3 Ways IFS Therapy Can Help Your Recovery
By Melanie Taylor, LMFT, RYT-500
You’ve started to hear people talk about IFS therapy or that they found an IFS therapist. They’re saying that its working. They seem so hopeful, and you want to know more about this method of counseling. Here’s a quick cheat sheet for what IFS therapy is all about and how it could help you on your road to recovery.
A little back story- IFS stands for Internal Family Systems. The creator of IFS, Dick Schwartz, a trained family therapist, started to hear a familiar pattern with his clients (he was working mostly with clients in eating disorder recovery at the time) of “parts” within them. He started to explore this idea of parts with his clients, and he came to discover their connection with each other, like a family system itself, and their connection with the clients’ symptoms. He started to explore with clients having the parts interact and relate to each other, and eventually, developed a theory of internal family systems- which is basically family therapy with the multidimensional parts within the psyche. He then started to observe a familiar being within each of his clients, which he went on to label as Self, that would eventually come forward in a client’s recovery process. This Self was a whole, connected, confident, creative and compassionate being that seemed to be at the core nature of all of his clients, no matter how intense their eating disorder, depression, self harm, or anxiety. With this new discovery, his goal became to help clients bring Self forward into Self leadership, where Self helps to guide, heal and restore the parts within.
Ok, yada yada, with the history- you’re probably asking, how does IFS therapy work? There are a lot of therapies out there- what makes IFS therapy so good? Let us tell you…
Whether in recovery for addiction, substance use, an eating disorder, depression, trauma or anxiety, IFS therapy provides sustainable tools for real healing.
Here are three ways IFS therapy works for long term healing and recovery:
1. IFS therapy eliminates shame from the beginning.
What if you could learn early on that the behaviors causing you problems in your life, like drinking, bingeing and purging, self harm, isolation, avoiding vulnerability in relationships, were parts of you that are actually trying to HELP you. That’s the perspective IFS therapy offers from the get go. And, its usually so opposite of how we’ve been taught to think about these behaviors, that we even have parts that shame us internally for these actions and feelings. Well, an IFS therapist will help you work with the shaming parts to ease self criticism, while helping you discover how the addictive behaviors might be functioning for you. (Hint: these parts are usually protecting you from deeper feelings of trauma, shame, or fear.. which, leads us to our next point-
2. IFS therapy *safely* gets to the root of the issue.
An IFS therapist is not just going to give you coping skills to reduce a behavior. Although that can certainly help in the short term of recovery, when we’re talking about full recovery, IFS therapy helps you work with your parts to safely address the parts of you that have been exiled away and are carrying some of your most vulnerable feelings, like grief, trauma, shame and fear. We use the word *safely* because, in IFS parts work, you are working WITH the parts, gaining permission and building relationships, so that you are not bombarded with your trauma or shame. Instead, the IFS therapist is helping you access your Self to work with these vulnerable parts and heal them for good. Once they are healed, you no longer need your protective parts to utilize the same behaviors to cope and they can go on to evolve in a way that serves you better in your recovery.
3. IFS therapy helps you access your own healing nature, which means lasting recovery!
This idea of Self is not new. Other theories or spiritual practices may refer to Self as Soul, Spirit, core nature, or a spark of a higher power. However you choose to think about it, Self is a whole, healing force within you that experiences the 8 C’s of Self- connection, clarity, confidence, creativity, compassion, calmness, curiosity and courage. An IFS therapist, who has done their own work to be in Self, helps you gain access to your Self. As you develop Self leadership in IFS parts work, you start to strengthen your ability to access Self over and over again. So, this means, even when the IFS therapy ends, you have your own healing Self to continue you on in your healing and recovery.
