CONTENT
INTRODUCTION __________________________________________________________________________________ 3
CHAPTER 1. PERSONAL HEALING AND GROWTH THE IFS WAY ________________________________________ 3
Positive Intent ________________________________________________________________________________ 3
Who Can Benefit from the Book __________________________________________________________________ 3
Safety _______________________________________________________________________________________ 3
CHAPTER 2. YOUR INTERNAL SYSTEM: SUMMARY OF THE IFS MODEL _________________________________ 4
Roles _______________________________________________________________________________________ 4
Protectors ____________________________________________________________________________________ 4
Exiles _______________________________________________________________________________________ 4
The Self _____________________________________________________________________________________ 4
The Structure of the Psyche _____________________________________________________________________ 5
PART I: SELF AND PROTECTORS ___________________________________________________________________ 5
CHAPTER 4. GETTING ACQUAINTED INSIDE: ACCESSING YOUR PARTS ________________________________ 5
Trailheads ___________________________________________________________________________________ 5
Step P1: Accessing a Part _______________________________________________________________________ 6
Activation of Parts _____________________________________________________________________________ 6
Activation and Access __________________________________________________________________________ 6
Accessing Parts from Current Experience ___________________________________________________________ 6
Accessing Parts from a Trailhead _________________________________________________________________ 7
Focusing on a Target Part _______________________________________________________________________ 7
Noticing a Part in Real Time _____________________________________________________________________ 7
CHAPTER 5. BECOMING CENTERED: UNBLENDING FROM A PROTECTOR _______________________________ 7
The Seat of Consciousness ______________________________________________________________________ 7
Blending _____________________________________________________________________________________ 7
Requirements for Getting to Know a Protector _______________________________________________________ 8
Step P2: Checking for Blending ___________________________________________________________________ 8
Asking the Part to Separate ______________________________________________________________________ 8
Other Ways to Unblend _________________________________________________________________________ 8
Noticing When You Are Blended __________________________________________________________________ 9
CHAPTER 6. BEING OPEN AND CURIOUS: UNBLENDING FROM A CONCERNED PART _____________________ 9
Step P3: Checking to See if You Are in Self _________________________________________________________ 9
Concerned Parts ______________________________________________________________________________ 9
Step P3: Unblending from a Concerned Part _______________________________________________________ 10
What to Do if the Concerned Part Won’t Step Aside __________________________________________________ 10
Other Types of Concerned Parts _________________________________________________________________ 10
Help Sheet 1: Getting to Know a Protector _________________________________________________________ 10
CHAPTER 7. KNOWING YOURSELF: DISCOVERING A PROTECTOR’S ROLE _____________________________ 11
Step P4: Discovering a Protector’s Role ___________________________________________________________ 11
A Protector’s Positive Intent_____________________________________________________________________ 12
Two Kinds of Protection ________________________________________________________________________ 13
Ending an IFS Session ________________________________________________________________________ 13
Finding Out about Protectors in Real Time _________________________________________________________ 13
CHAPTER 8. BEFRIENDING YOURSELF: DEVELOPING A TRUSTING RELATIONSHIP WITH A PROTECTOR ___ 13
Trusting the Self ______________________________________________________________________________ 13
Step P5: Developing a Trusting Relationship with a Protector __________________________________________ 13
Helping the Part to Be Aware of You ______________________________________________________________ 14
When a Part Doesn’t Relate to You _______________________________________________________________ 14
When a Part Doesn’t Trust You __________________________________________________________________ 14
Helping a Protector to Relax in Real Time _________________________________________________________ 14
CHAPTER 9. KEEPING SESSIONS ON TRACK: DETECTING PARTS THAT ARISE __________________________ 15
Detecting Judgmental Parts _____________________________________________________________________ 15
Detecting Avoiders ____________________________________________________________________________ 15
Detecting Intellectualizers ______________________________________________________________________ 15
Detecting Impatient Parts ______________________________________________________________________ 16
Detecting Inadequate Parts _____________________________________________________________________ 16
, Detecting Skeptics ____________________________________________________________________________ 16
Detecting Exiles ______________________________________________________________________________ 16
Dissociation and Addictive Behavior ______________________________________________________________ 16
Keeping Track of Your Thread ___________________________________________________________________ 17
Changing Target Parts _________________________________________________________________________ 17
How to Tell One Part from Another _______________________________________________________________ 17
Dealing with Overwhelm _______________________________________________________________________ 17
Continuing Work in a Subsequent Session _________________________________________________________ 17
PART II: EXILES AND UNBURDENING ______________________________________________________________ 18
Be Careful __________________________________________________________________________________ 18
Steps in Healing an Exile _______________________________________________________________________ 18
