Do you ever say, “part of me feels anxious about my presentation” or “part of me doesn’t want to go to that party” or “part of me really wants ice cream”? Starting in the 1980’s Richard Swartz noticed the existence of parts and developed the Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy. It posits that a person is comprised of many parts, led by the self energy. While these parts are acknowledged and important, IFS therapy states that the self is the calm and capable leader that should be in charge and cares for all the parts.
We all have parts and there are “No Bad Parts” (title of Swartz’s book). Parts develop through the lifespan to cope with experiences that arise. These parts, such as anxiety or fear, are defined as “managers” because they help us manage situations. When trauma occurs these parts can become extreme to prevent emotional pain to the person. Most of the time when a manager becomes prominent a person simply wants to, “get rid of the anxiety”. The goal in IFS is to not rid ourselves of the manager but to heal it, so it can calm down and coexist within the system.
A good analogy is that of a school bus. When life is going smoothly the self energy is driving the bus with all the parts getting along during the ride. Yet, when a situation arises, one of the parts does not trust the self energy and decides to take the wheel! Let’s say the anxious part feels the need to be in control, then the person, instead of having the calm, capable leader in charge becomes overwhelmed with anxiety. I am sure at some point in our lives, we have all felt this happen.
In using Internal Family Systems, I would help you discover the different parts within you, how they interact with each other and your self energy. We interface with the managers to allow them to calm down and trust the self energy to begin leading again. This results in the 8 C’s of Self Energy, which are: Calm, Curiosity, Compassion, Compassion, Clarity, Confidence, Courage, Creativity and Connectedness. Basically, when a person is being led by their self energy, they feel calm, they have the ability to be curious about what is happening in their internal system and have compassion for all the parts, which brings clarity to what is happening, confidence and courage to move forward with the creativity to allow parts to be themselves without becoming destructive, in order that the connectedness within the system leads to a fuller and more happy life.