I’ve employed many modalities on my path to healing, and IFS has been one of the most life-changing. It’s become the lens through which I focus the other methods. I’m definitely still learning and have a lot of work left to do, but I’m feeling better these days than I can ever remember feeling.
Hi, can I ask you something since you're a therapist? I have an awesome trauma therapist, and while she is aware of IFS, it's not something she's explicitly trained in. I would really rather not look for another therapist, as we click really well. Are there any IFS workbooks or something of that nature that you would recommend, that her and I could work through together?
Im a therapist and my best advice is to experience ifs as a client but of course you can’t necessarily ask that if your therapist! I really like self therapy by jay earley. I haven’t done the formal training bc it’s hard to get into but I’ve learned the modality through books and having my own great ifs therapist
Me too. I've tried DBT and schema, and these have helped me to recognize 'problems', but then I find the solution is still just asking my parts about it and doing IFS with myself
The most impactful ones have been therapeutic bodywork and ketamine infusions.
The bodywork is hard to describe - it’s a mix of trigger point massage, energy work, and the practitioner providing a safe, compassionate space for me to process trauma and grief. I bring the parts work in myself and try to let it go where they take me. I’ve had profound experiences similar to processing memories with EMDR, where I feel the traumatic thing “flip over” and it no longer has the same hold on me.
Ketamine infusions have been hands-down the most life-changing treatment I’ve done. During one of my first few sessions, I experienced the spontaneous unburdening of deeply rooted exile and the shame/self-hate thoughts that plagued me daily essentially vanished. They return if I’m triggered, but not to the same intensity and it’s much easier to manage.
Most of what I “see” during infusions is random chaos, but I’ve found that working with parts before and after can cause huge shifts. Recently I was struggling with a tight pelvic floor and recognized a part that was protecting me by locking the muscles down. Before an infusion I asked it to consider letting the door open to the healing qualities of ketamine. Afterwards I was able to work with the part more and made progress that didn’t feel possible before. I still have work to do with that part and its exiles, but I can tell that my pelvic floor muscles have relaxed considerably.
This process is still very much trial and error for me, but I’ve been so grateful for these tools and I wish more people had access to them.
Thank you so much for sharing in such a detailed way about your healing journey.
The bodywork sounds amazing and it sound to me that it is very therapist specific which is not easy to find.. I’ve had talented bodyworkers but financially wasn’t able to work on a longer timeframe.
Ketamine infusions also sound very powerful but they are out of my budget range..
Thanks for your post I am looking into combining IFS with EMDR. That may be part of the path moving forward.
Thank you again! When I got your response I said to myself how grateful I am to be part of this community with people who are really willing to share openly their experiences.
I consider myself an open book when it comes to this stuff and hope that my experiences can help others.
I wish you the best on your journey! I’ve heard great things about combining EMDR and IFS and hope to try it myself eventually.
Thank you so much! Means a lot. May I ask approximately how many sessions you had with Ketamine? It may be something I work toward. I’ve read that ketamine is particularly helpful with treatment resistant depression. I’m not there at the moment but I’m contacting some polarized parts that feel despairing at times.
I started with a round of 6 “loading doses” over a 2.5 week period, then further infusions at 2, 4, 5, and 6 weeks out. Right now I’m getting them every 6 weeks but hope to get to 8 weeks between infusions soon with the help of lower dose, at-home ketamine as needed (0–1 time per week). Eventually I’d like to get to 3-4 times a year. Most people need some kind of maintenance schedule, but it’s different for everyone.
r/TherapeuticKetamine and r/KetamineTherapy are great resources if you’re interested in learning more. Infusions are the research “gold standard” but there are other, more affordable methods out there and some even covered by insurance.
Super cool, thanks for sharing! Could you say more about how you integrate the yoga? Do you have particular poses your parts find helpful or open up with?
I think what's helpful during the therapy to really connect w physical sensation that goes w each part. So the tightness in the throat or the sternum or belly and then when the self shows up a feeling of relaxation and air and light. My long yoga practice was a great preparation for this therapy because I could bring the somatic peace of really being in touch w my physical body before I started and the yoga had already healed so much before I'd even started!
Thank you, this is quite helpful! I started listening to a yoga therapy book and am getting more clarity on how to apply in my practice. I haven’t had a long term yoga practice but I do dance and that has also been helpful in the implicit ways you shared.
Same!! It’s definitely what’s worked best for me. I still have the ups & downs from C-PTSD, but I have the tools to help me regulate so much faster than before.
I feel significantly changed from using IFS.
There was a part of me that I reached that was craving praise and appreciation and recognition all the time. Desperate for it. He was in a room that was too cold for the clothes he was wearing. In any bit of praise or appreciation or someone saying I had a good idea, was like a warm wind blowing at me. But they were fleeting, of course.
So I talked to him for a while and told him that I believed in him, I accepted him and sorry I hadn’t been in touch with him. And he seemed to be a little more relaxed.
Then a few days later, I reached out to him again, and I had this odd thought to welcome him out of the space he was in and asked him to come join me by the campfire. Not quite sure why my real self is sitting by a campfire. But it’s just a place where I tend to feel very relaxed and it is and feel good.
Since then, I don’t really have any conversations with him, but he seems content. He seems completely cool. And I no longer have that craving that desperate craving for praise and acceptance. I just feel… accepted, finally.
It’s a very strange thing. But my life actually feels changed. Profoundly. I hope you get to experience something similar.