CHAPTER 10. BEING ALLOWED IN: GETTING PERMISSION TO WORK WITH AN EXILE_____________________ 18
How to Discover the Exile Being Protected _________________________________________________________ 18
Step 2: Asking Permission ______________________________________________________________________ 19
Addressing the Protector’s Fears ________________________________________________________________ 19
CHAPTER 11. UNCOVERING YOUR PAIN: GETTING TO KNOW AN EXILE ________________________________ 20
When an Exile Gets Activated ___________________________________________________________________ 20
Step E1: Accessing an Exile ____________________________________________________________________ 20
Step E2: Unblending from an Exile _______________________________________________________________ 21
Conscious Blending ___________________________________________________________________________ 21
Step E3: Unblending from Concerned Parts ________________________________________________________ 21
The Importance of Compassion__________________________________________________________________ 22
Steps E4 & E5: Learning about an Exile and Developing a Trusting Relationship with It ______________________ 22
Help Sheet 2: Getting to Know an Exile ___________________________________________________________ 22
CHAPTER 12. FINDING WHERE IT STARTED: ACCESSING AND WITNESSING CHILDHOOD MEMORIES ______ 23
Metabolizing Childhood Experiences______________________________________________________________ 23
Step 4: Accessing the Childhood Origin ___________________________________________________________ 23
Types of Memories ___________________________________________________________________________ 24
Witnessing the Childhood Origin _________________________________________________________________ 24
Feeling Understood ___________________________________________________________________________ 24
Benefits of Witnessing _________________________________________________________________________ 24
CHAPTER 13. CARING FOR AN INNER CHILD. REPARENTING AND RETRIEVING AN EXILE _____________________________ 24
Step 5: Reparenting an Exile ____________________________________________________________________ 25
Step 6: Retrieving an Exile _____________________________________________________________________ 26
Help Sheet 3: Healing an Exile __________________________________________________________________ 26
Follow-Up Reparenting with an Exile ______________________________________________________________ 27
CHAPTER 14. HEALING A W OUNDED CHILD. UNBURDENING AN EXILE __________________________________________ 27
The Origins of Parts and Burdens ________________________________________________________________ 27
Step 7: Unburdening __________________________________________________________________________ 27
CHAPTER 15. TRANSFORMING A PROTECTIVE ROLE INTO A HEALTHY ONE. UNBURDENING A PROTECTOR 29
Checking with the Protector _____________________________________________________________________ 29
Step 8: Releasing the Protective Role _____________________________________________________________ 29
CHAPTER 16. SUPPORTING THE THERAPY PROCESS. TIPS ON WORKING ALONE, WITH A PARTNER, OR WITH
A THERAPIST _________________________________________________________________________________ 30
Tips on Working with a Partner __________________________________________________________________ 30
Responsibility for the Work _____________________________________________________________________ 30
Stage 1: The Silent Witness ____________________________________________________________________ 30
Stage 2: Active Listening _______________________________________________________________________ 30
Stage 3: Full Facilitation _______________________________________________________________________ 31
Tips on Working Alone _________________________________________________________________________ 31
Tips on Working with a Therapist ________________________________________________________________ 32
CHAPTER 17. CONCLUSION _____________________________________________________________________ 32
Using IFS Professionally _______________________________________________________________________ 32
Polarization _________________________________________________________________________________ 32
IFS with Couples _____________________________________________________________________________ 32
IFS with Groups, Families, and Organizations ______________________________________________________ 32
, INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER 1. PERSONAL HEALING AND GROWTH THE IFS WAY
This book is based on a form of psychotherapy called Internal Family System Therapy (IFS). The emotions and
desires come from parts of us, sometimes called “subpersonalities.” These “parts,” as they are known in IFS,
have their own motivations, feeling and views of the world, which try to protect us in their own (distorted) ways.
It’s important that we don’t try to fight against because they could fight back too, but embrace them.
Unlike many forms of therapy, IFS doesn’t pathologize people. It recognizes that we have the resources within
us to solve our problems, though these resources may be blocked because of unconscious reactions to events
in the past.
These parts inside us are frequently shifting and changing. One of them takes over for a while, and we act and
feel a certain way. Usually we view these changes as no more than slight shifts in mood or perspective, but, in
fact, each shift marks the emergence of an entirely new subpersonality. The Self is the key to healing and
integrating our parts through its compassion, curiosity, and connectedness.
Positive Intent
Every part has a positive intent for you. Some parts keep us stuck in negative patterns and have a destructive
impact on our lives, they may have a distorted perception of situations and an exaggerated sense of danger, but
their intent is always positive. Many parts know only one way to act, which may be something that worked fairly
well in your family forty years ago when you were a child. However, in today’s adult world, this strategy is
ineffective, short-sighted, or immature. In IFS we welcome all our parts with curiosity and compassion. We
develop a relationship of caring and trust with each part, and then take steps to heal it so it can function in a
healthy way.
If you have psychological issues that are deep seated or if you want comprehensive personality transformation,
the work will take longer— possibly a year or two.
