in group” and your “out group” within your family.

Internal Family Systems (IFS) is a therapy model that about relating to what is happening within us. Founded by Dr Richard Schwartz What is Internal Family Systems? | IFS Institute , Richard noticed that people were struggling with different parts within themselves.  The turning point happened when a young lady was self-harming.  He used a Gestalt therapy technique where he and the young lady turned to an empty chair and lectured to the self-harming part about why self-harm was bad.  Richard thought he had done well to support his client, however the next week his client was in a worse emotional state . This surprised Richard, so his curiosity about this process opened the door for Richard to discover that we all have competing parts within us.

IFS has become incredibly popular.  One of the reasons is that it works.  It offers an alternative explanation of why we respond in certain ways and offers supportive strategies to bring healing to our wounded parts. For example, if I became angry at someone, rather than labelling myself as, “I am an angry person” IFS would assess that there is part of me that gets angry.  This does not absolve us of responsibility of our anger - we are still accountable for our actions. Rather it means that instead of hiding in shame and labelling our entire self as ‘bad’ when we are confronted by these things, we can digest what is a truer picture, which is that there is part of me that is struggling. Consider how you may feel when confronted with: “you are an angry person” as opposed to “there is part of you that I experience as angry”. Does the first statement trigger some negative feelings toward yourself, or wanting to defend yourself? How about the second statement? Do you feel more open to exploring ways to bring healing to the part that experiences anger? IFS is a non-shaming therapy model that seeks to empower people by offering compassion to understand and heal these parts.

That is why we like IFS at Best Life Counselling and find it a useful approach to help to bring healing to our wounded parts in a non-shaming way.

This is our first is a series of Blogs on de-mystifying IFS.