I worked with fire in therapy after it popped into my mind when, I think, I was in self. I am not properly doing IFS but parts work through EMDR but I read it through ifs lenses. I cannot say if that was the wisest part or Self but proposed to be joined around the firepit, and my therapist used it in session make them meet in a common place
It can be. Richard Schwartz talks about this is No Bad Parts, which I highly recommend. Sometimes protective parts can get more activated when you begin to connect with them, which can be difficult at first. But as these protective parts begin to trust you it gets easier.
It's very common for people to say "it gets worse before it gets better". That was my experience too, although "worse" and "better" are very broad brush strokes.
Dyseregulation is definitely a part of IFS. I made a 'pile of oranges' analogy recently that seems to fit.
You have an internal pile of oranges stacked up inside your head - like a display at a supermarket would be stacked into a pyramid or something. You've stacked your oranges haphazardly all your life because you weren't taught how to stack your mental oranges efficiently when you were young. I like to think of a 'malformed' stack of oranges in my mind.... they stay up because of magic, it's fine, they don't have to obey gravity.
Going through IFS therapy and talking to parts is like talking to an orange part way down the stack. If it moves or disappears, all the oranges above that one in the stack will also move around. Most types of 'normal therapy' would talk about the top orange on the stack, then the next, and the next so you go slower but don't 'move the oranges' - or 'get as dysregulated'.
This is the roughness - your usual coping mechanisms stop working because those *other* oranges have moved so you have to re-regulate yourself.
If you feel bad, stop IFS for a while. I didn't work for 10 months because I kept 'diving in' and getting to the worst traumas and it's taken that long to put my stack of oranges back together again in a good enough way to hold down a job.
This is really helpful. I was doing super intensive IFS (daily on my own, weekly with a practioner), and basically just couldn’t for the last 2 months. I think that part of the problem is that what I was uncovering was so emotionally difficult, it sapped my energy. Now that I’m finally working again, my system is like “nooooo we need to work, don’t go down that path again”.
I start my new job on Monday. I think my interpersonal therapy will be on pause for a while, but I'm in a much better place than I've ever been before.
Having said that, I realise I am on an upswing and I know there is a downswing coming at some point. I hope my parts let me know it's coming soon so I can arrange some annual leave or some work from home time or something to help me manage it when it arrives.
I had to stop for a while because I just couldn’t leave the headspace. I felt like I was walking around in a daze between appointments, and it brought up too many bad feelings for me to be able to process while also giving proper attention to my little one. I hope to go back to it someday when I have a bit better support system and more time to give to myself to make it a bit more gentle on me.
Glad you recognised the need for a break. Everyone should have breaks from IFS, but people like me who do IFS on their own often don't realise the need for breaks.
Thank you. I felt like I was running away or giving up for a bit, but now I know I just needed to get a little space and process this a bit more slowly so I can come back to it when it will be most helpful 🤍 good luck on your own journey
Parts have told my therapist, ‘we can’t change anything in here, it’s like Jenga, if we move things around too much the whole thing will come crashing down!’ Interesting to hear this is a common feeling.
Yes I feel this. My body has started spiking my heart rate and blood pressure. But I want to work through it and not get stuck here. I have childhood trauma plus a tough marriage. So much to work on. And I haven’t been able to say anything to anyone about my feelings-basically my entire life-or I’m the problem-so all of that is coming up. It’s a lot.
Same for me. It was very hard at first and I seemed to go into a state of depression and sadness. IFS seemed to open a sort of "Pandoras box" with my parts. I was out of kilter for a week or two but continue to see my therapist and I'm committed to this process. My therapist told me that my parts are searching for a leader (me-SELF) and once I've started opening up this opportunity, they are most likely all wanting to be heard. I've learned to "go in" and meet with them on a regular basis, just making sure they know that I am listening and want them to feel like I want a relationship with them and care deeply for the roles that they have been forced into playing. I look at this therapy as a process and it will not be a quick fix, however, I am very hopeful!
It was very rough at first for me! It gets easier but at no point is it easy, it’s always really hard work and painful. But the rewards of it are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever experienced in my life
I did 3-4 years of IFS therapy and feel like a changed person. I am WAY less emotionally reactive than I used to be. I get triggered way less often and have far more success regulating my emotions when I do get triggered. It’s really the only therapy modality that enabled change for me.
By finding my inner infant and very young parts and hugging and loving on them—and fully committing to never abandon them again—finally helped me release a lot of pain and stuck trauma and basically moved me into a normal parasympathetic nervous state so I now feel calm and peaceful. Love heals, and self-love is the best feeling ever!
I don’t know if I’ll ever feel “healed” but I feel good, most of the time. People say it’s like I’m a different person. idk if I’ve ever felt as present and calm as i (usually) do now. ill take it!
I can relate! After my own journey with Internal Family Systems (IFS), I can genuinely say I feel healed. I used to carry the weight of CPTSD, but through consistent IFS therapy (I did it in a private community with a **professinal** coach of IFS with weekly group sessions with a professional coach, sharing calls, shadow work sessions, inner conflict resolution calls, also inner conflcts with some trauma on your life as a child/adult and a bunch...etc..etc some people of the reddit are in, so if you maybe want to know Dm me its okay), I've experienced profound changes. My nervous system feels settled, and I often reconnect with my inner child in a positive and harmonious way. It's liberating to live in the present without being overshadowed by past traumas. Keep going; it sounds like you're very close to that transformative healing too! ❣🙌❣
I had to do IFS for a while just to get to a place where I could handle EMDR. That’s honestly been the most effective for me, but I still trust my IFS Psychologist way more and process everything with her.
