Internal Family Systems

Parts, protectors, and the Self they are protecting

Notes on Internal Family Systems: the mind as a set of parts rather than one voice, the protective role behind a destructive behaviour, and the Self that does the work.

Notes in Google Docs.

Internal Family Systems (IFS) was developed by Richard Schwartz, who arrived at it while working with families and finding that his patients described the same dynamics happening inside one person. Its starting position is that a mind is made of parts rather than a single voice, that having parts is the normal condition rather than a pathology, and that every part is attempting to protect you even when what it does causes harm.

Concepts

• The Self. The seat of awareness underneath the parts, taken to be undamaged whatever has happened. It is recognised by calm, curiosity and compassion, and the work of the method is to get it into the room rather than to install it.
• Exiles. The young parts carrying the pain of what happened, pushed out of awareness because feeling them was unbearable at the time.
• Managers. Protectors working in advance, arranging life so that nothing reaches an exile. Perfectionism, criticism and caretaking are typical jobs.
• Firefighters. Protectors working after the fact, acting once an exile breaks through. Numbing, bingeing and rage are typical, and they accept damage as the price of stopping the pain.
• No bad parts. A destructive behaviour is read as a protective role that has no better option available. The question asked of a part is what it is afraid would happen if it stopped.
• Unblending. Separating from a part so you are with it instead of being it, which is what makes the rest possible.
• Unburdening. A part can hand back the belief or emotion it took on from an event, and take up a different role afterwards.