Who Can Benefit from the Book
Self-Therapy might be helpful to:
1. People who want to work through a wide variety of troubling personal issues—low self-esteem,
procrastination, anxiety, shyness, depression, isolation, and so on.
2. People looking for personal growth of various kinds. It can help you increase confidence, accelerate your
career success, deepen your ability to relate to others, enhance your intimacy, and develop your spiritual
awareness.
3. People who are considering entering therapy, so then you can decide whether to choose an IFS therapist
to work with.
4. People who have had bad experiences in psychotherapy and are reluctant to try again.
5. People who can’t be in therapy
6. People who are in therapy with an IFS therapist
7. Psychotherapists
8. IFS therapists
Safety
This book is not a substitute for psychotherapy. Some people have experienced so much pain and trauma in
their lives that their internal systems are sensitive, reactive, chaotic, unstable, or strongly conflicted; doing IFS
work could trigger intense emotional or physical reactions. If you sense that responses like this could happen
to you, it probably isn’t safe for you to use IFS without the guidance of a psychotherapist.
,CHAPTER 2. YOUR INTERNAL SYSTEM: SUMMARY OF THE IFS MODEL
Parts, or subpersonalities are alive and personal. They do what they do for reasons of their own, and they have
relationships with you and with each other. IFS recognizes that a protective part is purposely excluding that
memory from your awareness for a reason. If you treat the components of your psyche as real entities that you
can interact with, they will respond to you in that way, which gives you tremendous power for transformation.
Roles
Each part has a role to play in your life; it brings a quality to your psyche and your actions in the world. Some
parts govern the way you handle practical tasks in your life. Some protect against external threats or internal
pain. Some are open and friendly with people. Many parts perform roles that are healthy and functional.
In IFS, an extreme role amounts to any action, feeling or thought that is dysfunctional, causing problems in your
life. There are two kinds of extreme parts—protectors and exiles.
Protectors
The job of protectors is to protect you from feeling pain. They try to arrange your life and your psyche so that
you are always in a kind of comfort zone and you never feel hurt, shame, or fear.
Some protectors block off pain that is arising inside you so that you can’t feel it at all. Others try to arrange your
external world so that nothing happens to trigger pain in the first place. Protectors are the parts you usually
encounter first when exploring yourself because they are most accessible to everyday consciousness.
Even though protectors are ostensibly focused on your current life, most of them are strongly influenced by
events and relationships from your childhood. In standard psychological language, these protectors are called
“defenses.”
Some protectors criticize you and control you to try to make you into a “good boy or girl,” or they may push you
to be productive and successful so no one can have reason to judge you. Some protectors help you be
successful or popular to build up your confidence and self-esteem. They see a hole deep inside you where you
feel deficient, and they want to compensate for it with accolades from others.
Exiles
Exiles are young child parts that are in pain from the past. They are the ones the protectors are trying to protect
us from. Exiles are often stuck at a particular time in childhood, at a specific age. They are frozen at that time
because something difficult or traumatic happened then, and you didn’t have the inner resources or the external
support to handle it. Exiles often take on the beliefs or the feeling tone of your family and can also be affected
strongly by incidents that were beyond your family’s control.
Whatever the cause, exiles can exhibit a wide variety of painful emotions. Some feel lonely and abandoned,
others abused or betrayed. In addition to painful emotions, exiles have negative beliefs about you and about the
world. You might have one that believes you are intrinsically unlovable and no one will want to be close to you.
There are exiles who believe that the world is intrinsically dangerous. These are global viewpoints that cannot
be pierced by logic. Because exiles hold pain from your past, they are pushed away by protectors. Whenever
something happens in the present that is similar, it reactivates that pain, which comes bubbling up toward the
surface. Then your protectors go into high gear to prevent you from having to feel it. Exiles aren’t always kept
hidden. Sometimes they take over our consciousness despite the protectors. Then we may feel sadness, fear,
shame, insecurity, or need, like a child.
The Self
Our true Self is mature and loving, and has the capacity to heal and integrate our parts. The Self is so much
larger and more spacious than our parts and is not frightened by events that would scare them. The Self has the
strength and clarity to function well in the world and connect with other people. Most of us have had glimpses of
the Self, experiences that give us an idea of what is possible. However, our extreme parts are frequently so
prevalent that they obscure it.
, Here are four qualities of the Self that are particularly important
for psychological healing.
1. The Self is connected. When you are in Self, you naturally feel close to other people and want to relate
in harmonious, supportive ways.
2. The Self is curious. When you are in Self, you are curious about other people in an open, accepting way.
3. The Self is compassionate. You naturally feel compassion for others as well as yourself.
4. The Self is calm, centered, and grounded. When you are centered in the calmness of Self, there is no
need to avoid a part with intense affect. You remain in Self while the part shows you its pain.
