Have you ever thought that your inner critic is a bit too overwhelming at times?
Or that your inner child has something to say but you don’t know how to reach it?
Something is “locked away” within you, and you can’t really get hold of it to work through it?
Well, welcome to the (inner) community!
We all have that critic, and we all have that inner child. With certain experiences in our child- and adulthood we have created versions inside of us (Parts), and we all do that. They either work to protect us, drive us, or to keep us away from feeling pain, like perfectionism, anxiety, shame and guilt for example. There are also parts in us, which are happy, excited and caring, sometimes maybe over-caring. Lastly, there are parts which we have banned and exiled, our emotional pains and sufferings.
Internal Family Systems (IFS) is all about reuniting this community of parts and live in peace together. During this process many people report an unbelievable change and unburdening of old weights, and to finally feel in peace with themselves again.
The leader of this community is the “Self”, which is by nature mindful and compassionate. We all have that Self in us and it cannot be damaged. It knows by itself how to heal and we just need it to come up from underneath the surface of all those parts.
IFS is a very effective and powerful tool to find wholeness and unburden yourself from old messages which keep popping up and hold you back. The need for approval, the perfectionism, anxiety, the lack of attention from caregivers, all of those old wounds are parts in us, which want to be integrated into our inner community.
IFS is based on non-judgemental, mindful and especially compassionate communication, not only between the psychologist and client, but also in the client’s system between the Self and its parts.
Once put into place by Dr. Richard C. Schwartz in the 1980’s, IFS has now been adopted quickly by many therapists around the world and its systemic approach to the Self has helped a range of clients in rediscovering their peaceful and whole state.