Internal Family Systems (IFS)

Have you ever noticed that one part of you can know exactly what you want while another part is terrified to do it? You can decide you're going to speak up in a relationship and then find yourself minimizing what bothered you. You can know you need rest and still feel guilty when you aren't being productive. You can understand intellectually that you don't need everyone's approval and still feel anxious when someone is disappointed with you.

Internal Family Systems (IFS) begins with the understanding that we all have different parts of ourselves, and those parts can have very different feelings, beliefs, and agendas. There might be a perfectionist part that works incredibly hard to keep you from failing, a people-pleasing part that monitors everyone else's feelings, an anxious part that tries to anticipate what could go wrong, or an inner critic that believes being hard on you will somehow keep you safe.

What I love about IFS is the curiosity it brings to these patterns. Rather than immediately trying to get rid of the anxious part, silence the critic, or stop the people-pleaser, we get interested in why it's there. What is it worried about? When did it learn to do this job? What does it believe would happen if it stopped?

Very often, the behaviors we struggle with most began as intelligent ways of protecting ourselves. A child who learned to closely monitor a parent's mood may grow into an adult who is extraordinarily attuned to everyone around her. Someone who received love or attention through achievement may develop a part that never lets her stop accomplishing. A person who experienced rejection may have a part that analyzes every interaction, hoping to catch the first sign that it's happening again.

IFS also recognizes that underneath these protective strategies, we may carry younger and more vulnerable parts of ourselves that still hold experiences of shame, loneliness, rejection, fear, or the feeling that we weren't enough. When those old wounds get touched in present-day life, our protective parts can spring into action before we even realize what's happening.

At the center of IFS is the idea that beneath all of these parts is a deeper sense of Self. You may already know this place in yourself. It's the part of you that can be curious without immediately judging, compassionate without losing perspective, and clear without needing to have everything figured out. In IFS, we strengthen your ability to relate to the different parts of yourself from this steadier place.

In our work together, we might slow down an experience that happened during the week and notice what was happening internally. Maybe your partner made a comment and one part immediately became defensive while another wanted to shutdown. Maybe you were asked to do something and felt resentment in your body before your mind had even registered why. Instead of judging your reaction, we'll get curious about who showed up and what that part was trying to protect.

Over time, something begins to shift. You can notice a part without automatically becoming consumed by it. You can hear the inner critic without assuming it's telling you the truth. You can feel anxiety without immediately letting it make the decision. And you can begin responding to yourself with the same curiosity and compassion you may have spent years offering everyone else.

This is one of the reasons I love IFS so much. The parts of you that you've spent years trying to fix often make a tremendous amount of sense once you understand their story.