The Structure of the Psyche
Because of pain and trauma in our lives, and especially in childhood, our parts have taken over and shoved the
Self into the background. There are two goals for IFS therapy: one, heal your parts so that their extreme roles
are converted to healthy roles, and two, help them to cooperate with each other under the leadership of the Self.
PART I: SELF AND PROTECTORS
Protectors are important in themselves. Since exiles are pushed into the background, it is the protectors that are
out front relating to people and acting in the world. It isn’t enough to heal our exiles; our protectors must also be
healed and transformed so they can drop their defensive roles.
Consequently, most IFS sessions start by focusing on a protector The main reason is that it isn’t appropriate to
work with an exile until we have permission from any protectors who might not approve.
The process of getting to know a protector are:
1. Access a number of protectors and then choose one to focus on, called the target part.
2. You inhabit Self and get to know this protector, finding out its positive intent for you.
3. You establish a trusting relationship with the protector and understand what it is trying to protect you
from.
This sets the stage for further work with the protector or for healing the exile it is protecting.
Here are the five steps in getting to know a protector, labeled P1-P5. “P” stands for protector.
P1: Accessing a part
P2: Unblending from the target part
P3: Unblending from a concerned part
P4: Discovering a protector’s role
P5: Developing a trusting relationship with a protector
CHAPTER 4. GETTING ACQUAINTED INSIDE: ACCESSING YOUR PARTS
Trailheads
A trailhead is an experience or a difficulty in your life that will lead to interesting parts if you follow it. It can be a
situation or person that you react to, an emotional or bodily experience, a pattern of behavior or thinking, a
dream, or anything else that indicates parts to explore. We call it a trailhead because it is the beginning of a trail
that can lead to healing. It usually involves both a life situation and your response to that situation.
A trailhead indicates the presence of a part (or parts) in an extreme role,
where your behavior or emotional reaction is dysfunctional or problematic.
A part might
1. Misperceive the situation 3. Take action that is extreme or
2. Overreact emotionally inappropriate
When you are at a trailhead, there is at least one part activated and often more than one. For example, when I
am in a large group of strangers, I have at least three parts activated: one that is scared of being hurt, another
, part that wants to withdraw to protect me, and a third part that wants to reach out and talk to people despite the
fear.
Identifying the Parts at a Trailhead
By examining your experience and behavior you can make an initial identification of the parts, that are involved in
any trailhead you want to explore. There will also be parts that determine the way you behave in that situation:
• Feelings. You are likely to have at least one emotional reaction to the trailhead situation, perhaps more
than one.
• Body Sensations. Most body sensations are related to parts. In addition, if there is a deadness or lack of
feeling in your body (or a part of your body), that is also caused by a part that doesn’t want you to feel.
• Thoughts. Even the absence of thought sometimes indicates a part.
• Behavior. An action or pattern of behavior can indicate a part—for example, withdrawing or becoming
pushy.
• Desire
Step P1: Accessing a Part
You begin an IFS session by accessing a part that you believe will be helpful to work with. It is recommended to
cut down any distractions and to focus completely (even you can close your eyes) on the protector you are
accessing.
Go inside and contact it experientially . There are a variety of internal channels for accessing a part:
• Feelings. You feel the emotion, attitude, or desire that characterizes the part, giving you a felt sense of it.
• Body Sensations. You sense the bodily experience that goes with the part.
• Images. This may arise spontaneously, or you may look for an image that represents the part. This could
be an image of yourself with a certain body stance or expression. It could also be an image of a famous
person, a cartoon character, a mythical figure, or an animal.
• Internal Voice. You hear the part speaking words silently inside. It might be speaking to you or to someone
in your life, or even to another part.
Sometimes the body sensation or image that you access isn’t very clear at first. That is fine; it just means that you
haven’t fully accessed the part. You may find that certain channels are easy and natural for you, and others are
more difficult.
Activation of Parts
How you access a part depends on whether or not it is activated at the moment. At any given moment, there are
one or more parts that are activated because of a situation you are in or are thinking about.
Activation and Access
Access is like shining the flashlight of consciousness on that part. A good way to activate a part is to remember a
recent time when it was activated and imagine that you are in that situation now. Notice what you feel inside as
you imagine this, and also pay attention to images or voices. Activating a part in this purposeful way won’t trigger
it as fully as an external situation will, but it will activate it enough that you can access it. Sometimes it is actually
easier to work with a part when it doesn’t start out activated because the part’s emotions won’t be so intense that
they flood you.
Accessing Parts from Current Experience
Sometimes you don’t have a clear idea of what part to work with. You may be feeling something at the moment
that seems important to explore, but you aren’t clear about exactly which emotions or experiences are there.
Frequently there is more than one part activated at any given time, so it is helpful to get a map of the territory by
exploring your current experience to identify all the parts that are up. Then you can choose one to work with
further.
