What is IFS / Internal Family Systems
IFS is a powerful approach to therapy that helps people heal deep emotional wounds and trauma. It often helps those who haven’t found success with traditional talk therapy.
- Evidence based – in a recent clinical study IFS was proven effective at treating people with multiple childhood traumas
- Affirming – people aren’t labelled or stigmatized. We recognize that we have behaviors we often want to change, and aspects of ourselves that we aren’t proud of, but we don’t see any need to shame you for what you are doing or what you have done.
- Gentle – tender care is taken so that the healing process will unfold naturally. Deep inner wounds are treated with respect. Every step is taken mindful of potential trauma.
- Healing – have you ever wished that you can open a memory like a box, take the pain out of it, and then put the memory away? IFS isn’t the only approach that works this way, but it is especially powerful for people with a history of abuse or neglect. Common concerns like depression, anxiety, anger management and compulsive habits are treated by healing the wounds and trauma that fuel them.
- Freeing – as we help heal the wounds and fears that weigh you down you find more of your strength, compassion, creativity and hope.
- Harmonizes – we learn to respond to the sources of self-criticism with curiosity and compassion and end the inner battle with negative thoughts.
- Insightful – many of us carry pain or anxiety but we aren’t sure where it comes from. IFS helps us connect with our emotions and recognize the thoughts and memories that are at work in our distress.
- Open – it works well for people who would like to add a spiritual dimension to their healing and for people who do not.
IFS sees our minds like a committee or a team
We call each member of that committee a part.
Do you ever think to yourself “I’d like a cookie” and then think “No, I better not, I had a piece of cake at work.”
That is one part of you having a debate with another part of you. One wants the pleasure of that tasty cookie and the other might be worried about gaining weight.
Sometimes the conflict between parts is a little stronger.
Have you ever had nagging critical thoughts like “I can’t believe you made that mistake at work today. That was really stupid, you need to do better.” Then another part comes in to reason that says “Why am I being so hard on myself, anyone would have made that mistake.”
Our parts are trying to help but they fall into different roles
These roles include:
- Holding trauma or pain, usually buried as deep as we can so we can keep functioning.
- Helping us feel better or escape discomfort.
- Keeping us safe, like the one that stopped us from eating that cookie.
- Numbing us from the pain.
Why do parts need help sometimes?
- The parts that try to keep us safe are stuck in the past and react too strongly to things in the present.
- Some parts hold so much pain they overwhelm us.
- The numbing parts can be so active that they numb everything, insulating us from the joy of life.
- Our coping parts sometimes can’t stop doing what they do, resulting in actions that contribute to the pain and shame.
How parts can cause problems
Many of the problems we come to a counsellor for are overactive protective and coping parts that are fueled by fear and emotional pain. It can be anxiety that you don’t understand, anger that gets away from you, or relentless striving for perfection or approval. If you can take away unnecessary fear and heal that emotional pain then your whole system can relax.
Other articles on IFS
How does IFS help?
Inside all of us at the core of our being we find the life that drives our curiosity, confidence and compassion. IFS labels it “Self” or “Self-energy.” IFS helps people tap into that compassion and shift their treatment of themselves from self-criticism or self-condemnation to self-compassion.
Helps provide insight into what is going on inside
It isn’t uncommon for us to feel anxiety, fear, or emotional pain and not know why. IFS can start with just those feelings and help us understand the parts that drive them. What might be confusing at first starts to make more sense giving us more understanding and patience for ourselves.
Heal traumatic memories
Most of our life experiences, even difficult ones, can be put behind us and fade with time. A traumatic memory might shift but it sticks around. When something happens that reminds us of that traumatic event our body reacts much like the first time creating alarm, panic and overwhelm. Deeper in your nervous system that traumatic event got put up on the wall of your mind like a warning poster. The intention is “look out for this,” and our nervous system rewires itself to avoid that event. Unfortunately the wiring persists even if what happened in that event could never happen again. It doesn’t matter that the person who hurt you is gone or that as an adult you could easily handle what happened to you. The nervous system throws you back.
