By Jennifer Lee Stein • Photos by Linda Lawson
Psychotherapy has undergone massive shifts and transformations since its inception in the early 20th century. By the 1980s, modalities such as cognitive, psychodynamic, and dialectical behavioral therapies were firmly planted as the gold-standard of the field.
Meanwhile, out in the Midwest, a therapeutic model started to percolate that would, nearly 40 years later, undergo exponential growth and be considered the revolutionary paradigm shift in the world of psychotherapy. This model goes by the name of Internal Family Systems therapy (IFS) and it is popping up wherever you go.
There are various reasons why IFS is exploding right now. One is that it works. The founder of IFS, Dr. Richard Schwartz, notes that he sees himself as a “hope merchant,” and that if you want to find relief, healing, and emotional freedom, this is a path that offers deliverance.
There are two prominent aspects of IFS that are important to understand: First, the recognition of the multiplicity of the mind. People naturally speak this way, “a part of me wants to stay, a part of me wants to go.” If you’ve ever noticed your seemingly contradictory feelings, opinions, and behaviors, you’re in the company of billions of people. Our minds are multiple!
The other aspect that completely shifts the narrative is the concept of Self. Schwartz describes happening upon “Self” as he worked with clients at University of Illinois at Chicago in the 1980s. His clients were dealing with bulimia and self-harm, and they would, at times, talk about these “parts” inside that were often in direct conflict or allied with one another. Having been trained as a family therapist, he began to wonder if, internally, we all had a constellation of “parts” that, when out of balance, behaved like a dysfunctional external family. As Schwartz explains, he learned from his patients that their parts indeed formed internal networks that resembled family relationships, hence the name Internal Family Systems. Schwartz found that when clients were able to mindfully separate from, but remain in relationship with their parts, a state of being characterized by compassion, clarity, curiosity, and confidence emerged that he called Self, and that Self inherently could allow the spaciousness necessary for the healing of clients’ parts to occur.
As a basic roadmap of parts, there are two main camps: exiles and protectors. Exiles are parts of us that are usually very young and vulnerable, and often frozen in the past when trauma or other difficulties occurred. Because we don’t know what to do with that distress, especially at a young age, our systems unconsciously banish these parts to the further reaches of our psyche so that we can operate and function without being overwhelmed by feelings of worthlessness, sadness, or shame. The guardians, or protective parts, develop to ensure that the system is not overwhelmed by the exile’s emotions. There are two kinds of protective parts: managers are the parts that proactively look for ways to control external situations so that the exile does not get activated: these are usually anxious parts, obsessive parts, very organized parts that may need to clean, plan, control. Manager parts work to prevent further pain from entering the system and adding to the emotional “load” of the exiles that they protect. Inevitably, however, managers cannot control everything, and so the exile’s deep pain gets activated, and a “firefighter” part may step in to put out the flames of emotion. Some firefighter activities include over drinking, sleeping or eating, binging (with food, television/video games and other substances), shopping, etc.; these parts are often seen to be impulsive but tend to do their jobs in more reactive ways. When any of our parts are unburdened from these roles, they have wonderful qualities that they aren’t able to express until released from their duties.
I spoke with Tanis Allen, a licensed clinical social worker and IFS therapist, about the modality. Allen was one of a handful of Michigan IFS therapists who started learning about the model in the 1990s and trained with Richard Schwartz.
Jennifer Stein: How did you find IFS?
Tanis Allen: I was a medical social worker at St. Joseph Mercy Hospital, and a local therapist by the name of Jane Fink, who was training directly with Dick Schwartz in Chicago at the time, had been invited by our social work department to provide a continuing education session. I became absolutely intrigued by the model after this introduction, and shortly after that, Jane also invited Dick Schwartz to come to Ann Arbor to do an introductory workshop and another in-depth workshop a year or so later. I attended those and was completely hooked after that. That was, I want to say, about 1995. At that point, nobody knew about IFS, it was in its infancy.
Jennifer Stein: What was it that hooked you?
Tanis Allen: As many people say about this model now, it was that it just felt natural to me. It is very common for anyone to say: “there’s a part of me that feels like this and another part that feels completely differently.” It just made a lot of sense to me. And it was totally intriguing. I held onto that.
Jennifer Stein: Can you describe the process of IFS?
Tanis Allen: The bottom line with IFS is that it’s all about non-pathologizing whatever is presented to you as a therapist. It is about normalizing and validating all behaviors and feelings—in IFS we call those parts. Whereas, in the regular medical model, or institutionalized ways of approaching behavior management or mental health care, the focus tends to be on the management of symptoms, particularly if we talk about something like an eating disorder, severe depression or anxiety, or other addictions. With an eating disorder, it’s all about making sure the person eats if they are anorexic or doesn’t purge if they are bulimic. So, IFS takes a completely different view of that process—which is to actually invite the restrictor, in an eating disorder situation, to talk about what it feels like its job is. What it’s trying to do for that person. It’s a completely different perspective. Same with a binger, a purger, a depressed, anxious, obsessive, or highly critical part. All of these are considered to be parts that are doing something very important for the person. IFS is all about being open to what that’s about and what might be underneath it. In the IFS community, the phrase “all parts are welcome” is used to illustrate the framework of the model as inviting and allowing all parts of us to speak their truth and to be our teachers in coming to understand the internal dynamics that are individual to each person and situation.
JS: What happens to parts when you’re open to them?
TA: They’re pretty surprised at first, actually, because generally they’re not invited into the room. Typically, in other approaches to mental and behavioral health, it’s all about managing them, and getting them to stop a target behavior if possible. So, it’s pretty incredible to be with someone and say, “let’s get to know this part of you that feels that it’s so important that you not eat or feels that it has to make you binge. Let’s hang out with that. Let’s see what we can understand from that one’s point of view rather than saying, “you can’t be doing that.” This is generally what people in that circumstance are met with in their families or out in the world. So, it’s surprise and appreciation that some acknowledgement is being made that these parts are in fact trying to help…and when welcomed in this way these parts actually have incredible wisdom which they can share with us.