INTRODUCTION __________________________________________________________________________________ 3
CHAPTER 1. PERSONAL HEALING AND GROWTH THE IFS WAY ________________________________________ 3
Positive Intent ________________________________________________________________________________ 3
Who Can Benefit from the Book __________________________________________________________________ 3
Safety _______________________________________________________________________________________ 3
CHAPTER 2. YOUR INTERNAL SYSTEM: SUMMARY OF THE IFS MODEL _________________________________ 4
Roles _______________________________________________________________________________________ 4
Protectors ____________________________________________________________________________________ 4
Exiles _______________________________________________________________________________________ 4
The Self _____________________________________________________________________________________ 4
The Structure of the Psyche _____________________________________________________________________ 5
PART I: SELF AND PROTECTORS ___________________________________________________________________ 5
CHAPTER 4. GETTING ACQUAINTED INSIDE: ACCESSING YOUR PARTS ________________________________ 5
Trailheads ___________________________________________________________________________________ 5
Step P1: Accessing a Part _______________________________________________________________________ 6
Activation of Parts _____________________________________________________________________________ 6
Activation and Access __________________________________________________________________________ 6
Accessing Parts from Current Experience ___________________________________________________________ 6
Accessing Parts from a Trailhead _________________________________________________________________ 7
Focusing on a Target Part _______________________________________________________________________ 7
Noticing a Part in Real Time _____________________________________________________________________ 7
CHAPTER 5. BECOMING CENTERED: UNBLENDING FROM A PROTECTOR _______________________________ 7
The Seat of Consciousness ______________________________________________________________________ 7
Blending _____________________________________________________________________________________ 7
Requirements for Getting to Know a Protector _______________________________________________________ 8
Step P2: Checking for Blending ___________________________________________________________________ 8
Asking the Part to Separate ______________________________________________________________________ 8
Other Ways to Unblend _________________________________________________________________________ 8
Noticing When You Are Blended __________________________________________________________________ 9
CHAPTER 6. BEING OPEN AND CURIOUS: UNBLENDING FROM A CONCERNED PART _____________________ 9
Step P3: Checking to See if You Are in Self _________________________________________________________ 9
Concerned Parts ______________________________________________________________________________ 9
Step P3: Unblending from a Concerned Part _______________________________________________________ 10
What to Do if the Concerned Part Won’t Step Aside __________________________________________________ 10
Other Types of Concerned Parts _________________________________________________________________ 10
Help Sheet 1: Getting to Know a Protector _________________________________________________________ 10
CHAPTER 7. KNOWING YOURSELF: DISCOVERING A PROTECTOR’S ROLE _____________________________ 11
Step P4: Discovering a Protector’s Role ___________________________________________________________ 11
A Protector’s Positive Intent_____________________________________________________________________ 12
Two Kinds of Protection ________________________________________________________________________ 13
Ending an IFS Session ________________________________________________________________________ 13
Finding Out about Protectors in Real Time _________________________________________________________ 13
CHAPTER 8. BEFRIENDING YOURSELF: DEVELOPING A TRUSTING RELATIONSHIP WITH A PROTECTOR ___ 13
Trusting the Self ______________________________________________________________________________ 13
Step P5: Developing a Trusting Relationship with a Protector __________________________________________ 13
Helping the Part to Be Aware of You ______________________________________________________________ 14
When a Part Doesn’t Relate to You _______________________________________________________________ 14
When a Part Doesn’t Trust You __________________________________________________________________ 14
Helping a Protector to Relax in Real Time _________________________________________________________ 14
CHAPTER 9. KEEPING SESSIONS ON TRACK: DETECTING PARTS THAT ARISE __________________________ 15
Detecting Judgmental Parts _____________________________________________________________________ 15
Detecting Avoiders ____________________________________________________________________________ 15
Detecting Intellectualizers ______________________________________________________________________ 15
Detecting Impatient Parts ______________________________________________________________________ 16
Detecting Inadequate Parts _____________________________________________________________________ 16
, Detecting Skeptics ____________________________________________________________________________ 16
Detecting Exiles ______________________________________________________________________________ 16
Dissociation and Addictive Behavior ______________________________________________________________ 16
Keeping Track of Your Thread ___________________________________________________________________ 17
Changing Target Parts _________________________________________________________________________ 17
How to Tell One Part from Another _______________________________________________________________ 17
Dealing with Overwhelm _______________________________________________________________________ 17
Continuing Work in a Subsequent Session _________________________________________________________ 17
PART II: EXILES AND UNBURDENING ______________________________________________________________ 18
Be Careful __________________________________________________________________________________ 18
Steps in Healing an Exile _______________________________________________________________________ 18
