If you live in Therapy World, like me, you will definitely have heard of Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy. It’s ridiculously popular right now – every IFS training is sold out and finding an IFS therapist or supervisor with any space is borderline impossible. IFS is definitely having a moment.

But when I speak to people who live in the Real World, many of them have never heard of IFS. Which is a little baffling for those of us who live, eat and breathe therapy. I guess one reason for that is that it’s a model imported from the US (as many of our best models are). And it’s taking some time, especially in the UK, for it to hit the mainstream in the way that, say, CBT has.

If you have heard about IFS, that’s wonderful. But if you haven’t, it’s definitely time you did. Here’s why…

So what is IFS?

Internal Family Systems therapy was developed by Dr Richard Schwartz in the 1980s. Dr Schwartz (or Dick, as he likes to be called) was a family therapist, who was frustrated with his model and started listening closely to what his clients were telling him. They would talk about ‘parts’ of themselves who often had clear voices, wanted different things for the client, had conflicting ideas about what they should do, and so on.

Dick started working with one of these parts, which was making one of his clients self-harm. Unable to stop the self-harming, Dick started working collaboratively with this part, listened to and understood its concerns and function for the client – and IFS therapy was born.

He came to understand that we all have parts of us, whether we experienced a ‘normal’, happy childhood or severe trauma. It’s just the way that your brain constructs ‘you’. But if you did experience childhood trauma, you will have young parts inside holding those traumatic memories, feelings and experiences. You will also have other parts, who are protectors, using various means to protect the young ones from being hurt again.

And the Self?

But although all of these parts live in your mind, brain and body, there is another you – what Dick says is ‘who you really are, deep down’. And this is your Self, which is not a part, but a deep, rich array of resources that live within us all, whether we can access them or not. Some of these qualities are embodied in the 8 Cs:

Calm
Compassion
Clarity
Connectedness
Courage
Creativity
Confidence
Curiosity

Again, all of these wonderful qualities are inside you, right now. You don’t have to learn them, or grow them, or find them somewhere out there in the world. Instead, you just need to access them. Of course, that can be hard, especially when your young parts are triggered and you’re riding big waves of emotions like stress, anxiety, sadness or fear; or your protector parts are up and you’re being avoidant, or compulsively drinking/shopping/thinking about stuff. (This happens to me on a daily basis, it’s just what minds do/how parts get triggered by our experiences in the world. Nothing to be ashamed of our feel bad about, it’s just how all humans work).

Self like the sun

But I want you to hold on to this idea. However bad things have been for you, however much you are struggling right now, there is something in you that can respond to your suffering with love and compassion. Which can help you heal. Which is like the sun, bursting out from even the darkest clouds. The sun never vanishes, right? Even if we can’t see it, we know it’s still there behind the clouds, with all of its life-giving energy and power. So it is with the Self.

I will be teaching a great deal more about the IFS model on my upcoming Heal Your Trauma webinars and workshops this year and next – but especially my Overcoming Addiction workshop, which I am co-presenting with my dear friend and colleague Claire van den Bosch. Like me, Claire is trained in and passionate about IFS, so we will be weaving IFS concepts in with those from schema therapy, EMDR and other rich, wise therapy models.

I hope to see you there – or on another Heal Your Trauma event soon.

Sending you love and warm thoughts,

Dan