IFS Therapy: What to Expect & How to Get Started

I was in an IFS session a year ago when I was first able to intentionally connect with my inner Self. It showed up in a feeling of calm, quieter mind, and belief that my situation was more hopeful than it had seemed. This Self-energy reminded me of something from the children’s book, The Black Cauldron, which hadn’t crossed my mind in a long time. It was the glowing orb that the princess Eilonwy carried into dark places. My orb was an inner light that I hoped might, over time, bring clarity to the chaos — fears of inadequacy, feelings of shame, and memories I couldn’t quite release. Now, many IFS sessions later, this hope has steadily become a reality.

Internal Family Systems (IFS) Therapy is becoming popular as an approach that sparks extraordinary self-awareness, and can help you achieve breakthroughs and behavior changes that you might not have thought possible.

What is IFS Therapy?

IFS therapy (Internal Family Systems) is an evidence-based approach that views the mind as made up of many Parts alongside a core, unwounded Self. As you allow your Parts to be fully seen and cared for by the Self, you can begin to feel transformed and live more authentically.

Parts in IFS therapy

The Parts work of Internal Family Systems provides a highly intuitive way of relating to yourself. You’ve probably said things like “well, one part of me wants to do this, but another part wants to do that.” Or maybe you’ve had an inner monologue where you experienced “voices” in your head debating your options from very different points of view.

When you examine your inner Parts, you find that some are easy to recognize and embrace, because they have “good” qualities like empathy or generosity. Then there are other Parts that can be harder to see and feel compassion for, because they’re full of anger or shame.

This inner system of Parts develops over time through your life experiences, and helps you navigate and survive in the world, even under difficult conditions.

Parts become problematic when they over-function or take on extreme roles, such as after trauma. This can cause you to struggle with symptoms like depression, anxiety, addiction, and other challenges.

Self in IFS Therapy

Another key concept of IFS is that you have an authentic Self. This is the core of who you are, the healing energy within you that isn’t affected by trauma and who helps you live authentically.

The Self possesses qualities known as the 8 C’s:

• Calm
• Curiosity
• Compassion
• Confidence
• Courage
• Clarity
• Connectedness
• Creativity

The goal of IFS is to connect with Self-energy more and more, so that extreme Parts soften and we can live more authentically and freely.

Working with IFS Parts

Many of us have experienced moments where our Self was in the driver’s seat. It can feel like being in a flow state — where you’re free from self-criticism, perfectionism, or the need to judge or compare yourself to others. When you’re in Self, you can do surprising things like stay calm, even when someone is yelling at you in anger. And what’s most interesting is that, when you’re in Self, these incredible things that you’re capable off feel effortless.

When it’s hard to tap into Self-energy, oftentimes it’s because protective Parts of us have taken over. We might feel rage, procrastinate, be self-deprecating, emotionally eat, or fall into habits that give us temporary relief but leave us discouraged.

Like IFS founder Richard Schwartz describes, there are no inherently bad Parts. Instead, Parts are natural survival instincts that have become extreme and too inflexible. IFS therapy helps you understand, appreciate, and build compassion for these Parts, teaching them to trust in the Self’s ability to lead and keep us safe. Gradually, they can soften and release the vigilance they may have been carrying your whole life.

Protectors

Protector Parts of ourselves have pure intentions to keep us out of danger. Sometimes they come out as an inner critic’s voice admonishing us for not doing a job perfectly, or as a shame-filled memory meant to make us avoid more embarrassment. Even when it seems counterintuitive, protector Parts are working tirelessly to make sure painful old beliefs aren’t triggered: I’m a loser. I’m unlovable. I’m not enough.

Exiles

Parts of us that carry these painful beliefs are exiles. Sometimes, when we’re most vulnerable, we can feel a fragile, more childlike Part come online that fills us with fear, grief, or shame. Exiles are often parts that lost their playfulness and freedom early on after painful life experiences wounded us. Now as adults, we instinctively protect them from being hurt again by hiding them deep down. But this also means they miss the chance to be healed.

Managers

Our exiled Parts are shielded by protectors, like the managers that help us navigate daily life. Managers often show up as judging, intellectualizing, people pleasing, overcompensating, or avoidant Parts of us that feel normal because they’re well-practiced. Sometimes they’ve helped us achieve enormous professional or outward success, and feel like a core part of our identity. But their underlying posture is vigilance.

Firefighters

When we’re overwhelmed or triggered, protective firefighter Parts will usually step in to soothe us. They’re the emergency responder instincts we have to release intense emotions regardless of longer-term consequences. Firefighters often show up as addictive behaviors, self-harm, repressed memories, disordered eating, panic, dissociation, or thoughts of suicide. Even though they cause us pain, they are parts of us doing their best to distract or put out inner fires.

Living from our true Self

In the Internal Family Systems framework, connecting with your Self-energy is the antidote to cycling between hiding and self-protection.

You can recognize when you’re in Self by checking to see if you have access to the 8 C’s. This is very similar to being within your window of tolerance, where stress doesn’t overwhelm and you can relax, problem solve, and navigate life wisely.

Staying in Self-energy allows managers and firefighters to relax, slow down, and eventually go back to their original role of helping you respond adaptively to life. It also enables your exiled Parts to come out into the open, express themselves, and unburden from the beliefs they’ve carried for so long. This doesn’t mean you won’t get triggered or ever go into fight, flight, or freeze, but these threat reactions are much less extreme.

