Why Internal Family Systems?

In my last post, I provided an introduction to the Internal Family Systems model. Mostly, I gave a very brief outline and referenced a handful of excellent resources (Youtube, Audible, Amazon selections) that have already covered the basics. Now I would like to stress the reason why IFS resonates with me, and why I think it could be helpful for most people out there.

I wanted to write this post as a bridge to the next article I have been sitting on and finding difficulty writing. Internal Family Systems is a multifaceted modality, in that it both provides a distinct model of the human mind while also providing a distinct process for healing and processing. In my next post, I will discuss some of the complications that can arise from this complexity of the model, and how you might better understand or overcome them. For now, I’ll stick to the aspects of IFS that have resonated so deeply with me and compelled me to use its model as the foundation for my own approach to self-knowledge and healing.

First, when I started looking deeply into Internal Family Systems, I found the model to fit in with other important works I had absorbed in the years prior. I was heavily influenced by other thinkers (Alice Miller, Nathaniel Branden, Jonice Webb, John Bowlby, Carl Jung, T. Harv Eker and others) whose ideas seemed to me to be enhanced and extrapolated by layering in the IFS model over their work. As I continued to take in other resources (Daniel Siegel, Stephen Porges, Carl Rogers, Marshall Rosenberg, etc.) I found that this inter-relatedness was consistent and expanding further. I was building a web of resources in my mind where all threads seemed to lead back to IFS at the epicenter, or a Venn diagram where all circles overlapped the IFS bubble.

I also found the corollary to be true: that processes and resources that did not resonate with me did not interweave with the IFS model nor fit in with the intersecting bubbles of my Venn diagram.

Secondly, IFS met my own particular need for bringing my left brain into balance with my right brain. I grew up to develop strong analytical and intellectual parts that I had perceived to be my self due to their dominance over my system. Through CBT and similar forms of talk therapy, I found that the form of the process further drew me into intellectualizing, analyzing, trying to ‘figure it out’ and to summon the willpower to enforce better decisions in the future. It didn’t feel like healing to me. It idn’t feel freeing or unburdening.

When I learned the IFS model and began to explore my parts from its approach, what I found was the ability to hone in on my emotional experience. The ability to bring awareness directly to the point in my mind where the difficulties were stemming from rather than a distant or disconnected intellectual understanding of the behaviours I was exhibiting and struggling with. Using the IFS model, I was able to connect to my own experience rather than to feel like I had some aspect of myself that I needed to control. This extrapolated into being open to connection with others, which I had previously been very guarded against–and of course these protectors still remain frequently active, though less intense and more negotiable.

As importantly, or perhaps even more importantly, was the shift that IFS has produced when the opportunity for awareness and curiosity can pass instantaneously among the rigors of the daily grind. As Jung posited, the goal of therapy is to bring the unconscious into consciousness. Or as we know from mass media presentation of recovery, the first step is to admit (be aware) that you have a problem.

The IFS model of parts has been tremendously helpful with everyday practice in a) striving towards Self qualities; and b) isolating specific patterns of thoughts, feelings, memories, sensations, behaviours, etc. and recognizing them as parts that can be familiarized and connected with. In other words, developing familiar and accessible conscious awareness. This development helps to generate curiosity and self-compassion, and diminishes the impulse to control your parts.

The functionality of the IFS model in daily life, in my experience both personally and through working with peers, enhances and enables growth for the individual as an everyday occurrence without reliance on a therapist. My goal as a coach will be to help my clients develop these capacities so that they can support their own process to the maximize degree possible, achieve independence and live self-led lives.

Thirdly, the Internal Family Systems complemented my larger worldview. Most notably, it seemed to me to be consistent with ethics, economics, biology, ecology, and of course thoroughly represented in art and literature. Generally, these are all systems of horizontal, decentralized, bottom up spontaneous order approaching harmony and balance. With regards to the art and lit, IFS was most notably compared with the recent Pixar movie, Inside Out, with other comparisons frequently made to Fight Club, Winnie the Pooh and countless other mainstream stories.

If you have found yourself intellectually engaged in your own process of self-discovery but lacking the emotional connection, I would encourage you to look into the Internal Family Systems model and seek out someone you feel comfortable to work with. If you’re doing some reading up on the model, you may find your intellectual, rational mind dislikes the highly symbolic or metaphoric language used to describe it. You may find it preferable to think of parts as neural circuits–neurons that fire together, wire together. When we receive stimuli, different regions of our brain fire to interpret what is happening and what we should do. These different regions represent different aspects of our parts–the feelings, body sensations, thoughts and beliefs, strategies, memories, etc. This article may be useful to those who require a strictly rational approach.

For those who are already inclined to emotional awareness, I hypothesize that IFS would help in bringing greater balance with the rational mind, and am curious to explore this further as I meet such people–unfortunately, it seems most of the people in the IFS or self-knowledge communities I’ve been involved with have had strong intellectual and analytical defense patterns, so I’m yet to know many of the people who develop with the opposite disequilibrium.

For my next article I’ll expand on part two of this post, on connection through IFS and the potential hazards of working with an approach that represents as both a model of the mind and of the process.