Internal Family Systems (IFS) for Trauma

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To honor mental health awareness month, we are exploring different therapies that can ultimately help not only understand yourself more completely but to work through past trauma and help any mental health symptoms that cooccur from trauma. 

Internal Family Systems (IFS) is a trauma-based therapy that explores different parts of yourself that are what they identify as “protectors”. We develop these parts in order to defend and protect our innermost selves from being victimized, abused, or hurt again. These parts may look like mental health symptoms and maybe “damaging” as they consistently project their innermost fears through their behaviors. But, ultimately, these parts are acting as protectors so that we do not relive the trauma in the future. 

An example of this would be our inner critic. We all have one. This voice inside our head tells us to be “perfect”, that we are “not good enough”, or that what we do is “not enough.” This inner voice consistently criticizes our efforts and makes us feel that no matter what we do it’ll never be enough or good enough. This inner critic will look like mental health symptoms of depression, anxiety, OCD, or codependency. When we come to therapy to address these symptoms, our inner critic is what creates these symptoms in the hopes to protect us. But, what is it protecting us from? This inner critic can be doing a multitude of things and it is based on the circumstance of the trauma and person by what it is protecting but it could be protecting you by criticizing your efforts so that you will avoid the feelings of being rejected, unloved, or failure. If we continue to strive for perfection, we could be avoiding these emotions. But, we only can do perfectionism for so long before we burn out. This is inevitable. When we burn out it can look like depression and our inner critic can lead us to the idea that if we cannot be perfect then we will not try at all. This cycle will go around and around. 

IFS helps tune into these parts and allows them their “light” to shine and share how they are protecting us so that we may honor this need for protection but also build trust within ourselves so that we no longer need this part to protect us. IFS believes that we have no “bad parts” and that all of our parts play a key role in keeping the system or us functional. For a time, especially during a time of trauma, the system is functional and appropriate. When we are moving away from trauma and ultimately towards stability, these parts will continue to think that they need to do their role but since it no longer matches the circumstances, will create chaos within the system. 

If you are interested in this type of therapy and feel it may be a good fit for you, reach out to Mindful Counseling and Supervision as we are trained and work with IFS to help you work through your trauma and manage your symptoms. 

Here are some resources that can help:

Your Brain is Always Listening by Dr. Daniel Amen

This book is not a reference for IFS but it does a great job of helping you understand different parts of yourself and how they contribute to mental illness. This book also does a great job of describing the importance of building a healthier brain and looking at these symptoms as byproducts of an unhealthy system. 

No Bad Parts by Dr. Richard Schwartz

This book explores IFS and is a great companion while doing IFS work with a therapist. There are exercises in the book to help you identify and explore the different parts of yourself.