The Internal Family
All people have Parts.
Our parts function as an internal family that influences or controls our behavior. No part exists in total isolation! They interact with each other and with the world.
Parts can have relationships with each other. One part might get along well with another, but they can also be enemies or on neutral terms. In some cases (high Dissociation), parts may not know about each other’s existence. In other cases, they already know each other very well.
Trauma forces parts into extreme positions to survive.
- Some contain the effects and feelings of trauma (exiles).
- Some focus on protecting the person from those feelings, either proactively (managers) or reactively (firefighters).
Trauma doesn’t have to be life-or-limb; The World is Traumatic.
IFS involves interacting with our parts to get to know them, help them release their burdens, and mend relationships between them.
Parts work is (usually) done from a state called Self, and it’s often suggested that Self energy should lead the system. Unblending ensures that this can happen.
IFS proceeds at a pace that parts are comfortable with; it cannot be rushed. If a part says stop, then you stop until they feel safe continuing, and you find out why they felt unsafe. Respect the boundaries of your parts and work with them to find a way to help all of you. Trying to force past those boundaries ultimately blocks the process, as parts can and will retaliate by blocking your access or acting out. Parts have boundaries for a reason.
There are no bad parts. All parts are doing their best to protect us, even ones that seem to act in ways that hurt us. Our parts don’t want to cause harm to us, but they sometimes see no other option to keep us safe. Every part has good reasons for doing what they do.
On the Creation of IFS
Early on, I was thinking of this as a metaphor […] because I was still coming from a much more scientific place. […] I didn’t really think of them as complete inner people the way I do now. And I went to hear a woman named Sandra Watanabe talk, because she had developed something she called the inner cast of characters […] And at the end, I came up to her and said, you don’t think these are real, do you? These are metaphors, right? And she said, oh no, they’re real. And I walked away thinking to myself, boy, is she naïve to really believe that?
But I stayed with it, and over years, it just became undeniable that these were much more than metaphors and that they had relationships with each other and with you and that people who were called multiple personality disorder weren’t so different. Their alters were basically the same as what I was finding in people with Parts except that their system got blown apart much more because they had such horrific trauma when they were young. And so at some point, I kind of crossed over to the other side and started to take this as a real phenomena, that we’re actually entering a real other world that exists independent of this outside world inside of people. And it’s similar to the world that the shamans enter in their way.
Richard Schwartz, Many Minds, One Self: # Evidence for a Radical Shift in Paradigm Found at The Integral Guide to Well-Being