How Internal Family Systems or “Parts Work” Works

Internal Family Systems (IFS) is a framework for healing that operates under the central belief that we all contain an inner system of sub-personalities or “parts” and that we all have a Self who can be an inner leader to these parts.

Parts generally fall into two categories: “Protectors,” who employ both proactive and reactive strategies to avoid re-experiencing past wounds (i.e. people pleasers, inner critics, or distracting phone scrollers), and “Exiles,” vulnerable, often very young parts, who carry the bulk of the emotional weight of past hurts. While these parts may have picked up extreme roles or beliefs, the multiplicity of the mind is believed to be healthy and normal and no parts are inherently “bad.” In fact, when they have the chance to heal, all parts have the potential to integrate into our system in a helpful and harmonious way.

Our parts relate to our adult “Self” and to each other internally the same way people relate externally, much like members of a family. Using the principals of systems theory and family therapy, IFS focuses on internally healing relational wounds through the Self’s innate capacity for presence, compassion, and leadership. This can look like re-parenting inner children, mediating conflict between parts, and helping exhausted protectors find new roles in the inner system. 

Somatic IFS adds the use of the body’s wealth of wisdom and sensory information to deepen the Self’s healing capacity and even work with parts that may not be able to use language to heal. Externally this process can lead to big emotional and relational shifts, a new feeling of internal spaciousness, and deep healing of past trauma.