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Vision on being human | Unburdening parts | Appreciating protectors | Self as healer | Self and parts | Extreme and original roles of parts | Constraint-release-model | Implicit learnings | Self-led living | Backlash | Window of tolerance | Polarization | History IFS | Richard C. Schwartz | No Bad Parts | You are the One You've Been Waiting For
1. What is Internal Family Systems?
Internal Family Systems (IFS) addresses one of the most limiting illusions that can block our growth: the belief that we are one single, unchanging, and coherent self. Dr. Richard C. Schwartz developed IFS after realizing that traditional family therapy wasn't fully helping his clients. His openness to unlearn old methods, engage in parts work, and integrate systems thinking into individual therapy helped him become the transformative Self-led therapist he is today.
'Not one coherent self? Have you lost your mind?' you might ask.
This reaction reflects our deep-seated belief in the mono-mind. But from an IFS perspective, the difference between someone with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) and someone without it is simply the degree of internal polarization. More trauma means greater internal conflict.
IFS is a scientifically grounded therapy that embraces psychological multiplicity. It helps us move beyond the illusion of a single self in a practical, non-shaming way. IFS therapists don't claim to be experts in their clients' systems; they help clients get to know their own inner parts and cultivate harmony and collaboration between Self and parts.
IFS has four core goals:
- Free parts from roles imposed by trauma
- Build trust in Self as the leader
- Create harmony between polarized parts
- Live a Self-led life
Curious if you're also a system of Self and parts? The best way to find out is to experience it yourself. In both IFS-training and therapy, you can explore this firsthand. You're welcome to join a non-obligatory intake session to explore your system.
The Basic Principles of Internal Family Systems
We consist of parts
Our system consists of a multitude of parts. This is how we are born. With parts who have preferred roles.
Parts which carry the burdens get exiled from our system. Trauma pushes our parts out of their original roles, taking on tasks and roles, which can be even quite extreme. Through IFS, parts can remember, rediscover and also create their preferred roles.
Everyone has a Self
We are all born with a Self as well. The Self reveals itself through wonderful qualities. Think of curiosity, calmness, clarity, compassion, creativity, confidence, connection, and courage. Our Self is the healing entity within our system. It has no agenda other than promoting healing and inner harmony.
Most therapy approaches envision a significant Other the transitionary or primary attachment figure. In IFS, our Self is seen as our primary attachment figure. Therefore, IFS focuses on facilitating relationships between your Self and parts. The Self is both an expansive, boundaryless state of mind, and an active inner leader for our parts.
Just like in quantum physics where the photons that make light sometimes act as particles and sometimes as waves in a pool of water (Schwartz and Sweezy, 2020: 45). The active inner leader needs the parts to navigate in the world. The wave quality of our Self is described in spiritual traditions as our Christ consciousness, Buddha nature, or atman. Reminding us: we are in this world, not of this world.
Parts and their roles
As humans, we operate to avoid pain. Parts that carry pain are exiled, and protective parts step in to keep us from constantly feeling this pain. They also work to prevent us from being hurt again.
Proactive managers work to avoid pain in advance, while reactive firefighters step in when pain is triggered. Behind them are exiles, frozen in time by their overwhelming experiences. This pain can come from personal experiences or from burdens passed down through family or culture. There are no bad parts. Every part has a positive intention.
Therapy helps these parts release their burdens and rediscover their true essence.
Inner and Outer Relationships
Our parts form an internal system, much like a family or community. Through systemic techniques, we help this internal system reorganize, leading to true healing and change. This transformation is reflected both within and in your relationships with others.
Self and Parts: The Orchestra and Conductor
Our Self is like a conductor, guiding the parts, which are like the orchestra. Without the parts, there is no symphony, and without the Self, the music can turn to chaos.
The best way to understand this is to experience it yourself. In both training and individual sessions, you can explore your system. You're welcome to a free intake session to discover how your parts work.
Support in Self-led Living
The Self is already present and undamaged—it's not something to achieve, but something to access. When we don't feel that Self, it's hard to live self-led.
Parts can cloud our view of the Self for valid reasons, like clouds hiding the sun. In IFS therapy, we explore these parts, learn their roles, and understand what they fear would happen if they stepped aside.
When I move toward a wound, a part often blurs my focus. With a gentle question, curiosity sparks: what does this part want for me?
