Internal Family Systems Therapy, First Edition (The Guilford Family Therapy)

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The leader these Parts need is the Self. The true, rational, inner consciousness. Think of the Self as flow, mindfulness, groundedness. Confidence, Curiosity, Compassion, Calm. You know it when you feel it! Many psychological theories have recognized this multiplicity, but they all have divided it up differently. Freud had his Id, Ego, and Superego. An updated version of Freud, Transactional Analysis, has Child, Adult, and Parent. There’s the Inner Child of John Bradshaw. Jung had a rich cast of characters. But no theory has done so much with the phenomena of multiplicity as that of Richard Schwartz’s, Internal Family Systems Therapy (IFS). For a simulation to be effective it needs to fulfill certain criteria. It has to be an accurate representation of how you could be in the real world and an accurate simulation of the real world. It has to know whether you can pronounce certain words, for instance, and what the effect of alcohol would be. A simulation also has to seem to have a will of its own so you can accurately project how it will behave. It does you no good, when you run a simulation of the behavior of an audience, to tell it how you want it to behave. You need it to behave as an audience would behave, as if it had a will of its own. Similarly, both the practiced version and the tongue-tied version also seem to have wills of their own. That’s why it can be hard to talk yourself out of stage fright. Simulations do not go away quietly. A key aspect of IFS Therapy is to “find, focus on and flesh out” the client’s protective parts and help them “unblend and notice the client’s Self” (Anderson et al., 2017, p. 93). Next, the client can recognize their feelings toward and befriend the target part, explore its fears, and invite it to do something new.

To liberate parts from the roles they have been forced into, freeing them to be who they were designed to be. Internal Family Systems Model (IFS) is model of psychotherapy that conceptualizes human psychology as a system of “parts” that can have differing agendas, and which can compete for dominance within the psyche of an individual.

A Take-Home Message

It is not easy to recognize all the parts of the self. Drawing or doodling can provide a more intuitive, less concrete way to capture, describe, and show the connections between each part. Exiles are the injured parts of us and have typically experienced trauma. Exiled by the managers, they can become increasingly extreme, ultimately overriding the managers to become who we are.

When you feel as if PART of you would like to eat cake, but another PART of you would rather you didn’t. And it’s almost like a little boxing match between PART1 and PART2. But autopoietic systems have no leaders. In designating a certain subject, the subject who knows (or at least, thinks it knows), as the ideal leader, IFST sneaks in various normative assumptions about what is best for you, for your community, and for the world at large. Parts are understood as best managed through the self, but this designation (of self from parts) occurs through the therapist. This is not a neutral process; it's a performative manoeuvre that carries an assemblage of ideological assumptions: that calmness is better than anger, that connectedness is better than disgust, that confidence is better than fear. Yes, healing requires openness, but negative emotions are warnings that, for some communities, have saved them from death at the hands of imperialist soldiers, cops, landlords, and abusers. I just don't believe a calm, collected, (dare I say) middle-class self, is the true self of all human beings, across historical time, race, gender, and class lines. Honestly, I'm not even against the attributes IFST assigns to the self (calmness, curiosity, compassion, connectedness, confidence, creativity, courage, and clarity); I'm against its belief that this self is somehow more essential or transcendental than any other part. Yes, that’s right. I didn’t think I would ever say this, but I don’t think people really are multiple. It just looks like they are.Schwartz’s special contribution has been the recognition of three classes of inner characters and the relationship between them. First there are the disavowed parts called the Exiles. These are the memories you would rather not think about and the behavior you swore you would never do again. These are the feelings that threaten to take you over. These are the characters that you have wrapped in duct tape, hidden in the attic. Well, they’re getting pissed, and, whenever they get the chance, they bust out of their cells and raise hell.

