Introduction to Internal Family Systems

Seeing from the Self Think of a person in your life to whom you have closed your heart. Perhaps they are someone who has hurt you in the past and whom you have decided not to trust again. Maybe it’s a person who has qualities that get on your nerves. Once you have a person in mind, imagine that person is in a room and you are outside the room looki

Given how much parts can interfere in our lives and make us feel horrible, it makes sense that we wish we could get rid of them. It’s hard to see any value in an inner voice that constantly berates you or a fear in your gut that makes you withdraw. These parts have such devastating power over us that the natural impulse is to hate and fight them. A

As I explored the writings of some of these esoteric schools, including the Mahayana school (Buddhism) and Sufism (Islam), it gradually dawned on me that through interacting with people’s parts in ways that allowed the individuals to separate from their emotions and beliefs, I had accidentally come upon a simple way to help people access the state

In this chapter we will explore this idea of the Self because it is the centerpiece of the IFS Model and the hardest piece for most people to fully accept. The idea that at your essence you are pure joy and peace, and that from that place you are able to manifest clusters of wonderful leadership and healing qualities and sense a spiritual connected

In these pages, I hope to help you realize that your emotions and thoughts are much more than they seem—that those emotions and thoughts emanate from inner personalities I call parts of you. I’m suggesting that what seems like your explosive temper, for example, is more than a bundle of anger. If you were to focus on it and ask it questions, you mi

What about the part of you that gets extremely defensive when you argue with your intimate partner or close friend? In the middle of the fight, you suddenly become that part—seeing your partner or friend through its eyes; taking on its distorted, black/white, blame/guilt perspective; stubbornly refusing to give an inch; and saying nasty things. Lat

the eight Cs of Self-leadership—calmness, clarity, curiosity, compassion, confidence, courage, creativity, and connectedness.

We are defensive not because someone is attacking us but rather because the attack is likely to provoke our inner critics, which in turn trigger the worthlessness and terror we accumulated as children. Whatever slight we receive in the present triggers an echo chamber inside us of all the similar hurts we’ve accumulated from the past. Contemporary

The famed champion of legal and social reform Clarence Darrow once said, “The most human thing we can do is comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.” The Self has the courage to do both.