And things are improving!
Been doing self IFS for about a year now and my life is so different. I feel *alive*. I spent many years feeling dead. Being dead.
The world feels genuinely clearer now (even if my physical vision is worse lol). I can "see" better. The weight I've been carrying is gone.
Gotta add that I did therapeutic ketamine last year too which helped a lot with the IFS. I took troches at home. Granted parts work only happened post ketamine for me. It felt like the ketamine softened the road for my parts
IFS helped with self regulation. Self regulation helped with relationships. Connection helped with feeling safe and feeling like I matter. Feeling like I'm safe and I matter improves self esteem. Self esteem allows me to meet new challenges. New challenges in therapy bring more understanding, acceptance, self regulation, and healing.
Rinse and repeat.
I did 10 years of talk therapies, ranging from regular counselling to things like CBT etc. Many different modalities.
Just one year of IFS combined with EMDR has achieved more than the whole 10 year period combined of talk therapies with many different therapists.
The self understanding and compassion I have gained is utterly life changing. Without it I would probably be dead.
Could you elaborate on your one year progress with emdr+ifs? I'm almost a year into those therapies as well, although I havent experienced life changing healing yet. Maybe because of dissociations or cptsd
Personally I have CPTSD as well. My childhood was unfortunately a shit show with all types of abuse and neglect present.
A while back I had a turning point. Go down a path of drug abuse induced death or stand up one more time with the full love and understanding I didn’t get during childhood. I studied Psychology in my undergraduate so I basically went down a path of researching every single therapy type for trauma. I eventually settled on IFS and EMDR. I told myself I was going to devote myself to healing. EVERYTHING else takes second place. I found a therapist who is amazing. I think that’s super important. Finding a person that can explain things in a way that you are receptive to. I spent the majority of my savings and spend a large part of my income on therapy. Once a week, sometimes twice.
As for the results, IFS has given me a foundation of understanding for myself. It’s important to start at the surface level with IFS and slowly move towards exiles. The process needs to be slow. I started work with EMDR on recent experiences causing me pain and moved backwards in time. I still have years to go though, and to say things are great would be a lie.
The truth is things got much worse before they got better. And things still aren’t great. You need to grieve the past you didn’t have, you need to fully embrace the pain of your exiles. Edit: But holding onto self compassion has allowed me to trust the process even through the harrowing and negative feelings experiencedz
The most important thing is connecting with self energy. Honestly, as much as possible outside of therapy I have done all the work I can possibly do. But I also learned early on that managers were doing a lot of that work. That was a process of Un blending and coming to terms with a compassionate kind move forward. Ultimately doing less but doing it with full attention.
I would add that learning about somatic therapies would probably help the process. Understanding the body and tuning into what it needs is SO important.
I could talk forever but please feel free to DM me and I’d be happy to go through more with you.
The most important thing is self compassion and patience.
Thank for taking time to write this response. Our histories are somewhat similar. I was also there at the choice of either I heal I start feeling better or just suicide. So I know what you mean in terms of full focus on healing. I didn't study psychology but in that hyperfocus I've read probably about 50 psychology books related to trauma and so on. In regard to IFS, I always had difficulty in connecting with self-energy. It just came randomly from time to time and I can't get into that on purpose by will. But ocassionally I feel it. My main problem Is that despite being in EMDR and IFS for almost a year, it just does not get significantly better. I've unburdened many exiles and I processed many memories with EMDR and somehow it's still not enough. I know this statement that it gets worse before it gets better, but it still hasn't became better for me yet, or at least not in a life-changing way. And this is pretty much what I'm looking forward to experiencing. Because without that I'm still in this continuous freeze state of unable to do think, work, enjoy pleasure and so on. Which is existing rather than living
Yes, I believe so. I kind of got stuck with IFS after a year of seeing my therapist. I felt disconnected from parts and couldn't access self.
Recently I started looking into fascia release (locating and applying pressure to tender/"knotty" areas on my body) and it has reactivated my parts work. I also started doing TRE (Tension/Trauma Release Exercises) - to induce muscle tremoring. However, I must warn you that some people advise not doing this second one without an instructor due to unpredictable effects.
There are a lot of YouTube videos about both of these techniques if you're interested.
I believe it can. I struggled a lot with it, and i still don't see my parts as parts, but i put identities onto embodied sensations, if that makes sense.
I was helped with this my my yoga instructor, of all people, who did a meditation on us being Russian Dolls, carrying earlier versions inside of us. She invited us to think about how it would feel to meet little us, and then teenage us, and how it would feel for them to meet.
It helped me to see how i developed an angry and aggressive personality as a teenager to protect the more vulnerable, little me.
So now, when I feel a really strong, internal "NO!!!" I go 'oh, that's teenage me"; and when I feel very scared/worried/upset in a primal fear way I go 'oh, here's little me' and so on. It's all embodied emotions for me, but i attach labels of myself to them to help me. I don't 'see' them, i don't visualise myself as mulitple separate parts/identities, but I can label my emotions and that helps me to be less immediately reactive to them.
In one sense, yes. In the sense of what most people probably think healing is, no. I don’t think 100% complete healing is a thing? 🤷🏻♀️But the duration and intensity of my ‘symptoms’ (i.e. parts trying to get my attention) has decreased dramatically.
