INTERNAL FAMILY SYSTEMS THERAPY
SELF-LEADERSHIP
These parts were often polarized and antagonistic with each other. One part would "take over" the person, influencing their emotions and behavior in ways that made the person feel out of control. They often felt confused about who they were and what they wanted. For instance, he reports that his bulimic clients often talked about having a part of themselves that yearned to starve herself until she could disappear, while another part felt tremendous shame about the purging and yearned to be free of this behavior. The clients reported that they felt tortured by the chaos of this inner battle and felt helpless to do anything about it.
Schwartz began to speak with interest, empathy, and curiosity to the individual parts. He would ask other parts not to interfere as one of the individual part was invited to give its perspective on the situation at hand. He treated the "internal family" much as he had learned to do in working with external families. Each family member was treated with respect and allowed to have a voice that was listened to without interference. As he did this, he began to see and understand that a person's parts were arranged in certain predictable patterns that emerged to protect the person from feeling out of control and overwhelmed by feelings of vulnerability and helplessness.
Schwartz designated three categories of Parts that he observed function in consistent ways across people:
1. EXILES: Young, vulnerable aspects of a person that carry memories of experiences of trauma, emotional pain, helplessness, shame, humiliation, and the physical sensations of abuse. These parts can be extremely desperate if triggered, and they are most often stuck in the past, without access to current adult strengths or current time orientation. These parts are isolated from the rest of the system by the two other categories of parts for their own and the system's protection.
2. MANAGERS: These parts run the day-to-day life of the person, trying to keep Exiles exiled by maintaining control of the person's inner and outer environments. Managers often attempt to maintain this control by being perfectionistic, pleasing, being caretakers, scaring the person out of taking risks by criticizing them, making them apathetic, excessively worrying, and warning the person not to get too close or dependent on other people. Managers are often very harsh critics in an attempt to keep the vulnerable child parts (Exiles) from being activated.
3. FIREFIGHTERS: These parts can react in very extreme ways when Exiles are activated. At first they try to soothe the exiles. When that fails they become more desperate and dramatic. They are called "Firefighters" to underline the urgency with which they rush in to "extinguish" the fire of the emotional responses of the Exiles. Common firefighter activities include: watching TV, reading for escape, eating, to the more extreme, drug or alcohol use, self-mutilation (cutting), any compulsive activity such as binge-eating, purging, sex binges, suicidal thoughts and actions, and rage. These parts have the same goals as managers (to keep the Exiles exiled), but they use more extreme and impulsive strategies.
Both Managers and Firefighters function as "Protectors" in that they seek to shield the person from experiencing overwhelming vulnerability, as was experienced when the person was a child, when they had no resources with which to protect him/herself.
THE SELF: In addition to the Protectors (Managers and Firefighters), and the Exiles they protect, IFS discriminates another aspect to a person that is a different level of entity than the Parts. Schwartz refers to this aspect of the person as the Self, which he describes as "the seat of consciousness", the center or core of a person that contains crucial leadership qualities like perspective, confidence, compassion, curiosity, and acceptance.
The goal of IFS therapy is to differentiate the Self from the parts, releasing the resources and capacities of the Self to both lead the internal family of parts as well as help the parts heal their past by releasing the "burdens" they carry that keep them in extreme and nonadaptive roles. IFS holds that every person is a Self, and that the Self became inaccessible as the Parts took over to protect the person from harm and humiliation during childhood. Initially, the Parts are unaware of Self and are locked into their partial and extreme views that arose out of childhood experiences of vulnerability. As the parts begin to discover the resourcefulness of the Self, they begin to trust the Self's leadership and gradually relinquish their extreme postures/roles.
People are able to have dramatic changes out of the shifts of perspective that the system allows. They are able to let go of long-standing negative self beliefs and identifications, and then change behaviors. Having a new understanding of the managers and firefighters enable them to forgive themselves for things they'd hated about themselves. Understanding and compasion, instead of self-hatred, follow. And then learning to authentically take care of the exiles, learning that the exiles will only heal with authentic/Self care, elegantly completes the picture.
People are able to have dramatic changes out of the shifts of perspective that the system allows. They are able to let go of long-standing negative self beliefs and identifications, and then change behaviors. Having a new understanding of the managers and firefighters enable them to forgive themselves for things they'd hated about themselves. Understanding and compasion, instead of self-hatred, follow. And then learning to authentically take care of the exiles, learning that the exiles will only heal with authentic/Self care, elegantly completes the picture.