CHAPTER 10. BEING ALLOWED IN: GETTING PERMISSION TO WORK WITH AN EXILE_____________________ 18
How to Discover the Exile Being Protected _________________________________________________________ 18
Step 2: Asking Permission ______________________________________________________________________ 19
Addressing the Protector’s Fears ________________________________________________________________ 19
CHAPTER 11. UNCOVERING YOUR PAIN: GETTING TO KNOW AN EXILE ________________________________ 20
When an Exile Gets Activated ___________________________________________________________________ 20
Step E1: Accessing an Exile ____________________________________________________________________ 20
Step E2: Unblending from an Exile _______________________________________________________________ 21
Conscious Blending ___________________________________________________________________________ 21
Step E3: Unblending from Concerned Parts ________________________________________________________ 21
The Importance of Compassion__________________________________________________________________ 22
Steps E4 & E5: Learning about an Exile and Developing a Trusting Relationship with It ______________________ 22
Help Sheet 2: Getting to Know an Exile ___________________________________________________________ 22
CHAPTER 12. FINDING WHERE IT STARTED: ACCESSING AND WITNESSING CHILDHOOD MEMORIES ______ 23
Metabolizing Childhood Experiences______________________________________________________________ 23
Step 4: Accessing the Childhood Origin ___________________________________________________________ 23
Types of Memories ___________________________________________________________________________ 24
Witnessing the Childhood Origin _________________________________________________________________ 24
Feeling Understood ___________________________________________________________________________ 24
Benefits of Witnessing _________________________________________________________________________ 24
CHAPTER 13. CARING FOR AN INNER CHILD. REPARENTING AND RETRIEVING AN EXILE _____________________________ 24
Step 5: Reparenting an Exile ____________________________________________________________________ 25
Step 6: Retrieving an Exile _____________________________________________________________________ 26
Help Sheet 3: Healing an Exile __________________________________________________________________ 26
Follow-Up Reparenting with an Exile ______________________________________________________________ 27
CHAPTER 14. HEALING A W OUNDED CHILD. UNBURDENING AN EXILE __________________________________________ 27
The Origins of Parts and Burdens ________________________________________________________________ 27
Step 7: Unburdening __________________________________________________________________________ 27
CHAPTER 15. TRANSFORMING A PROTECTIVE ROLE INTO A HEALTHY ONE. UNBURDENING A PROTECTOR 29
Checking with the Protector _____________________________________________________________________ 29
Step 8: Releasing the Protective Role _____________________________________________________________ 29
CHAPTER 16. SUPPORTING THE THERAPY PROCESS. TIPS ON WORKING ALONE, WITH A PARTNER, OR WITH
A THERAPIST _________________________________________________________________________________ 30
Tips on Working with a Partner __________________________________________________________________ 30
Responsibility for the Work _____________________________________________________________________ 30
Stage 1: The Silent Witness ____________________________________________________________________ 30
Stage 2: Active Listening _______________________________________________________________________ 30
Stage 3: Full Facilitation _______________________________________________________________________ 31
Tips on Working Alone _________________________________________________________________________ 31
Tips on Working with a Therapist ________________________________________________________________ 32
CHAPTER 17. CONCLUSION _____________________________________________________________________ 32
Using IFS Professionally _______________________________________________________________________ 32
Polarization _________________________________________________________________________________ 32
IFS with Couples _____________________________________________________________________________ 32
IFS with Groups, Families, and Organizations ______________________________________________________ 32
, INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER 1. PERSONAL HEALING AND GROWTH THE IFS WAY
This book is based on a form of psychotherapy called Internal Family System Therapy (IFS). The emotions and
desires come from parts of us, sometimes called “subpersonalities.” These “parts,” as they are known in IFS,
have their own motivations, feeling and views of the world, which try to protect us in their own (distorted) ways.
It’s important that we don’t try to fight against because they could fight back too, but embrace them.
Unlike many forms of therapy, IFS doesn’t pathologize people. It recognizes that we have the resources within
us to solve our problems, though these resources may be blocked because of unconscious reactions to events
in the past.
These parts inside us are frequently shifting and changing. One of them takes over for a while, and we act and
feel a certain way. Usually we view these changes as no more than slight shifts in mood or perspective, but, in
fact, each shift marks the emergence of an entirely new subpersonality. The Self is the key to healing and
integrating our parts through its compassion, curiosity, and connectedness.
Positive Intent
Every part has a positive intent for you. Some parts keep us stuck in negative patterns and have a destructive
impact on our lives, they may have a distorted perception of situations and an exaggerated sense of danger, but
their intent is always positive. Many parts know only one way to act, which may be something that worked fairly
well in your family forty years ago when you were a child. However, in today’s adult world, this strategy is
ineffective, short-sighted, or immature. In IFS we welcome all our parts with curiosity and compassion. We
develop a relationship of caring and trust with each part, and then take steps to heal it so it can function in a
healthy way.
If you have psychological issues that are deep seated or if you want comprehensive personality transformation,
the work will take longer— possibly a year or two.