IFS operates as a constraint-release model, focusing attention where burdens and deep-seated beliefs, like worthlessness or hopelessness, block us.
By improving the relationship between your Self and parts, IFS helps you live more authentically, allowing everything protective parts have kept out to reintegrate into your inner system.
IFS values protectors
Before we can free exiles, we must first carefully work with the protectors who have kept them banished for so long. These protectors, no matter how extreme their beliefs or behaviors, are met with curiosity and compassion in IFS.
As I acknowledge the protector, I feel a deep appreciation for how hard it has worked. There's a familiar exhaustion—it must be tough carrying this load.
Once exiles are unburdened, protectors can relax and return to their true roles. But they need trust first, which is why alignment, acceptance, and appreciation are key. Protectors need relationship before they allow us to reach the exiles.
IFS unburdens exiles
Healing trauma, both big and small, is possible through IFS. Instead of focusing on symptoms, IFS sees them as communication, revealing unhelpful messages we internalized early in life—stories that have shaped us.
As my protectors now trust the process, I'm beginning to feel the exile’s deep, painful belief of not being welcome. Desolate sadness emerges, manifesting as a heavy, trembling sensation in my pelvis. This part wants help, though it doesn't yet know how.
IFS helps exiles release stifling beliefs, fostering inner harmony, peace, and deeper connection with Self and Others.
Our Self is the healing agent
Within us exists something beyond our parts: our Self. It has both an individual quality, expressing through us, and a transcendent connection to everything. In this space, everything is already okay—there’s no urgency, only pure compassion for ourselves and others.
'How do I feel towards this part?' my therapist asks. Compassion... so much heaviness and sadness. I want to know this part better, to help it.
Our Self conducts our inner orchestra. In IFS, the therapist nurtures the relationship between Self and parts, as it is the Self that brings healing and harmony.
Vision on being human
IFS offers a non-pathologizing view of how we're structured, recognizing the multiplicity of our psyche. We all share this, though the degree of polarization varies.
In IFS, the client's Self is the healing agent, making the client and their system central to the process. Unlike traditional therapies that place importance on an external attachment figure, IFS sees our Self as the primary source of attachment and healing.
In essence, despite all the inner turmoil and trauma, the solution is already within us. IFS doesn’t change who you are; it helps you become who you truly are.
2. How does it work?
What is an IFS session like? What does living and working with an IFS perspective provide?
Radical equality
In IFS, there's a foundation of radical equality between therapist and client. Both take on roles, holding space for the client’s system together. IFS therapists do their own parts work in therapy, supervision, and intervision groups, staying aware of the parts that arise during sessions.
Both client and therapist embark on an inner journey. Therapists strive to stay Self-led, pausing when they notice they are blending with a part. One participant in an IFS training remarked:
'You really can’t hide anymore, can you? Not behind analysis, diagnosis, or tricks.'
In IFS, both show up fully, beginning with what’s alive for the client. The therapist listens and reflects: 'So, a part of you wants to take a new step, but another part hesitates, while another is tired of the struggle. Is that right?'
You'll feel whether the reflection is accurate. If not, you'll adjust.If a part wants to show up as a 'good client,' your therapist may sense it—or you might speak for the part:
'I am noticing that I want ‘yes’ to all your questions so you'll appreciate our session.'
The therapist then invites curiosity towards this part, asking if it can soften a little bit and if not what it needs to relax, and if it can't relax, the therapist will hold space for it.
Starting a session is like stepping into a room full of different parts, each with a story. Your therapist will support you in exploring which part to work with. As you engage, you learn about its role and history, often uncovering its fears:
'If I take do that, then I will [enter any sort of pain that is really overwhelming or potentially disruptive].'
This reveals how parts protect the system—hitting the brakes to protect vulnerability.
By understanding these fears, you create space for new possibilities: What if the part that fears loss could relax? What could you do instead?
Somatic work with a twist
IFS therapists view the Self as the healing force, never pathologizing symptoms. Instead, they guide clients in understanding the parts that block a Self-led life, moving them toward the C-qualities:
Calmness, Curiosity, Compassion, Confidence, Courage, Clarity, Connectedness, Creativity, and Choice.
Living from these C’s is possible for anyone who pays attention to the parts that obscure them.