We believe that the following legacy burdens are linked and have been particularly instrumental in shaping the nature of exiling in this county. The All Parts Are Welcome exercise was created by Schwartz and his team to help the client welcome all parts of their self, using their attention and a few simple questions (Anderson et al., 2017). The Six Fs Managers are patterns of thought and behavior meant to keep exiles pushed away and under the surface. They play a *proactive protective* role. Think: career or gym addiction.Other theories relying on the single or mono-mind model may lead us to fear or dislike ourselves, believing “we only have one mind (full of primitive or sinful aspects) that we can’t control” (Schwartz, 2021, p. 12). Therapies based on this model often require clients to “correct irrational beliefs or meditate them away” (Schwartz, 2021, p. 12). When Quinn introduced the stiver and the depressed part to each other, they softened. But before they could leave their jobs they needed to know that Quinn’s Self was taking care of the 5-year-old. Once the 5-year-old could get the attention, influence, and resources that the young Quinn needed, the sad part and the striver would be able to relax.” pg. 149 The outstanding second edition of this classic book presents the preeminent research-supported, integrative family systems approach to working with individuals as well as their couple and family relationships in their larger cultural contexts. The book is beautifully written, the theory is sophisticated and nuanced, and the clinical vignettes demonstrate the details of putting IFS into practice. IFS therapy dovetails wonderfully with the emerging emphasis on body-based psychotherapies, mindfulness practices, and the role of spirituality in mental health and well-being. This book should be read by all therapists--not just those who align with family systems--and should be a core text for graduate programs in all forms of psychotherapy. I will use it in my graduate courses!”--Peter Fraenkel, PhD, Department of Psychology, The City College of the City University of New York The aim is to recognize that each person in the group is not alone in having self-critical thoughts. Feeling another’s pain or sadness can lead to empathy distress. This tool helps turn empathy into compassion.

Richard Schwartz’s (2021) latest book, No Bad Parts, is an accessible read for those interested in his IFS approach to therapy, clarifying the nature of parts and the techniques to uncover them. According to Schwartz (2021. p. 17), “each part is like a person with a true purpose” that can be uncovered. Watch the person from outside the room through a one-way mirror. You can see them, but they cannot see you. Since our culture is patriarchal, many managers appear in gender stereotypical ways, and it would be interesting to study their appearances (male, female, or neither) according to the client’s gender identity. Women are often socialized to rely on a manager who is perfectionistic about appearance and behavior. This manager believes she must be perfect and please everyone or she will be abandoned and hurt. Many women are also socialized to rely heavily on a caretaking manager. Extreme caretaking parts push women to sacrifice their own needs continually for others, and will criticize a woman as selfish if she asserts herself. Men, on the other hand, are often socialized to rely on an entitled or competitive manager who encourages them to get whatever they want, no matter who is wronged by their actions. Other common managerial roles include the hyperaroused worrier (or sentry) who feels in constant jeopardy and is on continuous alert for danger. This manager will flash worst-case scenarios in front of a person when she contemplates risk. And then there is the dependent manager, who tells the person he is a victim and keeps him appearing helpless, injured, and passive to ensure that other people will take care of him. Managers have many behavioral options.” pg. 33A core premise of IFS is that each Part has positive intent, even the ones that seem counterproductive or toxic. The challenge is that parts all exist in an ecosystem with each other, and without a strong leader they can fall subject to standard relational anti-patterns. Polarization, triangulation, self-reinforcement, etc. I have friends who have psychopathy, who have parts that, no matter what they do, tell them that they're worthless, and that they should kill themselves. These are parts that don't seem to relay any (useful) information to the self. They don't react to particular situations, they just repeat the same thing, over and again, unchanging and eternal. One of these friends had a fantastic childhood. They had no issues with their upbringing. If they were told by IFST that every aspect of them was actually positive, they'd probably feel worse, unable to bridge that psychopathic voice in their head to the rest of their internal family system. This is the limit of IFST's humanism. It assumes all aspects of the psyche are life-affirming. In doing so, it creates a new pathology: the self who, no matter what, can't bring all its parts together. Its optimism conjures as much pessimism into those who are fragmented without the possibility of harmony. Chapters on the Self, the body and physical illness, the role of the therapist, specific clinical strategies, and couple therapy.