Open IFS therapy
You don't have to 'fit into' IFS therapy...
As IFS therapy keeps growing in popularity you may have heard a lot of IFS success stories, But what if you're an IFS misfit who struggles with IFS therapy? Holding the principles of IFS is possible even when some of the IFS 'protocols' or IFS language don't feel quite right for your system. If traditional, IFS is not a good fit maybe we need to be more OPEN...
IFS therapy makes sense to me and it has changed the way I understand myself and my clients ...
AND...to my European ears, IFS therapy can sound quite 'American' and is extremely well marketed. I have parts who have ethical concerns about the 'commercialisation' of the IFS brand (maybe Schwarz would call it the cultural burden of 'materialism'?). I also believe that...
No therapy model works for everyone (not even IFS).
For me IFS therapy is NOT the magic bullet (although I do have parts that wish it was!). The human psyche is as deep complex and mysterious as the larger systems where it is embedded, yet IFS can be a helpful lens, or better, a way of cleaning the lens through which we view ourselves and others.
Protocols can feel like something is being done to us.
If you've heard
Schwartz speak, you'll know IFS is appealingly simple. It's easy to 'talk the IFS talk' but when our human messiness spills out of standard IFS protocols and acronyms we may need to go off the 'IFS script' and be open. IFS offers a map but it is not the territory and each territory is unique.
Wanting to 'unburden' can become a burden in IFS therapy
'Unburdening' may not be the holy grail of IFS treatment: when therapists' and/or clients' parts are on a mission to 'get to the exiles', protectors may get more polarised and block the process. By relating to all parts with curiosity and compassion, healing can unfold organically within each system.
'Therapy models' are not something to get right, not an end but a means, not something to fit into but rather something to grow out of...
IFS therapy & me...
My name is Valerie, I am an experienced IFS trained therapist and I draw on IFS every day in my work. My OPEN approach to IFS is deeply relational, integrative and informed by what I have learnt and keep learning about psychotherapy on both sides of 'the couch' for over twenty years.
I've been interested in IFS since 2017 and I've completed level 1,2 and IFIO training and many advanced workshops with senior lead IFS trainers like Paul Ginter, Cece Sykes, Tony Herbine-Blank and more. The core principles of IFS immediately resonated with my psychotherapy ethos which is based on the belief that our psyche is beautifully varied and naturally multiple (i.e. that we all have 'subpersonalities' or 'parts'), and that we all have an innate potential to experience inner cohesion and connection to broader dimensions of meaning and purpose (SELF).
IFS therapy complemented my previous training in Psychosynthesis (PS), expanding on how our subpersonalities interact inside us as systems (Schwartz has a PhD. in systemic family therapy). Unlike PS, however, IFS is a 'manualised' approach which heavily relies on protocols, techniques and mnemonics that are very accessible and can be remarkably impactful, but may not suit every system.
In fact, I have parts who've never quite fitted into the 'pure' IFS mould and I have become increasingly thankful to them for strengthening my
belief in the benefit of combining different therapeutic modalities and in the need to be flexible and constructively critical when we apply theories to real life.
This is why I hold IFS in the context of what came before it (e.g. psychodynamic, humanistic and transpersonal psychotherapies) and integrate IFS with other contemporary approaches I have trained in (e.g. Janina Fisher's trauma informed parts model, Diana Fosha's attachment-based, experiential model focussing on moment-to-moment attunement in the therapeutic relationship, Sensorimotor Psychotherapy and others)
My IFS training/ CPD
Learning to trust the self-righting impulse within my clients' (and my own) system is more important to me than fidelity to any 'therapy model'.
Why protector parts may not buy into IFS 'hope merchanting'
IFS therapy offers a hopeful and non-pathologising framework for nurturing self-understanding and self-compassion. Schwartz often talks about being a 'hope merchant', encouraging students to borrow his confidence in the model when negotiating with protectors. While this is an invitation to reach into the innate qualities of Self we all share, the strategy may at times backfire.
