Internal Family Systems Therapy
Internal Family Systems is a relational psychotherapy model. IFS improves how you relate — with yourself, and with the people and world around you.
IFS is effective because it starts with a key feature of the human brain. Our brain is busy scanning our sensory input to predict what is coming our way and how to react. Our brain scans every micro-moment to make predictions and assess if we are in a state of safety or threat. Predictions of a threat and the marshalling of our metabolic resources are sensed as unpleasant on a range of intensity, and our automatic reaction to these sensations is generally some form of aversion, or movement away.
When we experience intense emotions of distress such as fear, loneliness, sadness, shame (the list goes on) there is a degree of felt threat to the system. This unpleasant feeling tone of threat can be particularly intense in childhood, when our brains are tasked with creating prediction models about a complicated, often overwhelming world, trying to figure out who/what is safe and who/what is a threat, and how to react. The reactivity patterns of prediction we develop in childhood often become autopilot patterns, or mental models, across our lifespan.
The protective system of parts:
IFS teases out our reactive patterns, or mental models, into "parts" of ourselves. Using IFS, we can track how parts of our personality aim to protect us. They do so by either preventing distressed emotions from emerging in the first place, or, if hints of distress push through, our protector parts react by distracting us. Using different strategies our protector parts aim to “exile” our core woundings that initially overwhelmed and threatened us.
Our protector parts and their aversion reactions to distress and unpleasant feeling tones are well-intended. After all, they are motivated by wanting to protect from the felt sense of threat posed by distressed, unpleasant feelings. And, in their extreme form, our protector parts can have all kinds of detrimental impacts on us internally and in our relationships.
Protector parts aim to prevent and/or react-distract:
parts aiming to prevent distressed emotion can take the form of perfectionism, self-criticism, intellectualism, caretaking, people pleasing, controlling, planning, overachieving, anxiety, procrastination. The IFS model refers to these parts as “managers.”
parts aiming to react-distract from distress can take the form of disruptive behaviors including substance misuse, addictive processes, self-harm, suicidal ideation, rage. The IFS model refers to these parts as “firefighters”—breaking doors and windows down in order to put out the fire as quickly as possible.
Self - a powerful internal resource for relating well:
A core feature of IFS is the recognition of a powerful internal resource available to us all referred to as Self. This internal resource is in evidence in those micro-moments when we operate from a centered place of calm, compassion, connection, curiosity, courage, creativity, clarity, and confidence.
IFS psychotherapy supports clients in bringing compassionate curiosity to their internal system while accessing their internal Self energy to attend to and heal core wounds. IFS brings balance to our internal system in several ways.
IFS provides tools to guide unpacking the intentions and impacts of our autopilot protective parts.
IFS aids in effectively attending to the core wounds that propelled a felt sense of threat in the first place.
IFS Therapy helps you balance how you relate to your self internally, which in turn impacts how you relate with the people and world around you.