While IFS is body-oriented, therapists observe how clients notice their bodies. They may ask, "Where in or around your body do you feel this part?"
Whether clients notice a sensation, thought, or energy, the process remains effective. The therapist always follows the client's unique experience.
Endless trust in your Self
In IFS therapy, the client's Self is the guiding authority for healing. The therapist refrains from diagnosing or intervening in the client's exploration of what hinders Self-led living.
Since the Self possesses an infinite capacity for tolerance, it can embrace all parts without becoming burdened. When intense emotions arise, the therapist simply asks,
'Is it okay for you that this part expresses itself this way?'
If there’s enough Self-energy, this expression is welcomed. If not, the therapist gently engages with the part seeking to be acknowledged, helping it adjust its intensity. Understanding this adjustment is vital for remaining present with the part and requires sensitive attunement.
Traditional therapeutic techniques, like grounding or breathing exercises, can sometimes lead to backlash by implying that the client must first change or calm down to be accepted.
In contrast, IFS warmly welcomes all parts.
3. Is IFS for me?
What would IFS bring me?
Want to give it a try?
Maybe IFS doesn’t resonate with you right away, and you might feel a concern rising within:
If I acknowledge that I exist as parts and a Self, does that mean I’m declaring myself a bit crazy?
Alternatively, it may have sparked your interest immediately, and the concept of radical equality could make therapy feel more accessible for you:
Finally, support from someone who is just another human being, not just ‘the therapist.’
It’s also likely that you’ve already tried various approaches without finding anything sustainable:
What makes IFS different?
Trust is not a given nor a prerequisite
Trust in IFS (Internal Family Systems) is not an automatic response. Sometimes, simply deciding to give it a chance can feel like a significant challenge, as IFS-lead trainer Fran Booth often points out.
It’s important to understand that by signing up for an intake, you may begin to feel a sense of hope. For those grappling with feelings of hopelessness, this can be particularly difficult.
Trust, therefore, is not an inherent quality; it is something that can develop over time. As a Dutch saying goes, 'It comes on foot and leaves on horseback.'
You don't need to fully trust IFS to try a session. Your skeptical and mistrustful parts are just as welcome as any other aspect of yourself. You have the opportunity to explore whether being guided by me feels promising—without any cost.
IFS sessions aim to strengthen and deepen the relationships between your Self and your parts, allowing the conductor within you to create a harmonious inner symphony. This harmony can enhance how you navigate the world and how you engage in your relationships—at home, in your education, at work, and in your leisure time.
The history of IFS
Dr Richard C. Schwartz
IFS did not fall out of the sky
We owe this form of therapy to a family therapist who was willing to unlearn everything he had been taught in his training. Why? Because he saw that what he was doing caused backlash in his clients. Symptoms worsened due to his treatments!
I'm talking about Dr Richard C. Schwartz.
Because he could be curious and not defensive about his failures, he gradually discovered that his original training had overlooked something essential: people do not have a simple psyche at all. He learned from his clients that they existed of parts and something that was not a part. This is how he came across his own inner dialogue.
Over the years, he developed user-friendly protocols that prevent clients from being re-traumatized through therapy and training.
IFS Institute
In 2000, he founded the Center for Self-Leadership. In 2019, it was renamed the IFS Institute. IFS is also gaining ground in the Netherlands. There is an increasing number of IFS-trained therapists (Levels 1, 2, and 3). This growth did not happen automatically.
Western psychology largely pathologizes people's multiple psyche and fundamentally does not incorporate a spiritual view of human beings. Nevertheless, IFS is becoming more well-known, even in mainstream mental health care. From an IFS perspective, however, we still have a long way to go before the perspective of psychic multiplicity is practically embraced there.
User-friendly protocols and publications
Since the 1980s, Schwartz has been publishing articles and books about his clinical work. Alongside many other dedicated therapists, he developed user-friendly protocols that have made non-shaming, non-pathologizing, and inclusive therapy possible. This allows clients the space to promote their inner harmony and, as a result, experience more relaxation in their social relationships.
- 2020: Internal Family Systems Therapy, translated as Introduction to Internal Family Systems (IFS) (2nd edition) together with Martha Sweezy
- 2021: No Bad Parts
- 2023: You Are the One You've Been Waiting For