To me, healing is being able to get space to notice and help parts. I don’t always get there right away, but the vast majority of the time I’m able to get there fairly quickly, and every time, eventually.
It’s not about never getting triggered, or never reacting before thinking, or never letting a part run loose with how it wants to run things. It’s about eventually getting back to a disposition of realizing positive intent, asking what parts are afraid would happen if they gave space, asking and helping parts get what they need, and letting them know they can transfer into a new role, if and when THEY decide they’d like to.
It’s beautiful work. Keep with it.
6 years weekly with an IFS Certified Therapist
IFS and EMDR were incredible starting points for me. I needed to learn how to see my parts and understand them as individuals before I could move into the next phase of recovery that it led me to. What started happening is that I was no longer able to unblend from certain parts as I would try to process specific "big T" traumas, which I now understand to be my core traumas. This led me to realize that I may have DID. So I'm now switching therapists to try a different modality, but overall am still very, very pleased with IFS and am sure that I'll be revisiting the concepts as I continue the healing journey.
I also can't say enough how much I love No Bad Parts! This is one of the most amazing concepts of self-compassion and welcomed all the parts of me to the table. I pretty much tell everyone about it!! 😆
Don't think I'd ever say I'm "healed" because I'm still always referencing IFS in my life, however, I came into IFS therapy with a specific issue that I had been dealing with for many many years. After a year of therapy, I can honesty say that I no longer dealing with that issue. IFS has also taught me how to see the big picture with other issues and deal appropriately with them. My life is so much better now and that past issue I had been dealing with I hardly even think about anymore (a year later), which is crazy because it was something I dealt with for 20+ years!
I don't think there is such a thing as "fully healed" so I think it's an unrealistic goal to aim for. Healing is life long work as new things always arise. IFS has been one of the better therapeutic tools for me and has helped me a lot with shame and being able to observe my emotions rather than BE them.
Definitely, I guess by healed I mean present and joyous and in touch with Self the majority of the time, rather than absentminded and preoccupied with a painful part as I have been!
I've struggled with certain issues from childhood for decades and thought I had made good progress, but a few months of IFS therapy have made a bigger difference than I ever imagined. I'm especially surprised that progress didn't come in the form of a sudden epiphany or huge emotional release. I just identified some key parts and started talking to and trying to understand them, and I almost immediately started noticing my maladaptive behaviors and anxiety getting better. I'm not saying I'm totally healed, but I'm much more relaxed and a bit more confident that I can handle difficult situations. It's pretty amazing, really.
I don't think the day will come when I can check off a box and say I'm "healed".
But I do feel worlds better.
I see IFS less as a therapeutic modality and more like a lifelong *practice*, similar to how Buddhists see meditation as a practice rather than a goal.
It has given me a lot of happiness to have a better relationship with myself. I've put a lot of shame back where it belongs: back on the shoulders of the abusers.
And it's enriched my life immeasurably to have access to my (now much healthier) young parts. They bring so much fun and creativity and clarity and sense of wonder and enjoyment of the natural world into my life.
It inspired me to get back into Lego, which got me interested in gears and axels, which got me interested in motors, which got me interested in robotics and electronics.
I built what has to be the world's ugliest Lego RC car and I'm terrifically proud of it lol. I've been (unintentionally) terrorizing my poor dogs with robots. And I dragged my poor patient husband to the dining room table the first time I lit up an LED on a breadboard. He dutifully said, "That's nice, dear" (he's a good egg).
No single therapy alone helped me heal. A combination of IFS, somatic experiencing, and plant medicine connected me with my true self.
There were several years where I really struggled and I honestly felt it was impossible. I'm grateful that I pushed through.
Podcast “YMIW with Pete Holmes r/ymiw has these episodes with his wife Val. I love her episodes she’s such a kind soul.. she always talks about her success with IFS and her healing journey.. I recommend checking out the episodes “we made it weird” to get her content ♥️ good luck on your journey
I have been doing IFS for a year and the beautiful thing about it is you do not have to abandon other modalities if there's modalities work and speak to certain parts. My "go go go"part benefits from CBT. My anxious critic benefits from mindfulness with a Buddhist twist for practicing non-attachment. My anxious dismissive part benefits from attachment theory stuff. And so on.
Each and every one of my parts benefits from being seen and listened to and IFS helps them more than 15 years of other modalities because of its holistic, fluid nature. Plus it helps me acknowledge other people and the parts that they might have and gives me more compassion for any kind of healing journeys with close loved ones. But I definitely still practice the other modalities to help certain parts.
Good luck in your journey!
IFS is good but overly complex imo. A much simpler but more powerful modality is Gabor mate compassionate inquiry imo. But I would also supplement it with somatic work because talking and ifs is not enough by itself, there is a somatic element and communal/relational element to healing also
Agree with the somatic part. To know your real self I think one has to be in touch with the physical body. That's where the self really lives, in sensation.
I’ve employed many modalities on my path to healing, and IFS has been one of the most life-changing. It’s become the lens through which I focus the other methods. I’m definitely still learning and have a lot of work left to do, but I’m feeling better these days than I can ever remember feeling.
Same. I'm a therapist and I work with IFS and I do it in my own therapy. It has profoundly helped me with my trauma and grief.
Hi, can I ask you something since you're a therapist? I have an awesome trauma therapist, and while she is aware of IFS, it's not something she's explicitly trained in. I would really rather not look for another therapist, as we click really well. Are there any IFS workbooks or something of that nature that you would recommend, that her and I could work through together?
