IFS and the Anatomy of Our Emotions
The first two posts in this series introduced you to Internal Family Systems (IFS) and the reasons we use it at Atlas. This post will synthesize that information into a more complete picture of how IFS works. For review, the formula for any emotion and behavior is:
Life experiences = Beliefs = Thoughts = Feelings = Behavior
Negative life experiences and the subsequent negative beliefs they produce are what IFS calls exiles. These memories carry too much emotional pain to be properly integrated with the rest of our more healthy and functional memories. Therefore, they stay “exiled” in the past where the pain they carry remains unmetabolized and unspoken. Although the pain is subconscious, it is still there in the brain, so protectors (managers and firefighters) take over to keep it from leaking out into our explicit memory system (our conscious awareness). These protectors bring with them thoughts, that produce feelings, which then produce behavior, all of which act as trailheads which can be followed back to the exile. Much like the top of an iceberg only hints at the full mass of ice hidden underwater, IFS uses the trailheads (thoughts, feelings, and behaviors) that we can see in the present, to become consciously aware of the experiences and beliefs lying below the surface.
The Anatomy of Triggers
Our minds were created to be association machines, constantly linking our present with our past. If our minds did not make these automatic associations, we would be lost and confused on a regular basis. It is these associations, for example, that help us know how to act in certain social settings or to help us drive without thinking about every single step necessary. They are however, a double-edged sword.
While knowing how to act automatically can be very helpful in the case of social cues or driving, our automatic responses can be dysfunctional. For example, we may automatically respond in anger when someone criticizes something about us. These automatic responses are called “trailheads” or “triggers,” and they are what IFS uses to gain access to the memories hidden in the subconscious. A trigger happens when a situation occurs in the present that the mind automatically associates with an emotionally painful event in the past. What gets “triggered” are what the scientific literature calls “state dependent memories” or memories that have been stamped with a certain pattern (based on our five senses) that are automatically activated when similar conditions occur in the present. IFS follows this automatic activation of emotions (trailhead) to its source (the exile) to bring healing.
The Anatomy of Exiles
Just as the body is designed to heal itself, so is the mind. This happens when the exiles’ old, painful memories are merged with the rest of the mind’s healthy memory networks (Wheeler, 2014). When something traumatic or emotionally painful happens to a child, their young mind often doesn’t have the ability to make sense of the event. The experience therefore remains tender and unprocessed, like a neglected wound. Instead of the wound healing, it gets covered up with all sorts of bandages and ignored. When it inevitably gets bumped later in life, the ensuing pain sends the now-adult into feeling the unresolved emotional pain of the exile again and again.
Through therapy, we can connect back to these unprocessed wounds and apply the healing power of a mature perspective for them to finally heal. This process does not change the facts of what happened in that memory, but it can change our perception of reality and the meaning we derive from it. This helps us bring these memories that have been isolated from the rest of mind back into the healthy narrative of “the self.”
The Anatomy of The Self
What neuroscience research calls “explicit memories” or “adaptive neural networks” is what IFS calls “the self.” The self is our conscious awareness that is informed by our adaptive and positive experiences and memories. When someone has been acting based on triggers they sometimes say “I didn’t feel like myself.” This makes sense, because they are acting on beliefs that are isolated (or exiled) from the self. Merging exiles with the self is the goal of IFS, and this happens partly through the process of unblending. Before we can process the pain of the exiles in the past, we must make sure we are unblended from dysfunctional neural networks: protectors.
The Anatomy of Protectors
Protectors, such as firefighters and managers, are also known as “defenses” in scientific literature. Every form of therapy has a category for these, whether they are called “filters” in CBT or “ego-defenses” in psychoanalysis, they are what keep the unresolved emotional pain of exiles stored in our limbic system all bandaged up. They protect the exiles from being openly accessed, but since protectors can’t heal, the wounds remain tender. Whether in the form of disassociation, intellectualization, or avoidance, protectors attempt to do the job that the self didn’t do when the emotional wound originally occurred.
The protectors had good intentions: to preserve the self. But they were misinformed in their efforts to protect through suppression. The protectors act as a barrier between our limbic system, where the exile’s pain is stored, and the prefrontal cortex where this raw emotional pain must be processed by the self and healed. The protectors are afraid that the pain of the exiles in the limbic system will overwhelm the prefrontal cortex (our consciousness/self), so they keep the flood walls up. Using IFS, we can convince these protectors to let down their guard so that the self can process the exiles and incorporate them into the conscious mind in a healthy way.
Conclusion
IFS is not only one of the most effective tools for healing emotional pain, it is also a pair of glasses allowing us to perceive ourselves and each other more clearly. It adds dimension and color to the explanations of human behavior and emotion. IFS firmly plants all of us back into the same garden of mutual understanding; for the seemingly strangest of behaviors, whether that be psychosis, bipolar, borderline personality disorder, or even common emotions like anger or anxiety. Because our minds are all wired to protect ourselves from emotional pain in the same way, we can look at ourselves or each other and say “the way you are makes sense.” This also means we all have the same capacity for healing. Each of us has a self: an adaptive, healthy, and functional network of memories and experiences, eager to be connected to the wounded parts of us crying out for healing. For every one of us, all the potential for transformation is there, just waiting to be realized.
References
Wheeler, K. (2014). Psychotherapy for the advanced practice psychiatric nurse: A how-to guide for evidence-based practice. Springer Publishing Company.