Internal Family Systems

INTERNAL FAMILY SYSTEMS THERAPY

WHAT IS IFS THERAPY?

Internal family systems therapy was developed by Richard Schwartz in the early 1990s. As a family therapist, Richard found himself listening to clients talk about the inner parts within themselves. This led him to think about the way these parts interact and how this relationship could be changed. Richard started to view the mind as an internal family, allowing him to use his training in family therapy and apply it here

THE SELF AND OUR PARTS

The theory of IFS is that along with our SELF, there are 3 types of parts within our internal systems: managers, exiles, and firefighters.

THE SELF

We all have a self. the Self represents who we truly are beneath all our experiences. It is linked to positive behaviours such as confidence, leadership, calmness and acceptance. 

MANAGERS

These parts are protective and often control events, people and other parts. They bear a lot of responsibility and are fear based. They cannot show vulnerability. “Never again” is their motto

EXILES

These parts tend to result from childhood experiences and trauma. They hold shame, terror and deep wounds. Because of the pain they bring up, the other parts (managers and firefighters) look to exile these parts to prevent them from coming up in our consciousness.

FIREFIGHTERS

These protectors appear when pain from wounded exiles come to the surface or are activated and potentially overwhelm the system. These distractions are rarely healthy and can lead to unhelpful behaviours such as addiction and self-harm. “If all else fails” is their motto.

GOALS OF IFS THERAPY

The aim of IFS is always to reconnect with our self-energy and to build and improve a self to part relationship. By doing this, we help our parts to let go some of the extreme roles they may have taken on from early childhood. By looking at these parts with compassion and kindness we can gain valuable insight into how these parts are trying to help, not harm us. Parts are usually forced into extreme roles as a result of trauma. Some people may like to think of their collection of sub personalities or parts as a family or group. Some parts form alliances or are polarised.

You may recognise some of these roles as The Inner Critic, The People Pleaser, The Perfectionist, The Loner etc

There are no bad parts. All parts are aspects of ourselves. Their behaviour may be extreme and cause major issues in our lives, however the intent of the part concerned usually has a positive or protective intention.  

By building trust in self-leadership we can achieve balance, harmony and wholeness and help our parts to work together with reduced conflict. better relationships in a safe environment.

IFS is a gentle but powerful way of allowing you to get to know yourself and your parts better, to develop understanding of and to heal your own system.

I am an internal family system trained therapist who has received intensive training with the IFS Institute.

I blend IFS with EMDR when working with parts that hold trauma and PTSD.

Your investment is £60 for 1hr or £100 for 90 minutes.

An analogy that can help us understand this is to think of the Self as a conductor of an orchestra and our parts as the musicians.

When the Self takes the lead and orchestrates the music, it can bring out the best in our parts and the melody is beautiful.

To book a session with me click HERE or call me on - 07722064856