I have been involved with the counselling and psychotherapy world, on and off, for almost 30 years now. In that time, I have both trained in and personally experienced a wide range of therapy models. And one of my favourite models is internal family systems (IFS) therapy, which is currently experiencing an explosion of growth and popularity around the world.

I think this is because people resonate with IFS on a deep, instinctive level. It just feels right. The founder, Dr Richard Schwartz, developed IFS in the 1980s and his warmth, kindness and humility are the foundations of this groundbreaking approach to psychotherapy. With thousands of practitioners now following in his footsteps around the world, IFS offers us a way to work with complex, hard-to treat problems like trauma that is powerful and highly effective but also respectful, non-pathologising and deeply compassionate.

IFS and schema therapy: similar but different

There are many similarities between IFS and schema therapy, but also some key differences. One of these is that, in schema therapy, one of the key aims is building your Healthy Adult mode, which is seen as weak and in need of support and enrichment at the beginning of therapy (like building up an under-used muscle). In IFS, this rich inner resource is called your Self; and it’s seen as something you are born with, so just needs accessing, rather than building.

There are many ways to think about the Self. One is that it’s the seat of your consciousness, or your essential nature as a human being. Another is that this is just a way of describing your deepest, most valuable qualities, such as confidence, compassion and courage. In fact, there are eight ‘C’ qualities attributed to the Self:

Calm
Curiosity
Clarity
Connectedness
Compassion
Courage
Confidence
Creativity

Why your self is like the sun

Because the Self is a bit hard to describe in words (and is much better experienced, in an IFS session, meditation or in various other ways), we use various metaphors to try and convey this somewhat hard-to-grasp concept. One metaphor is to think about the Self as being like the sun. So even when the sky is black and stormy, or covered in a thick blanket of cloud, if you were to fly above those clouds in a plane, you quickly see that the sky is always blue up there, with a bright sun shining down.

If you substitute ‘parts’ for ‘clouds’, you can see that even on a day when your parts are very activated (and you are feeling some kind of intense emotion, like being stressed, upset, angry, lonely or hurt) and your Self seems to be lost, it’s always there, waiting, ready to offer you all of those wonderful qualities listed above. I find this a very comforting idea, especially on days when I am feeling triggered and struggling with some of those feelings. I know that, deep down, my Self is calm, loving, kind, compassionate and peaceful, even if that’s hard to see when emotional storms are raging.

How do we access the Self?

Although describing the Self is a bit tricky, the good news is that experiencing it is not. For starters, any time you felt any of those ‘C’ qualities above, you were feeling what’s known as ‘Self-energy’. I would add other qualities to that list, such as kindness, altruism, insight, equanimity, generosity, strength, resilience and, perhaps most important of all, love.

We all feel these things, to a greater or lesser degree. If we have a trauma history – and especially if it’s a bad one – it might be harder to feel some of that stuff, which is totally understandable. Your days might be dominated by all sorts of negative feelings like fear, rage or pain. In IFS language, those feelings come from your Exiles, which are the young, wounded parts of your inner system carrying all the pain caused by whatever happened to you as a child.

‘We all have what IFS refers to as the “Self” – our core, our essence, our internal compass that possesses inherent wisdom and healing capacity’
Frank G Anderson MD

But remember that sun-behind-the-clouds metaphor – just because it’s hard to access your Self doesn’t mean it’s lost, or was never there to begin with. It will just take a bit more time, patience and probably the skilled, loving help of a good trauma-informed therapist to find and access these qualities – letting the sun shine into your life.

Also remember that any time you are, say, practising mindfulness or metta meditation, you are accessing the Self. Whenever you read a book or watch a documentary or listen to a podcast, and feel some kind of peace, or inner warmth, or have a lightbulb moment of insight, that’s your Self. So it’s kind of everywhere, all the time, if you just know how to see and experience it.

Your mind and body are self-healing

And this is all good news if you’re struggling with the legacy of trauma, or any other kind of psychological problem. Because whether you call this aspect of your inner world the Self, Healthy Adult, neural networks in the brain, Buddha Nature (or even soul, if you are a spiritual person), it doesn’t really matter. We know that you, like every other person on this planet, have powerful and innate healing systems in your mind, brain and body.

And so, as I often say in these posts, everything can be healed, however bad your experiences were and whatever wounds they caused in you. I hope that helps, a little, and know that I will be here, writing, teaching and offering all of the wisdom I can, from all of the wonderful teachers I have encountered – and, of course from my own Self – to help you on your healing journey.

Warm wishes,

Dan