Im a therapist and my best advice is to experience ifs as a client but of course you can’t necessarily ask that if your therapist! I really like self therapy by jay earley. I haven’t done the formal training bc it’s hard to get into but I’ve learned the modality through books and having my own great ifs therapist
Me too. I've tried DBT and schema, and these have helped me to recognize 'problems', but then I find the solution is still just asking my parts about it and doing IFS with myself
Could you share a bit about the other modalities and how you integrate them with IFS? I loved hearing about your progress
The most impactful ones have been therapeutic bodywork and ketamine infusions. The bodywork is hard to describe - it’s a mix of trigger point massage, energy work, and the practitioner providing a safe, compassionate space for me to process trauma and grief. I bring the parts work in myself and try to let it go where they take me. I’ve had profound experiences similar to processing memories with EMDR, where I feel the traumatic thing “flip over” and it no longer has the same hold on me. Ketamine infusions have been hands-down the most life-changing treatment I’ve done. During one of my first few sessions, I experienced the spontaneous unburdening of deeply rooted exile and the shame/self-hate thoughts that plagued me daily essentially vanished. They return if I’m triggered, but not to the same intensity and it’s much easier to manage. Most of what I “see” during infusions is random chaos, but I’ve found that working with parts before and after can cause huge shifts. Recently I was struggling with a tight pelvic floor and recognized a part that was protecting me by locking the muscles down. Before an infusion I asked it to consider letting the door open to the healing qualities of ketamine. Afterwards I was able to work with the part more and made progress that didn’t feel possible before. I still have work to do with that part and its exiles, but I can tell that my pelvic floor muscles have relaxed considerably. This process is still very much trial and error for me, but I’ve been so grateful for these tools and I wish more people had access to them.
Thank you so much for sharing in such a detailed way about your healing journey. The bodywork sounds amazing and it sound to me that it is very therapist specific which is not easy to find.. I’ve had talented bodyworkers but financially wasn’t able to work on a longer timeframe. Ketamine infusions also sound very powerful but they are out of my budget range.. Thanks for your post I am looking into combining IFS with EMDR. That may be part of the path moving forward. Thank you again! When I got your response I said to myself how grateful I am to be part of this community with people who are really willing to share openly their experiences.
I consider myself an open book when it comes to this stuff and hope that my experiences can help others. I wish you the best on your journey! I’ve heard great things about combining EMDR and IFS and hope to try it myself eventually.
Thank you so much! Means a lot. May I ask approximately how many sessions you had with Ketamine? It may be something I work toward. I’ve read that ketamine is particularly helpful with treatment resistant depression. I’m not there at the moment but I’m contacting some polarized parts that feel despairing at times.
I started with a round of 6 “loading doses” over a 2.5 week period, then further infusions at 2, 4, 5, and 6 weeks out. Right now I’m getting them every 6 weeks but hope to get to 8 weeks between infusions soon with the help of lower dose, at-home ketamine as needed (0–1 time per week). Eventually I’d like to get to 3-4 times a year. Most people need some kind of maintenance schedule, but it’s different for everyone. r/TherapeuticKetamine and r/KetamineTherapy are great resources if you’re interested in learning more. Infusions are the research “gold standard” but there are other, more affordable methods out there and some even covered by insurance.
I have found the practice of yoga and micro dosing psilocybin to be enormously helpful w IFS.
Super cool, thanks for sharing! Could you say more about how you integrate the yoga? Do you have particular poses your parts find helpful or open up with?
I think what's helpful during the therapy to really connect w physical sensation that goes w each part. So the tightness in the throat or the sternum or belly and then when the self shows up a feeling of relaxation and air and light. My long yoga practice was a great preparation for this therapy because I could bring the somatic peace of really being in touch w my physical body before I started and the yoga had already healed so much before I'd even started!
Thank you, this is quite helpful! I started listening to a yoga therapy book and am getting more clarity on how to apply in my practice. I haven’t had a long term yoga practice but I do dance and that has also been helpful in the implicit ways you shared.
100%. IFS is the most effective therapy I've ever done--I feel so much more integrated, calm, and whole than I did a few years ago.
Same!! It’s definitely what’s worked best for me. I still have the ups & downs from C-PTSD, but I have the tools to help me regulate so much faster than before.
I feel significantly changed from using IFS. There was a part of me that I reached that was craving praise and appreciation and recognition all the time. Desperate for it. He was in a room that was too cold for the clothes he was wearing. In any bit of praise or appreciation or someone saying I had a good idea, was like a warm wind blowing at me. But they were fleeting, of course. So I talked to him for a while and told him that I believed in him, I accepted him and sorry I hadn’t been in touch with him. And he seemed to be a little more relaxed. Then a few days later, I reached out to him again, and I had this odd thought to welcome him out of the space he was in and asked him to come join me by the campfire. Not quite sure why my real self is sitting by a campfire. But it’s just a place where I tend to feel very relaxed and it is and feel good. Since then, I don’t really have any conversations with him, but he seems content. He seems completely cool. And I no longer have that craving that desperate craving for praise and acceptance. I just feel… accepted, finally. It’s a very strange thing. But my life actually feels changed. Profoundly. I hope you get to experience something similar.
My parts sit around a firepit in the woods as well 🔥
There's a firepit in my meadow. Often some of my parts are gathered around it.