IFS helps reprocess that old memory taking away the threat associated with it. It takes down the warning poster you don’t need anymore. It does this without having to replay the memory the way that it happened. Because IFS ensures that you are flowing with compassion towards your traumatized part, it is less overwhelming.
Letting go of self-limiting beliefs and shame
The negative experiences of our lives tend to shape the way we feel about ourselves, especially in childhood. In childhood our brain hasn’t developed the ability to truly see things from different points of view. So when people tell us we aren’t good enough we often take that in. Even if people don’t directly tell us that we are worthless or unloveable, if we are neglected or don’t get our needs met our little child brains try to make sense of why that is happening. It is easy to conclude that it is happening because we don’t matter. This can happen in adult relationships as well. Sometimes we make mistakes we are embarrassed or ashamed of.
IFS sees these negative feelings and beliefs about ourselves as burdens that we carry. We help the parts that carry these burdens let go. When traumatic memories are healed and burdens are let go there is much less fear and emotional pain.
In many ways IFS is less about refilling a leaky car tire, and more about fixing the tire.
How is IFS different from traditional talk therapy?
Traditional talk therapy is geared towards changing your thinking to something that is more helpful. It can help reframe the narrative of your life, help you shift towards more self-acceptance, and give you an understanding of what you are going through. Talk therapy has helped millions of people. Unfortunately there are limits to what you can accomplish by working only with your thinking. Traumatic experiences and deep emotional wounds, especially wounds around early childhood bonding require healing in the emotional and safety centers of our brain. If a traumatic wound is triggered it causes the emotional parts of our nervous system to overwhelm our ability to think, taking all our great thinking skills offline. IFS is an approach that helps people heal at a deeper level than traditional talk therapy.
How is IFS different from other trauma informed approaches?
One common type of trauma therapy uses different techniques to stimulate both sides of your brain while processing traumatic memories. The most common is EMDR, but there is also ART and others. These are known for being good for removing the threat your brain associates with old memories so you are not triggered anymore. Another common type works with the felt sensations in the body like Somatic Experiencing and Sensorimotor Psychotherapy. There is overlap between all these approaches and both can achieve healing at deeper levels. It isn’t uncommon for therapists to integrate IFS with either type of approach. Both of those are excellent for traumatic experiences where people are impacted by a single overwhelming incident.
Where IFS shines is when the trauma is relational and complex, like wounds that come from years-long experience of abuse, neglect or abandonment. IFS also helps people find and tap into their internal source of compassion to lead themselves rather than being led by their emotions. As the IFS therapist guides their clients into a state of self-compassion it makes going to those deep inner wounds or difficult memories easier and less overwhelming.
The IFS process is respectful and sensitive. As we interact with parts we are always checking for comfort and permission. We don’t go where you don’t want to go. There is no “tough love” or “arm twisting” to move forward. If it doesn’t happen with kindness, gentleness and patience, it doesn’t happen at all.
IFS is inherently non-judgmental
In IFS you are never the problem, it is the traumatic memories, emotional wounds and other baggage that you are carrying. The discomfort from these burdens drives extreme efforts to find moments of peace and safety. The solution to problems like excessive drinking, overwhelming anger or deep self-hatred is to heal old memories and let go of the shame. When healed at a deep level there is much less pain to drink away or frustration to fuel hurtful rage. Life becomes much more manageable and enjoyable. So IFS is a great approach for those who want to change the unhelpful patterns in their lives that have caused harm to themselves or others.
IFS therapists are less concerned about the categories and labels that can sometimes stigmatize people with mental health struggles. The fancy word for this is “non-pathologizing” which means you are always seen as a person not a cluster of symptoms. The focus shifts from “What is wrong with me?” to “What happened to me and how did I learn to survive it?”
You can explore more about IFS from the Internal Family Systems Institute.
IFS Therapy Available in Saskatoon, SK and throughout Canada online
About the author
Leighton Tebay MC, CCC
I’m Leighton Tebay, a Canadian Certified Counsellor and Level 2 IFS Therapist. I’ve been helping people since 2020 heal from the wounds of the past and get their life back. You can find out more about me here.