The Internal Family Systems

Internal Family Systems is a model of Model Psychotherapy. The world famous leader of IFS is dr. R. C. Schwartz (noble and wise man). On his site there’s a plenty of Psychotherapy articles. The aspect of the IFS Model that differentiates it most significantly from other models is the belief that, in addition to these parts, everyone is at their core a Self. The Self has leadership and healing qualities — perspective, confidence, compassion, and acceptance – crucial to our highest, most harmonious functioning. Even the most severely abused, symptomatic clients have this healthy and healing Self, although many have very little access to it initially. The goal of IFS therapy is to differentiate this Self from the parts, thereby freeing its resources for healing by helping parts out of their extreme roles and guiding them into harmonious collaboration.

Unlike other approaches to psychotherapy, IFS has as its goal leadership by the Self of the client’s internal system of parts, and, in families, groups, and organizations, Self-leadership within each member. In contrast to other forms of psychotherapy, the IFS therapist does not have to teach clients how to correct the thoughts and emotions picked up by parts through their experiences. When clients are led by their Selves, they know, through internal communication, how to help each inner personality, what those parts need in order to feel safe, and how they can release their burdens. Led by the qualities of the Self, clients know how to provide what the parts need. The therapist’s job is to guide clients to a Self-led state in which they become therapists to their own inner families.

In interpersonal relationships, when the therapist can help family members get their parts to step back and let their Selves communicate, long-standing issues are resolved with a minimum of guidance. Rather than reacting to each other’s extreme views and positions, each Self-led person, sensing the hurt behind the protective walls of other’s parts, automatically feels empathy, just as individual clients feel for their own parts. It is the Self’s compassionate understanding of the parts’ pain and shame, as well as the Self’s availability to assist the parts again and again, that is healing.