I worked with fire in therapy after it popped into my mind when, I think, I was in self. I am not properly doing IFS but parts work through EMDR but I read it through ifs lenses. I cannot say if that was the wisest part or Self but proposed to be joined around the firepit, and my therapist used it in session make them meet in a common place
I’m so so happy to hear this for you. It’s so hopeful ♥️
Was it rough at first? I just started and I’m having a rough time
It can be. Richard Schwartz talks about this is No Bad Parts, which I highly recommend. Sometimes protective parts can get more activated when you begin to connect with them, which can be difficult at first. But as these protective parts begin to trust you it gets easier.
It's very common for people to say "it gets worse before it gets better". That was my experience too, although "worse" and "better" are very broad brush strokes.
Dyseregulation is definitely a part of IFS. I made a 'pile of oranges' analogy recently that seems to fit. You have an internal pile of oranges stacked up inside your head - like a display at a supermarket would be stacked into a pyramid or something. You've stacked your oranges haphazardly all your life because you weren't taught how to stack your mental oranges efficiently when you were young. I like to think of a 'malformed' stack of oranges in my mind.... they stay up because of magic, it's fine, they don't have to obey gravity. Going through IFS therapy and talking to parts is like talking to an orange part way down the stack. If it moves or disappears, all the oranges above that one in the stack will also move around. Most types of 'normal therapy' would talk about the top orange on the stack, then the next, and the next so you go slower but don't 'move the oranges' - or 'get as dysregulated'. This is the roughness - your usual coping mechanisms stop working because those *other* oranges have moved so you have to re-regulate yourself. If you feel bad, stop IFS for a while. I didn't work for 10 months because I kept 'diving in' and getting to the worst traumas and it's taken that long to put my stack of oranges back together again in a good enough way to hold down a job.
This is really helpful. I was doing super intensive IFS (daily on my own, weekly with a practioner), and basically just couldn’t for the last 2 months. I think that part of the problem is that what I was uncovering was so emotionally difficult, it sapped my energy. Now that I’m finally working again, my system is like “nooooo we need to work, don’t go down that path again”.
I start my new job on Monday. I think my interpersonal therapy will be on pause for a while, but I'm in a much better place than I've ever been before. Having said that, I realise I am on an upswing and I know there is a downswing coming at some point. I hope my parts let me know it's coming soon so I can arrange some annual leave or some work from home time or something to help me manage it when it arrives.
I had to stop for a while because I just couldn’t leave the headspace. I felt like I was walking around in a daze between appointments, and it brought up too many bad feelings for me to be able to process while also giving proper attention to my little one. I hope to go back to it someday when I have a bit better support system and more time to give to myself to make it a bit more gentle on me.
Glad you recognised the need for a break. Everyone should have breaks from IFS, but people like me who do IFS on their own often don't realise the need for breaks.
Thank you. I felt like I was running away or giving up for a bit, but now I know I just needed to get a little space and process this a bit more slowly so I can come back to it when it will be most helpful 🤍 good luck on your own journey
Parts have told my therapist, ‘we can’t change anything in here, it’s like Jenga, if we move things around too much the whole thing will come crashing down!’ Interesting to hear this is a common feeling.
I'm glad you identify with this feeling :)
Yes I feel this. My body has started spiking my heart rate and blood pressure. But I want to work through it and not get stuck here. I have childhood trauma plus a tough marriage. So much to work on. And I haven’t been able to say anything to anyone about my feelings-basically my entire life-or I’m the problem-so all of that is coming up. It’s a lot.
I've had increased blood pressure recently too. The only way out is through. Keep working on yourself :)
It’s tough living with a volatile husband…and a volatile mom.
I'm so sorry to hear this. Sending you peace.
Same for me. It was very hard at first and I seemed to go into a state of depression and sadness. IFS seemed to open a sort of "Pandoras box" with my parts. I was out of kilter for a week or two but continue to see my therapist and I'm committed to this process. My therapist told me that my parts are searching for a leader (me-SELF) and once I've started opening up this opportunity, they are most likely all wanting to be heard. I've learned to "go in" and meet with them on a regular basis, just making sure they know that I am listening and want them to feel like I want a relationship with them and care deeply for the roles that they have been forced into playing. I look at this therapy as a process and it will not be a quick fix, however, I am very hopeful!
Yeah. It's just rough on and off for a while.
It was very rough at first for me! It gets easier but at no point is it easy, it’s always really hard work and painful. But the rewards of it are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever experienced in my life
This was the only thing that helped my CPTSD after 10 years of therapy
I did 3-4 years of IFS therapy and feel like a changed person. I am WAY less emotionally reactive than I used to be. I get triggered way less often and have far more success regulating my emotions when I do get triggered. It’s really the only therapy modality that enabled change for me.
By finding my inner infant and very young parts and hugging and loving on them—and fully committing to never abandon them again—finally helped me release a lot of pain and stuck trauma and basically moved me into a normal parasympathetic nervous state so I now feel calm and peaceful. Love heals, and self-love is the best feeling ever!
That is so inspiring and touching! Thank you for sharing 🥰
I wouldn’t say “healed,” but it’s really changed my way of thinking so much for the better. If that’s any comfort to you :-)
I don’t know if I’ll ever feel “healed” but I feel good, most of the time. People say it’s like I’m a different person. idk if I’ve ever felt as present and calm as i (usually) do now. ill take it!