Who Can Benefit from the Book
Self-Therapy might be helpful to:
1. People who want to work through a wide variety of troubling personal issues—low self-esteem,
procrastination, anxiety, shyness, depression, isolation, and so on.
2. People looking for personal growth of various kinds. It can help you increase confidence, accelerate your
career success, deepen your ability to relate to others, enhance your intimacy, and develop your spiritual
awareness.
3. People who are considering entering therapy, so then you can decide whether to choose an IFS therapist
to work with.
4. People who have had bad experiences in psychotherapy and are reluctant to try again.
5. People who can’t be in therapy
6. People who are in therapy with an IFS therapist
7. Psychotherapists
8. IFS therapists
Safety
This book is not a substitute for psychotherapy. Some people have experienced so much pain and trauma in
their lives that their internal systems are sensitive, reactive, chaotic, unstable, or strongly conflicted; doing IFS
work could trigger intense emotional or physical reactions. If you sense that responses like this could happen
to you, it probably isn’t safe for you to use IFS without the guidance of a psychotherapist.
,CHAPTER 2. YOUR INTERNAL SYSTEM: SUMMARY OF THE IFS MODEL
Parts, or subpersonalities are alive and personal. They do what they do for reasons of their own, and they have
relationships with you and with each other. IFS recognizes that a protective part is purposely excluding that
memory from your awareness for a reason. If you treat the components of your psyche as real entities that you
can interact with, they will respond to you in that way, which gives you tremendous power for transformation.
Roles
Each part has a role to play in your life; it brings a quality to your psyche and your actions in the world. Some
parts govern the way you handle practical tasks in your life. Some protect against external threats or internal
pain. Some are open and friendly with people. Many parts perform roles that are healthy and functional.
In IFS, an extreme role amounts to any action, feeling or thought that is dysfunctional, causing problems in your
life. There are two kinds of extreme parts—protectors and exiles.
Protectors
The job of protectors is to protect you from feeling pain. They try to arrange your life and your psyche so that
you are always in a kind of comfort zone and you never feel hurt, shame, or fear.
Some protectors block off pain that is arising inside you so that you can’t feel it at all. Others try to arrange your
external world so that nothing happens to trigger pain in the first place. Protectors are the parts you usually
encounter first when exploring yourself because they are most accessible to everyday consciousness.
Even though protectors are ostensibly focused on your current life, most of them are strongly influenced by
events and relationships from your childhood. In standard psychological language, these protectors are called
“defenses.”
Some protectors criticize you and control you to try to make you into a “good boy or girl,” or they may push you
to be productive and successful so no one can have reason to judge you. Some protectors help you be
successful or popular to build up your confidence and self-esteem. They see a hole deep inside you where you
feel deficient, and they want to compensate for it with accolades from others.
Exiles
Exiles are young child parts that are in pain from the past. They are the ones the protectors are trying to protect
us from. Exiles are often stuck at a particular time in childhood, at a specific age. They are frozen at that time
because something difficult or traumatic happened then, and you didn’t have the inner resources or the external
support to handle it. Exiles often take on the beliefs or the feeling tone of your family and can also be affected
strongly by incidents that were beyond your family’s control.
Whatever the cause, exiles can exhibit a wide variety of painful emotions. Some feel lonely and abandoned,
others abused or betrayed. In addition to painful emotions, exiles have negative beliefs about you and about the
world. You might have one that believes you are intrinsically unlovable and no one will want to be close to you.
There are exiles who believe that the world is intrinsically dangerous. These are global viewpoints that cannot
be pierced by logic. Because exiles hold pain from your past, they are pushed away by protectors. Whenever
something happens in the present that is similar, it reactivates that pain, which comes bubbling up toward the
surface. Then your protectors go into high gear to prevent you from having to feel it. Exiles aren’t always kept
hidden. Sometimes they take over our consciousness despite the protectors. Then we may feel sadness, fear,
shame, insecurity, or need, like a child.
The Self
Our true Self is mature and loving, and has the capacity to heal and integrate our parts. The Self is so much
larger and more spacious than our parts and is not frightened by events that would scare them. The Self has the
strength and clarity to function well in the world and connect with other people. Most of us have had glimpses of
the Self, experiences that give us an idea of what is possible. However, our extreme parts are frequently so
prevalent that they obscure it.
, Here are four qualities of the Self that are particularly important
for psychological healing.
1. The Self is connected. When you are in Self, you naturally feel close to other people and want to relate
in harmonious, supportive ways.
2. The Self is curious. When you are in Self, you are curious about other people in an open, accepting way.
3. The Self is compassionate. You naturally feel compassion for others as well as yourself.
4. The Self is calm, centered, and grounded. When you are centered in the calmness of Self, there is no
need to avoid a part with intense affect. You remain in Self while the part shows you its pain.
