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What is IFS?
Internal Family Systems is a healing modality developed by Richard C. Swartz, Ph.D who subsequently set up the IFS Institute as a centre for learning, and as a community to share this life changing experience.
The IFS Institute welcomes all people of any age, race, religion, gender identity, sexual orientation, class, ability, language or cultural background into the Internal Family Systems community. You are welcome here, and all of your parts are welcome too.
In this video you can hear from Richard how IFS therapy works.
As defined by the IFS Institute:
What is meant by 'parts' and 'family'?
Inside all of us are many voices - some we are born with, and some we absorb from others and internalise. You will experience these voices every day. Some common experiences are:
the voice that tells you to exercise - "go for a run!", "get up and go to the gym!"
the voice that tells you to rest - "you're tired, don't go to the gym, stay on the sofa and relax", "you deserve some rest and some cake"
In IFS we call these voices 'parts' because they are parts of us with their own personalities, needs and agendas. And they are all trying to act in our best interests. Most of the time we just deal with this kind of internal conflict. But sometimes it can become destructive. For example you may have two parts:
one is a harsh, critical voice that warns you you're going to fail, that you're a loser;
another is an anxious part that tells you trying to be a success in the world is dangerous, that people will laugh at you and hurt you if you try
These parts are in conflict, neither feels constructive, and the internal struggle can become unbearable. If the conflict gets too much, and over a long period of time, another part can be activated that tells us the only option is to find relief in dangerous behaviour such as alcohol, drugs, excessive online shopping even.
IFS therapy can show us how these parts have taken extreme, entrenched positions in trying to act for our greater good. By listening to them and understanding why they say what they do we can help them relax and be less extreme. Ultimately we want them all to live happily together, much like a family. With the 'self energy' leading, rather than allowing any one part to take control. Parts are often child-like and lost in an earlier time in our life. They need help being brought up to date and shown that the situations they fear are no longer relevant in our adult lives where we have more agency.
What is 'self-energy'
When our parts have completely taken us over, and all we can hear is their voice, it can feel very difficult to feel the presence of 'self-energy'. Sometimes we feel all-consumed by our 'anxiety-part', or our 'depression-part'. But self is always there, like the sun behind the clouds. If we can get the clouds to part just a little, self can shine through and bring peace and order to our system.
Our parts are all extremely important and all have very valid (and for the most part very useful) roles to play. The aim is not to remove them, but to allow self to be in control, much like the conductor of an orchestra.
Self is not a part, it has no need or agenda like parts do, it is a presence and it brings qualities such as compassion, curiosity, courage, clarity. Sometimes just taking some quiet time to meditate on these qualities is enough to bring self to the front and feel its presence.