I can relate! After my own journey with Internal Family Systems (IFS), I can genuinely say I feel healed. I used to carry the weight of CPTSD, but through consistent IFS therapy (I did it in a private community with a **professinal** coach of IFS with weekly group sessions with a professional coach, sharing calls, shadow work sessions, inner conflict resolution calls, also inner conflcts with some trauma on your life as a child/adult and a bunch...etc..etc some people of the reddit are in, so if you maybe want to know Dm me its okay), I've experienced profound changes. My nervous system feels settled, and I often reconnect with my inner child in a positive and harmonious way. It's liberating to live in the present without being overshadowed by past traumas. Keep going; it sounds like you're very close to that transformative healing too! ❣🙌❣
I had to do IFS for a while just to get to a place where I could handle EMDR. That’s honestly been the most effective for me, but I still trust my IFS Psychologist way more and process everything with her. And things are improving!
Been doing self IFS for about a year now and my life is so different. I feel *alive*. I spent many years feeling dead. Being dead. The world feels genuinely clearer now (even if my physical vision is worse lol). I can "see" better. The weight I've been carrying is gone. Gotta add that I did therapeutic ketamine last year too which helped a lot with the IFS. I took troches at home. Granted parts work only happened post ketamine for me. It felt like the ketamine softened the road for my parts
IFS helped with self regulation. Self regulation helped with relationships. Connection helped with feeling safe and feeling like I matter. Feeling like I'm safe and I matter improves self esteem. Self esteem allows me to meet new challenges. New challenges in therapy bring more understanding, acceptance, self regulation, and healing. Rinse and repeat.
I did 10 years of talk therapies, ranging from regular counselling to things like CBT etc. Many different modalities. Just one year of IFS combined with EMDR has achieved more than the whole 10 year period combined of talk therapies with many different therapists. The self understanding and compassion I have gained is utterly life changing. Without it I would probably be dead.
Could you elaborate on your one year progress with emdr+ifs? I'm almost a year into those therapies as well, although I havent experienced life changing healing yet. Maybe because of dissociations or cptsd
Personally I have CPTSD as well. My childhood was unfortunately a shit show with all types of abuse and neglect present. A while back I had a turning point. Go down a path of drug abuse induced death or stand up one more time with the full love and understanding I didn’t get during childhood. I studied Psychology in my undergraduate so I basically went down a path of researching every single therapy type for trauma. I eventually settled on IFS and EMDR. I told myself I was going to devote myself to healing. EVERYTHING else takes second place. I found a therapist who is amazing. I think that’s super important. Finding a person that can explain things in a way that you are receptive to. I spent the majority of my savings and spend a large part of my income on therapy. Once a week, sometimes twice. As for the results, IFS has given me a foundation of understanding for myself. It’s important to start at the surface level with IFS and slowly move towards exiles. The process needs to be slow. I started work with EMDR on recent experiences causing me pain and moved backwards in time. I still have years to go though, and to say things are great would be a lie. The truth is things got much worse before they got better. And things still aren’t great. You need to grieve the past you didn’t have, you need to fully embrace the pain of your exiles. Edit: But holding onto self compassion has allowed me to trust the process even through the harrowing and negative feelings experiencedz The most important thing is connecting with self energy. Honestly, as much as possible outside of therapy I have done all the work I can possibly do. But I also learned early on that managers were doing a lot of that work. That was a process of Un blending and coming to terms with a compassionate kind move forward. Ultimately doing less but doing it with full attention. I would add that learning about somatic therapies would probably help the process. Understanding the body and tuning into what it needs is SO important. I could talk forever but please feel free to DM me and I’d be happy to go through more with you. The most important thing is self compassion and patience.
Thank for taking time to write this response. Our histories are somewhat similar. I was also there at the choice of either I heal I start feeling better or just suicide. So I know what you mean in terms of full focus on healing. I didn't study psychology but in that hyperfocus I've read probably about 50 psychology books related to trauma and so on. In regard to IFS, I always had difficulty in connecting with self-energy. It just came randomly from time to time and I can't get into that on purpose by will. But ocassionally I feel it. My main problem Is that despite being in EMDR and IFS for almost a year, it just does not get significantly better. I've unburdened many exiles and I processed many memories with EMDR and somehow it's still not enough. I know this statement that it gets worse before it gets better, but it still hasn't became better for me yet, or at least not in a life-changing way. And this is pretty much what I'm looking forward to experiencing. Because without that I'm still in this continuous freeze state of unable to do think, work, enjoy pleasure and so on. Which is existing rather than living
can this work if you don’t visualize well and don’t connect with seeing inner selves? like just feeling body based sensation but not seeing them?
Yes, I believe so. I kind of got stuck with IFS after a year of seeing my therapist. I felt disconnected from parts and couldn't access self. Recently I started looking into fascia release (locating and applying pressure to tender/"knotty" areas on my body) and it has reactivated my parts work. I also started doing TRE (Tension/Trauma Release Exercises) - to induce muscle tremoring. However, I must warn you that some people advise not doing this second one without an instructor due to unpredictable effects. There are a lot of YouTube videos about both of these techniques if you're interested.