The Structure of the Psyche
Because of pain and trauma in our lives, and especially in childhood, our parts have taken over and shoved the
Self into the background. There are two goals for IFS therapy: one, heal your parts so that their extreme roles
are converted to healthy roles, and two, help them to cooperate with each other under the leadership of the Self.
PART I: SELF AND PROTECTORS
Protectors are important in themselves. Since exiles are pushed into the background, it is the protectors that are
out front relating to people and acting in the world. It isn’t enough to heal our exiles; our protectors must also be
healed and transformed so they can drop their defensive roles.
Consequently, most IFS sessions start by focusing on a protector The main reason is that it isn’t appropriate to
work with an exile until we have permission from any protectors who might not approve.
The process of getting to know a protector are:
1. Access a number of protectors and then choose one to focus on, called the target part.
2. You inhabit Self and get to know this protector, finding out its positive intent for you.
3. You establish a trusting relationship with the protector and understand what it is trying to protect you
from.
This sets the stage for further work with the protector or for healing the exile it is protecting.
Here are the five steps in getting to know a protector, labeled P1-P5. “P” stands for protector.
P1: Accessing a part
P2: Unblending from the target part
P3: Unblending from a concerned part
P4: Discovering a protector’s role
P5: Developing a trusting relationship with a protector
CHAPTER 4. GETTING ACQUAINTED INSIDE: ACCESSING YOUR PARTS
Trailheads
A trailhead is an experience or a difficulty in your life that will lead to interesting parts if you follow it. It can be a
situation or person that you react to, an emotional or bodily experience, a pattern of behavior or thinking, a
dream, or anything else that indicates parts to explore. We call it a trailhead because it is the beginning of a trail
that can lead to healing. It usually involves both a life situation and your response to that situation.
A trailhead indicates the presence of a part (or parts) in an extreme role,
where your behavior or emotional reaction is dysfunctional or problematic.
A part might
1. Misperceive the situation 3. Take action that is extreme or
2. Overreact emotionally inappropriate
When you are at a trailhead, there is at least one part activated and often more than one. For example, when I
am in a large group of strangers, I have at least three parts activated: one that is scared of being hurt, another
, part that wants to withdraw to protect me, and a third part that wants to reach out and talk to people despite the
fear.
Identifying the Parts at a Trailhead
By examining your experience and behavior you can make an initial identification of the parts, that are involved in
any trailhead you want to explore. There will also be parts that determine the way you behave in that situation:
• Feelings. You are likely to have at least one emotional reaction to the trailhead situation, perhaps more
than one.
• Body Sensations. Most body sensations are related to parts. In addition, if there is a deadness or lack of
feeling in your body (or a part of your body), that is also caused by a part that doesn’t want you to feel.
• Thoughts. Even the absence of thought sometimes indicates a part.
• Behavior. An action or pattern of behavior can indicate a part—for example, withdrawing or becoming
pushy.
• Desire
Step P1: Accessing a Part
You begin an IFS session by accessing a part that you believe will be helpful to work with. It is recommended to
cut down any distractions and to focus completely (even you can close your eyes) on the protector you are
accessing.
Go inside and contact it experientially . There are a variety of internal channels for accessing a part:
• Feelings. You feel the emotion, attitude, or desire that characterizes the part, giving you a felt sense of it.
• Body Sensations. You sense the bodily experience that goes with the part.
• Images. This may arise spontaneously, or you may look for an image that represents the part. This could
be an image of yourself with a certain body stance or expression. It could also be an image of a famous
person, a cartoon character, a mythical figure, or an animal.
• Internal Voice. You hear the part speaking words silently inside. It might be speaking to you or to someone
in your life, or even to another part.
Sometimes the body sensation or image that you access isn’t very clear at first. That is fine; it just means that you
haven’t fully accessed the part. You may find that certain channels are easy and natural for you, and others are
more difficult.
Activation of Parts
How you access a part depends on whether or not it is activated at the moment. At any given moment, there are
one or more parts that are activated because of a situation you are in or are thinking about.
Activation and Access
Access is like shining the flashlight of consciousness on that part. A good way to activate a part is to remember a
recent time when it was activated and imagine that you are in that situation now. Notice what you feel inside as
you imagine this, and also pay attention to images or voices. Activating a part in this purposeful way won’t trigger
it as fully as an external situation will, but it will activate it enough that you can access it. Sometimes it is actually
easier to work with a part when it doesn’t start out activated because the part’s emotions won’t be so intense that
they flood you.
Accessing Parts from Current Experience
Sometimes you don’t have a clear idea of what part to work with. You may be feeling something at the moment
that seems important to explore, but you aren’t clear about exactly which emotions or experiences are there.
Frequently there is more than one part activated at any given time, so it is helpful to get a map of the territory by
exploring your current experience to identify all the parts that are up. Then you can choose one to work with
further.
