Introducing IFS (Part 2)

My last post explained the origin of Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy and explained some basics of how it works. In this post, I will focus on the benefits of IFS as a form of therapy and why I choose to use it in my practice.

IFS is Non-Pathologizing

To pathologize someone means to treat them as abnormal or defective. IFS does the very opposite. Instead, it views all our negative emotional experiences as normal responses to abnormal circumstances, or simply natural efforts to solve problems, cope, survive, and stay safe (Anderson, Sweezy & Schartz, 2017). Extreme behaviors may seem shocking, but they are always attempts at self-preservation (Schwarz & Sweezy, 2020). While these attempts were helpful when they began occurring, they might not continue to be helpful throughout a person’s life.

For example, a child may have learned to shut down his emotions after being physical abused for expressing them. While shutting down was an effective survival strategy for the child, it no longer serves the same purpose when he becomes an adult. In fact, continuing to shut down his emotions can lead to them leaking out in unfavorable ways, such as panic, anxiety, or depression. Many “disorders” listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) can be explained this way.

Take borderline personality disorder, for example. Borderline is considered the most difficult psychiatric diagnosis to treat, but it can be explained with IFS: an exiled part that was harmed by intimacy at a young age is desperately yearning for meaningful relationships, but protectors have been employed to keep them at distance for fear of getting hurt. This creates a violent internal back and forth between the parts that need relationships and the parts that are afraid of them. To pathologize someone with borderline personality disorder would be to write them off as having an illness that can only be treated with medication. Treating a relational and emotional problem as a “disorder” ignores the beautiful and complex nature of our humanity. It is also a way to ignore the path toward true healing.

Mental suffering cannot be reduced to a medical problem or a biochemical brain imbalance. Doing so leads to prescribing the wrong solutions. There is no medication that can satisfy relational needs. Many psychiatric medications “shoot the messenger” by numbing emotions that are legitimately pointing the way to parts of the mind that have issues that need addressed. IFS is non-pathologizing because it treats those parts as misunderstood companions, not enemies. This difference is what leads to authentic healing instead of emotional stagnation. It not only gives us compassion for our own seemingly puzzling behavior, but for the behavior of others as well. To pathologize is to reduce a person to a two-dimensional image: a checklist of symptoms. While IFS allows us to see others in 3-D and in the full color of mosaic minds.

IFS Works with the Mind’s Innate Potential to Heal

The famous psychiatrist Irvin Yalom once said that he has no confidence in himself to make someone love again, but he does have confidence to help uncover the obstacles keeping them from loving (Yalom, 2013). His stance is that they are already capable of loving, it is just held back by pain. Similarly, IFS seeks to release people from the constraints that keep them from being who they already are (Schwarz & Sweezy, 2020). IFS works with the mind’s innate potential to heal and function.

Many forms of therapy don’t acknowledge that people already have what they need innately, so they attempt to add resources while ignoring the inner resources that could be uncovered and encouraged. These therapies don’t recognize negative thoughts and emotions as guides leading toward genuine healing, but as enemies that must be silenced. This, unfortunately, functions as a roadblock that closes off the path toward the pain that is calling out to be healed.

Many forms of therapy don’t acknowledge that emotional transformation can even occur. These therapies can identify painful thoughts, emotions, and beliefs, but they don’t follow those guides to their origin where they can be healed. Such therapies spend their time picking the damaged fruit of negative thoughts and emotions, while ignoring the damaged roots of experiences in the past. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, for example, merely attempts to create new neuronal networks to compete with the old ones. IFS, on the other hand, actually reorganizes the original neural network at the cellular level (Anderson, Sweezy & Schwartz, 2017). IFS recognizes that the core self isn’t damaged and is equipped to help the mind heal.

IFS Maps Out the Mind

IFS is unique not only in its effectiveness in healing trauma and negative emotional experiences, but in its usefulness in mapping out the mind. It can be difficult at times to understand our surface feelings and actions, because there are parts in our minds that have competing motivations, desires, and feelings. IFS helps isolate each of these parts to better understand them. As someone uses IFS, their inner world gradually becomes clearer and clearer. Not only does emotional healing take place, but people are able to better understand why they do what they do and why they feel what they feel. We often find ourselves confused about our emotions, because we don’t just feel one emotion at a time, and sometimes we have emotional reactions to feeling those emotions. For example, someone might feel angry at a spouse, but at the same time feel shame that they are angry. Anger and shame are polarized protectors, and mapping that those parts and understanding their relationship to one another helps lead to healing. IFS excels in sorting out the difference between the self, managers, firefighters and exiles, and helps people orient themselves to their inner world. 

IFS Creates Distance from Heated Emotions

I mentioned earlier that IFS is not only a form of therapy, but a way of thinking. This is particularly helpful because thinking of ourselves in parts allows us to take a step back from the emotional heat of a situation to gain some clarity and self-control. When tempted to enter into the blinding cloud of anger, one can step back and say, “It’s just a part of me that is angry. I have control.”

This also works to better understand others. When we are tempted to believe that someone doesn’t love us at all because they got angry, we can understand that only a part of them felt that way. This distances us from drawing big conclusions or taking the offense more personally than necessary. Just as IFS gives us compassion and understanding in our inner world, it can help us have compassion and understanding for the inner workings of others.

IFS De-emphasizes Willpower

A common temptation in this society that idolizes willpower is to believe that we must grind our way through life. Some believe it is a virtue to be able to push down any negative emotions that might “hold us back.” This perspective is not only exhausting, but harmful. The very emotions that we are pushing down are there, once again, to point the way toward healing so we don’t have to merely cope through life. We don’t have to spend our lives holding down that beach ball of emotions, when we could allow it to surface long enough to deflate its emotional pressure.

Willpower doesn’t work to change our inner system of parts either. People with addictions, for example, have parts that will not change until the needs of polarized parts are met. Stopping by shear willpower isn’t generally an option, because the addicted parts are afraid of what will happen if they stop covering up what they consider to be intolerable emotions. IFS seeks to address what the addiction is responding to in the first place to seek healing at its source.  This is much more effective than attempting to force change through willpower.

Willpower does come into play in making the decision to take a deeper look at your inner world. The energy spent doing that gets you a much better return on your investment. We also need willpower to help us cope as we do the hard work of getting oriented. We can’t just understand our inner workings all at once, and in the meantime we need to remain functional at our places of employment or around family and friends. But this type of coping is a temporary solution, only useful as we are working hard to resolve the emotional pain causing us to cope in the first place.

For all these reasons, I have chosen IFS to be the therapy we will use most often at Atlas. I believe IFS treats people and the power of their minds with respect, and provides not only healing, but a lasting way to understand how their inner world functions. Now that I have defined the terms used in IFS and discussed what I like about the therapy itself, my next post will go in depth about the mechanics of how it works.

References

Anderson, F. G., Sweezy, M., & Schwartz, R. (2017). Internal family systems skills training manual: trauma-informed treatment for anxiety, depression, PTSD & substance abuse. PESI Publishing & Media.

Schwartz, R. C., & Sweezy, M. (2019). Internal family systems therapy. Guilford Publications.

Yalom, I. D. (2013). The gift of therapy: An open letter to a new generation of therapists and their patients. Harper Perennial Publishing Company.