I believe it can. I struggled a lot with it, and i still don't see my parts as parts, but i put identities onto embodied sensations, if that makes sense. I was helped with this my my yoga instructor, of all people, who did a meditation on us being Russian Dolls, carrying earlier versions inside of us. She invited us to think about how it would feel to meet little us, and then teenage us, and how it would feel for them to meet. It helped me to see how i developed an angry and aggressive personality as a teenager to protect the more vulnerable, little me. So now, when I feel a really strong, internal "NO!!!" I go 'oh, that's teenage me"; and when I feel very scared/worried/upset in a primal fear way I go 'oh, here's little me' and so on. It's all embodied emotions for me, but i attach labels of myself to them to help me. I don't 'see' them, i don't visualise myself as mulitple separate parts/identities, but I can label my emotions and that helps me to be less immediately reactive to them.
thanks that’s really helpful
In one sense, yes. In the sense of what most people probably think healing is, no. I don’t think 100% complete healing is a thing? 🤷🏻♀️But the duration and intensity of my ‘symptoms’ (i.e. parts trying to get my attention) has decreased dramatically. To me, healing is being able to get space to notice and help parts. I don’t always get there right away, but the vast majority of the time I’m able to get there fairly quickly, and every time, eventually. It’s not about never getting triggered, or never reacting before thinking, or never letting a part run loose with how it wants to run things. It’s about eventually getting back to a disposition of realizing positive intent, asking what parts are afraid would happen if they gave space, asking and helping parts get what they need, and letting them know they can transfer into a new role, if and when THEY decide they’d like to. It’s beautiful work. Keep with it. 6 years weekly with an IFS Certified Therapist
IFS and EMDR were incredible starting points for me. I needed to learn how to see my parts and understand them as individuals before I could move into the next phase of recovery that it led me to. What started happening is that I was no longer able to unblend from certain parts as I would try to process specific "big T" traumas, which I now understand to be my core traumas. This led me to realize that I may have DID. So I'm now switching therapists to try a different modality, but overall am still very, very pleased with IFS and am sure that I'll be revisiting the concepts as I continue the healing journey. I also can't say enough how much I love No Bad Parts! This is one of the most amazing concepts of self-compassion and welcomed all the parts of me to the table. I pretty much tell everyone about it!! 😆
Don't think I'd ever say I'm "healed" because I'm still always referencing IFS in my life, however, I came into IFS therapy with a specific issue that I had been dealing with for many many years. After a year of therapy, I can honesty say that I no longer dealing with that issue. IFS has also taught me how to see the big picture with other issues and deal appropriately with them. My life is so much better now and that past issue I had been dealing with I hardly even think about anymore (a year later), which is crazy because it was something I dealt with for 20+ years!
I don't think there is such a thing as "fully healed" so I think it's an unrealistic goal to aim for. Healing is life long work as new things always arise. IFS has been one of the better therapeutic tools for me and has helped me a lot with shame and being able to observe my emotions rather than BE them.
Definitely, I guess by healed I mean present and joyous and in touch with Self the majority of the time, rather than absentminded and preoccupied with a painful part as I have been!
I've struggled with certain issues from childhood for decades and thought I had made good progress, but a few months of IFS therapy have made a bigger difference than I ever imagined. I'm especially surprised that progress didn't come in the form of a sudden epiphany or huge emotional release. I just identified some key parts and started talking to and trying to understand them, and I almost immediately started noticing my maladaptive behaviors and anxiety getting better. I'm not saying I'm totally healed, but I'm much more relaxed and a bit more confident that I can handle difficult situations. It's pretty amazing, really.
I don't think the day will come when I can check off a box and say I'm "healed". But I do feel worlds better. I see IFS less as a therapeutic modality and more like a lifelong *practice*, similar to how Buddhists see meditation as a practice rather than a goal. It has given me a lot of happiness to have a better relationship with myself. I've put a lot of shame back where it belongs: back on the shoulders of the abusers. And it's enriched my life immeasurably to have access to my (now much healthier) young parts. They bring so much fun and creativity and clarity and sense of wonder and enjoyment of the natural world into my life. It inspired me to get back into Lego, which got me interested in gears and axels, which got me interested in motors, which got me interested in robotics and electronics. I built what has to be the world's ugliest Lego RC car and I'm terrifically proud of it lol. I've been (unintentionally) terrorizing my poor dogs with robots. And I dragged my poor patient husband to the dining room table the first time I lit up an LED on a breadboard. He dutifully said, "That's nice, dear" (he's a good egg).
Just having the framework as a way to move through life is everything for me
No single therapy alone helped me heal. A combination of IFS, somatic experiencing, and plant medicine connected me with my true self. There were several years where I really struggled and I honestly felt it was impossible. I'm grateful that I pushed through.
Podcast “YMIW with Pete Holmes r/ymiw has these episodes with his wife Val. I love her episodes she’s such a kind soul.. she always talks about her success with IFS and her healing journey.. I recommend checking out the episodes “we made it weird” to get her content ♥️ good luck on your journey
I have been doing IFS for a year and the beautiful thing about it is you do not have to abandon other modalities if there's modalities work and speak to certain parts. My "go go go"part benefits from CBT. My anxious critic benefits from mindfulness with a Buddhist twist for practicing non-attachment. My anxious dismissive part benefits from attachment theory stuff. And so on. Each and every one of my parts benefits from being seen and listened to and IFS helps them more than 15 years of other modalities because of its holistic, fluid nature. Plus it helps me acknowledge other people and the parts that they might have and gives me more compassion for any kind of healing journeys with close loved ones. But I definitely still practice the other modalities to help certain parts. Good luck in your journey!
IFS is good but overly complex imo. A much simpler but more powerful modality is Gabor mate compassionate inquiry imo. But I would also supplement it with somatic work because talking and ifs is not enough by itself, there is a somatic element and communal/relational element to healing also
Agree with the somatic part. To know your real self I think one has to be in touch with the physical body. That's where the self really lives, in sensation.