Take leadership of your inner team
HOW DOES IFS WORK?
In IFS therapy we deal with your inner parts. These can be divided into 3 categories depending on their task.
3 types of parts
Manager
Protect us by trying to control our lives and environment.
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Example:
Inner critic, analyst, perfectionist, people pleaser
Fire Fighter
Protect us from painful feelings by distracting or numbing us.
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Example:
Addiction, emotional eating, dissociation, outbursts of anger
Exile
Parts that were banned from the system because they were deemed too dangerous.
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Example:
Traumatized parts, parts that were unwanted in the environment
An example:
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Someone often faced extreme anger as a child. This creates a wounded exile who carries the trauma of this abuse.
To prevent this part from being triggered, the person develops a manager part that tries to please everyone so that no one gets angry with them.
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If that fails and the exile is still triggered, it will flood the system with it's painful feelings. Now a firefighting part becomes active and tries to numb the system, e.g. through alcohol, Netflix, games, comfort food, etc.
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What can we do?
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The goal is to gain the trust of the protectors so that they will allow us access to the exiles, which are the parts that really need healing.
Many protector parts learned their behavior in childhood and still think of us as little children. If we listen to them compassionately and make it clear to them that we are now older and more capable they start trusting us.
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Integrating banned parts back
into the system
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Once the protectors trust us, we can start working with the exiles. These parts are often stuck in painful memories and need to be brought back into the present. To this end, it is important to acknowledge the exile's feelings, give it the care it needs and free it from its emotional burdens and beliefs.
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The key to transformation:
The Self
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For the entire process it is essential that we learn to access our “Self”. The Self is not a part, but a kind of loving presence that appears when we are not merged with any part and fully centered.
The Self is naturally compassionate, calm and free from fear and therefore has a transformative effect on our parts.
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The goal of IFS is to become Self-led
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