Why is Internal Family Systems (IFS) all the rage right now?

"He who looks outside... dreams.

He who looks inside... awakens."

-Carl Jung

The short answer is, because it is awesome. The long answer is also that it is awesome but with more explanatory detail. Here I'm going to share my experience to explain IFS.

Many have written great pieces describing IFS, including my Clinical Supervisor who describes it's value when working with adolescents. I work a lot with this age group so I often share her blog post with parents. What follows is how I explain it to the youth I work with.

If you have seen the Inside Out movies you already have a understanding of what IFS is all about. It is the idea that our psyche is made up of numerous parts that influence how we think, feel and behave at different times. You could think of them as various sub-personalities. When we are feeling emotionally overwhelmed or mentally distressed it is because these parts are active in us and they are working hard to help us manage with what is happening in our lives. You can imagine this is like a group of people sitting around a boardroom table trying to find a solution to a problem but they are all coming at the problem in different and overlapping ways that can cause chaos.

Lets break that down a little to make sense of the chaos....

In IFS there are three main categories of parts:

1. The Exile - These parts hold our emotional wounds and carry painful thoughts, feelings and physical sensations resulting from traumatic or overwhelming experiences. These parts take on these wounds over the course of our lives and interactions with the world.

2. The Manager - These parts helps protect us in a proactive way trying to avoid triggers to makes sure that we don't feel the pain we have experienced before. They do this by attempting to manage other parts in our internal system and external behaviour. Joy from Inside Out is a good example of a Manager part.

3. The Firefighter - These are also a protector part but they are reactive in nature. They emerge when a wound is activated, or triggered. They respond in reactive and, sometimes, extreme ways and do what is necessary to calm our pain. Anger in Inside Out is an example of a firefighter. He attempts to push away the problem.

Our Managers and Firefighters are known as our protectors or, more generally, they are known as defence mechanisms.

In addition to our parts there is a core essence of who we are. There are many theories about how our sense of Self develops; many align with our developmental stages. In IFS, it is believed that the Self exists from birth but is clouded by various parts of the self that take on the role of protecting our wounds. We are all usually aware of the Self at times across our lives. For me, it is the moments of peace in my mind, body and soul when I feel reassured that, despite everything feeling out of control, things will be OK. It is an inner knowing that we cannot always find words to explain. This is captured in the second Inside Out film towards the end when a glowing light draws Joy in to help Riley recalibrate.

Unlike the movies, IFS does not consider parts to just be our emotions. Instead, our emotions form part of how our parts communicate our experience/s. In the movie Anger isn't always angry but he uses anger when he feels it is needed. Likewise with Joy, in the second film she says "Of course I'm delusional! Do you know how hard it is to stay positive all the time?".

What we do in IFS therapy is get to know these various parts of us and how they work in our own individual systems. It is a process of getting to know ourselves through the various parts of us. When we know, understand, accept and help these parts of us heal our wounds, we are better able to connect with the course essence of ourSelf.

I have been in IFS therapy for about 5 years now. I am also privileged to be trained as a Level 2 IFS therapist. I have slowly but surely, gotten to know the parts within me along with the stories they hold of my life journey. It has not always been an easy experience but I know, confidently, that it has helped me achieve a calm in my system that I have only known fleetingly across my life. Knowing the parts of me and helping them to heal the wounds of my life helps me to navigate my present life with greater ease and with less of a toll on my nervous system and in turn, my health. It has also been a great tool for helping my navigate life as an ADHDr. I will write more about this intersection soon.

What I love about IFS is that it is a non-pathologising approach to therapy and mental health. It is an affirming practice that cultivates a connection to who we are authentically and connects us with the courage to be that authentic Self in the big bad world.