With the Self in charge, you experience much more balance in your internal family system.

Living this way helps strengthen your relationships with yourself and with others. When you feel depressed, you can use Self-energy to go inward and connect with the Parts of us that are hurting, offering comfort and companionship that goes beyond external self-care. During an argument with a loved one, you can tap into Self-leadership by being curious about their experience and staying emotionally vulnerable with them. More and more, you can live from the heart.

What does an IFS session look like?

Getting to a place of Self-leadership looks less like willpower and more like practice. In IFS therapy, initial sessions are focused on understanding what manager or firefighter Parts inside you might be contributing to the symptoms that brought you in.

There are an endless number of Parts you can have, but there tend to be a core few that are regularly managing your life — with the greatest intentions, but ultimately causing harm.

Later IFS sessions involve going inward and getting to know our Parts through a process called the 6 F’s:

• Finding
• Focusing
• Fleshing out
• Feeling toward
• Befriending
• Understanding their fears

Let’s say you’ve realized that you have a Part that tends to intellectualize rather than feel your feelings. Finding it can look like locating how your intellectualizing manifests in your body and emotions – whether as a sense of distrust, tension in your chest, or another sensation.

Focusing on and fleshing out this Part might involve giving it a name, describing it with an image or symbol, or personifying it through a vivid character that comes to mind. You can use your imagination to give it a more solid shape that you can interact with.

It’s natural to have a reaction toward the Part, and important to notice how you feel toward it. You might have battled with it for years and feel exhausted or impatient with it. In IFS, this is a sign that another Part, perhaps a judging or critical type, has shown up as well. Other times, you might feel sympathy for the part, realizing that it’s been working tirelessly to help you survive. Intellectualizing could be protecting you from being overwhelmed by difficult emotions, even if it sometimes blocks connection with other people.

If you’re feeling compassion, calm, clarity, or any of the 8 C’s as you get to know this Part, you know you’re in Self-energy.

From this place you can gradually befriend the Part and understand its story, its fears, what it wants to share, how it came to have this job, and what job it’d like to have instead if it were freer.

During this whole time, your therapist is prompting you with gentle guiding questions. My early IFS sessions were often filled with tears as I got to know and empathize with Parts of me that dissociated, were chronically anxious, and used false bravado to protect me. Even a few sessions of interacting with a Part could undo years of tension, as I felt it relax bit by bit and learn to trust my Self-energy’s presence. If other protectors came online, whether as a feeling of annoyance or criticism, I’d ask them to step back and watch from the sidelines. Even they were able to develop trust with me in that small way.

It took many sessions for me to access an inner exile, who was a young, 4-year-old Part that lay curled up on the floor with downcast eyes. I felt grief and a pang in my heart when I first saw her, and realized she’d been lying there for decades ever since the first wound in childhood. My therapist asked me to use my Self-energy to approach her gently, witness her pain, and ask if she had anything she wanted to say. It was remarkable how much and how sudden the rage and anger came pouring from her, followed by weeping. It wasn’t always possible in 50-minute therapy sessions to find a clean place to pause, but my therapist would prompt me to imagine leaving her in a space where she felt safe, knowing we would come find her again.

IFS can help with inner transformation

Research has shown that IFS therapy can be particularly helpful for treating trauma or PTSD, depression, chronic pain, building self-forgiveness, and honing emotional regulation skills. It has also been found to be beneficial for symptoms of anxiety and suicide risk. Beyond mental health disorders, IFS therapy can help us develop greater self-awareness, deepen our understanding of ourselves, and be more centered and authentic in our choices.

When our internal system is Self-led, no Parts are banished; instead, they can take on their original, essential roles. An intellectualizing part can find its place and show up when needed, learning to interplay with our emotional mind and the wisdom that comes with feeling more deeply.

But the core transformation that comes with IFS therapy is healing our relationship with our exiles. By grieving with them, allowing our adult selves to protect them, and even going back and re-witnessing what they’ve been through, we can help them to eventually unburden painful beliefs and start to live more joyfully. This inner change can feel like a renewed sense of wonder and awe about the world, or a greater spontaneity and energy.

We can never get to know our Parts too much. I find it helpful outside of therapy sessions to check in with my parts to see how they’re feeling, see who has been overly stressed, how they are feeling toward other parts, and generally making sure they are cared for. I often picture them as characters from my favorite childhood movies and stories that are gathered around a central hearth fire enjoying the warmth and relaxing together.

How to find an IFS therapist

If you’d like to explore working with an IFS therapist, Alma’s provider directory allows you to filter through clinician profiles to find one experienced with the symptoms and challenges you’re facing. IFS-trained therapists have completed at least 1 of 3 levels of formal training with the IFS Institute. But even if you find a provider who is Level 1 or Level 2 trained, remember that their life experience and ability to connect naturally with you can mean more than just technical skill.

Your ability to feel comfortable with and open up to your therapist over time is the key, and is more essential than any structured questions that a therapist could ask. It’s also fine to focus first on talk therapy before starting IFS work. When your Parts feel more comfortable with your therapist, your Self-energy has more room to emerge. You don't have to have it all figured out before you start. You just have to be willing to go inward, and see who's been waiting for you there.