In my experience, it is hard-working, hyper-trained 'therapist parts', who are most keen to take Schwartz up on his offer. Like good scouts, they want to get IFS right and help clients heal. Unfortunately, however, our clients' protector parts can sniff even the most well-intended 'fake it till you make it' a mile off and won't buy into 'hope merchanting' easily when their hopes have been dashed so many times before.
Offering hope when negotiating with protectors demands a lot of integrity, honesty and respect. Therapists who have not personally experienced IFS work may not be convicing guides in the IFS process. Conversly, staunch believers in IFS may get blended with parts attached to IFS being the best (if not the only) way.
Either way, pushing the hope agenda can create false expectations and intensify an inner polarity between eager parts who desperately want us to heal deeper wounds once and for all, and more cautious ones who have ensured our survival through numbing, avoidance, distraction or fighting. Change feels like too big a risk and 'healing', a luxury we can't afford!
When we get stuck in this inner conflict, our wounded parts can end up feeling even more broken, deficient and ashamed: 'If IFS therapy is so great and everybody else gets better fast, there must be something so very wrong with me if I don't!'
Especially when it comes to complex, relational injury and attachment wounds, slower is often faster.
it can be counterproductive and potentially re-traumatising when healing-focused manager parts (not only in clients, but also in IFS therapist) are set on the type of cathartic 'unburdening' (another IFS term I am not particularly fond of) seen in Dick Schwarz's demonstrations. What shall we do then? (our manager parts might want to know...)
IFS invites us to think systemically
The image above illustrates what IFS lead trainer Cece Sykes calls the 'three legged stool'. Teasing out how various parts polarise to protect what is most tender within us is a great first step towards unblending (differentiating). IFS clusters parts according to roles (manager/fire fighter/exile) which helps us track how parts trigger each other within the system. Each part/cluster of parts is a necessary 'leg of the stool' and is fully deserving of attention and appreciation.
When the members of our inner family fight or avoid each other, we experience psychological distress.
In IFS therapy we often hear Self has no agenda; that applies also to following the 'IFS steps to healing'
Healing can take many forms
I find helpful in my own system to normalise that
healing does not always follow 'IFS protocols' nor does it need to be a BIG event.
For some of us, healing may be a subtle and gradual release, it may occur spontaneously, within and beyond therapy, through the body or through insight. Also, in this troubled world, HEALING can only be an ING verb, not a destination but an ongoing, often challenging, process. We need each other in healing!
'Unblending' IS healing
Unblending means separating/differentiating from a part in service of 'Self-to-Part' relationship. Unblending can be tricky: manager parts may be reluctant to unblend out of a sense of duty and responsibility, while exiles often fear that if they separate they'll be abandoned again. Yet, paradoxically, the more parts unblend, the more access they have to an inner source of compassion, courage and creativity (i.e. Self). Possibly, the biggest burden a system can carry is the experience of having 'NO Self' (often felt as a void, anunbearable aloneness, shame, hopelessness and rage).
Adapting Rogers' famous quote we may say:
'the curious paradox is that when Self accepts parts just as they are, then they can change'.
.By increasing access to Self, then,
unblending is not only a precondition to healing, it is a process of emergent hope which is, in and by itself, healing.
Each time a part holding intense feelings and beliefs (be it a protector or an exile) can unblend and experience, even fleetingly, Self's spacious and caring attention, a ray of hope illuminates the Self within the part. Both interpersonally (between people) and intrapsychically (between the 'people' within us),
protectors' energy begets protectors (polarisation), while 'Self energy' draws out Self within the other and within each part of the system.( more to come about 'fractals' and how parts, like people, also have a core Self, beyond the role they fulfill.).
If Protectors are not welcome in therapy, they will hold tight: therapists' own protectors parts call that resistance...
While the focus in IFS therapy is on the internal, if parts don't feel welcome by the therapist in the here and now of the therapy hour, protectors will take over to maintain safety. For people who have been hurt in early relationships, feeling
safe enough in the therapeutic relationship may be a precondition for the inner work of IFS. Therapy can be triggering
and
for a lot of us healing is an ongoing, non-linear process which requires patience, and perseverance (and yes. IFS has a list if P qualities too,,,). Enough
trust may need to be earned over time: inside ourselves as well as within the therapeutic relationship.
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