Internal Family Systems (IFS)

The past two weeks have been pretty terrible I’m not going to lie. Sadness and grief have overwhelmed me at the loss I will be facing soon. Fear has gripped me with its talons, and my depression has nose-dived to epic depths. I feel utterly hopeless and helpless and all I long for at this point is some respite. I don’t expect happiness; I just want to live a life without so much constant loss.

I’ve started seeing a new therapist. I know, I know – this is easily the 14th one I’ve seen. But I actually think this one might help me. He is maybe the gentlest human being I’ve ever met.  He not only listens to me but challenges me to reframe the way that I think, how I treat myself, and what I want. While somehow giving me permission and power to change myself. To accept myself.  Maybe someday to even love myself.

Hope never dies as they say.

He has introduced me to a new type of therapy. Internal Family Systems, or IFS, is a powerful therapy that helps people heal from self-blame, discomforting feelings, and traumatic events. Essentially, it’s a type of therapy that focuses on the fact that we as humans are made up of parts – we are not just one thing. For example, I have many parts of me – there’s the intellectual me, the compassionate me, the animal-loving me….but then there’s also the depressed me, the anxious me, the sick me.

This is something I need to grapple with. I tend to think negative things about myself and others. I’m a depressing person. I am chronically ill. I would have said about my dad, “He was an alcoholic,” and about the person standing outside the red light with a cardboard sign, “He’s a homeless guy.” And I make judgements of myself and others based on these all-encompassing labels.

The reality is, we are much more complicated. I am not just a depressing person (hopefully); but there is a depressed part of me that needs help. My dad, yes, was a heavy drinker, but he was not just an alcoholic. It was a part of him that he needed to work on, but there were many more facets to who he was, just as there are for me.

We develop different parts of who we are in response to different contexts. My depressed side might come out more when I’m talking about my past or when I’m contemplating my future. But it is not always there. Most people in the present can’t even tell that I am depressed. One of the main tenants of IFS is to focus on those parts of us that need to change and to essentially become our own therapists, our own healers.

A lot of food for thought.