JS: What is your experience and understanding of Self and Self-energy?
TA: Usually I think about it in terms of being our “best self,” or the “core” of us that is not one of these parts that we were just talking about. The notion of Self is what really sets IFS apart from many other models that work with parts. Self is that within us that can be present to our parts in a loving, open, compassionate way—that actually acts like an internal therapist and a loving, involved witness. This is the piece that really drew me to this work, because it takes the therapist out of the expert role and places the therapist very firmly in the facilitator or consultant role, which is incredibly empowering for people. Because once Self-energy can be tapped into, once that place or energy can be experienced, then deep healing can occur. It doesn’t happen without that, really.
JS: What has been a significant experience of Self for you?
TA: There have been many of those. It feels to me that working with Self-energy is a practice of being in relationship with and present to your parts as consistently as possible. I would say for me and most other IFS therapists that I know, especially if they’ve been doing this for a long time, that Self is in everything that I do. It’s very much about your connection spiritually as well—the way I often describe Self to people, and this does tend to depend on their own spiritual approach to things, but for me it has always felt like Self is the “divine spark” within each of us and is that which connects us to the bigger Self-energy that’s out there in whatever belief system that we might have. That has been my experience of Self…It kind of boils down to faith, and not faith in a religious sense, but faith that I know my Self is always there—even if I (or my parts) can’t see it or feel it in the moment—I know it. And so having that kind of faith and trust in your internal workings is a really big deal. This is a way of life, and the way we find our way through, and it’s just been an incredible gift to me in my life personally because of that.
JS: How has IFS changed your relationships?
TA: It has greatly impacted how I view and function in all of my relationships. In a relationship, what we often do, particularly when there is conflict, is to point at the other person and say (out loud or just to ourselves), “Well, you’re the problem.” What’s great about IFS is that, when you’re looking at any relationship, but particularly in an intimate partnership, it’s all about kind of doing this U-turn into yourself. You have to be with your own internal conflict: what’s going on with your own parts first and do your best from as much of a Self-led place as you can to communicate that to your partner, and that changes things pretty dramatically. This isn’t to say there aren’t any fights, but it makes communication very different from what it otherwise might look like. This kind of turn-around can bring in much more compassion, true connection, curiosity, and for me, humor, which has been very healing in my own system and my relationships. It’s an internal knowing that, “okay, here’s what’s happening with me right now; what do I need to do to take care of my own parts and maybe communicate for them in some way? (Rather than from them, which usually never goes all that well.)
JS: So, communicate for them and not from them? That seems key.
TA: It’s very, very important and is one of the foundational pieces of the model.
JS: Because there’s more Self there?
TA: Yes, it’s like Self is fielding the reaction first and can be the mouthpiece for our parts that need to express something important (to both ourselves and the other person). So, rather than saying something like, “You are so messy, you’re driving me crazy,” it would be switching that around to, “There’s a part of me that gets so frustrated by the mess in the kitchen.” It sounds like just a semantic shift, but when you’re in the thick of it, it is very different. I’ve done a fair amount of couples’ work with IFS, too. It’s quite a turnaround for most people to be able to do that—to really do that U-turn and look at what’s going on inside of themselves first rather than what’s wrong with their partner that may be causing trouble in the relationship.
JS: What is the research being done on IFS right now?
TA: There’s a great deal of research happening since the Foundation for Self-Leadership was established for funding along with providing scholarship support. The first study that was run by a physician and a team of IFS therapists had such dramatic results that it helped IFS become recognized as an evidence-based modality. It was a study with rheumatoid arthritis patients and found that the participants who received IFS therapy actually reported a decrease in physical pain and depressive symptoms, and experienced increased physical functioning and self-compassion. They were blown away by these initial results, and it was really incredible. There have been many other research studies since then, several with adults suffering with PTSD. One of these was able to show that with IFS treatment, 92% of the participants no longer qualified for the PTSD diagnosis. There are IFS programs all over the world now which are bringing the model to students and teachers in schools, to the prison population, and to regions of major political unrest like the Middle East. The model really has taken wing, with its now thousands of dedicated IFS therapists, educators, and researchers, to become a healing force for our whole world which has always been Dick Schwartz’s dream.
JS: That’s amazing.
TA: Yes, it’s incredible. You really see the power of Self energy as a healing force, and not just to address emotional issues. Isn’t that something? Now the research is revealing that, when an exiled part has been unburdened, new neural pathways are being made. Things like that. The newest IFS research is proving that the brain is actually changing as a result of this work.
JS: If you could describe this approach using only one or two words, what would they be?
TA: Transformation and compassion…for our internal worlds, our relationships, for the groups and institutions, and even the countries in which we live, and ultimately, for our world.
JS: Thank you so much for doing this interview. I’ve teared up a couple times.
TA: Well, thank you!
I am struck by the assertion by Richard Schwartz that Self is our birthright, and therefore love, compassion, and healing are as well. The therapeutic model that started with Schwartz’s curiosity toward his clients has evolved into a path that intersects psychotherapy, spirituality, and neuroscience. In these times, this coalescence is the path forward, and the balm that takes us inward to none other than our Self.
Tanis Allen, LMSW, ACSW, is a psychotherapist in private practice in Ann Arbor and a certified IFS therapist and can be reached at tanis_jo@yahoo.com. She is currently engaged in the provision of IFS therapy, consultation, and training through workshops, retreats, and individual sessions.
