What is it?
Internal Family Systems or IFS, is founded on the idea that we all develop different parts in our internal world based on experiences we have had, our culture, relationships and more. These parts of us are what make our reality and personality. They are also, in my opinion and experience working with others, what I like to call our “maladaptive behaviors”. I consider maladaptive behavior as a part of us that have coping mechanisms such as over eating, over spending, any addiction, bad habit or pattern you keep playing over and over in your life.
These are all parts of you that have been “created” in your system to help cope or “soothe” you, sometimes temporarily in which they show up only on occasion or long term, such as a behavior you have been struggling with for many years
These parts, even ones you would like to label as “bad” are all just parts that are ultimately trying to make sure you stay safe. Safety is a key word in this work, so is Trust, and Grief which I can elaborate more on in other articles.
Safety is always our body and its systems main goal for self preservation in our world. Since we are rarely left without access to shelter/ protection, food and water, my current perspective is that those instincts now are focusing on other threats to stability and belonging that were once not primary issues, such as social acceptance, image ( body, belonging, accolades). When our fears or threats were more obvious like starvation or wild animal attacks, I don’t feel we had access to these more nuanced and complex threats that we now face and what I feel is leading us to the mental health and chronic illness epidemics we are facing today.
Internal Family Systems sessions are an experience of getting to know your parts. Sometimes parts show up as pain in the body ( yes even diagnosed issues are a part as well as the issues that no doctor can understand), bad habits you can’t seem to let go of, relationship issues, addictions and more. It can take a couple of sessions to be able to access these parts enough to see what they are protecting you from. Once you do have this access to this knowledge, the key is to build a compassionate, curious and calm mind so that you can communicate your care in hopes of better understanding of why this part does this in the first place.
Just like a child, one that part of you is met with loving presence, it starts to believe that it has genuine care, and starts to relax because it knows it has you and your guide (myself) there to listen and support what it felt it had to do all alone.
The central theme and “goal” of this process is that healing takes place when we stop fighting against ourselves, and instead, learn to cultivate a loving relationship with our system, that often these parts of ourselves we struggle with, feel validated and “heal” ourselves.
I believe that very few diagnoses are a life sentence, they are all just parts of ourselves trying to save us from a fear they have held on to for so long.
Healing happens in community, trauma happens when we feel alone.
Leave a Reply