Discovering Your Core Self in IFS Parts Work Therapy

I've written several articles about IFS Parts Work Therapy in the past (see the links at the end of this article).

Discovering Core Self in IFS Therapy

What is Core Self in IFS Parts Work Therapy?

IFS is Internal Family Systems, an evidence-based therapy developed by Dr. Richard C. Schwartz to help clients heal from psychological trauma.

From the IFS perspective, Core Self is an inate state of being that everyone possesses.

Unlike parts, which are like subpersonalities in IFS, Core Self isn't a part of the personality.  IFS posits that the Core Self is in a self leadership role in every person and one way to describe Core Self is in terms of the 8 Cs:

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

How Can You Access Your Core Self?

The Core Self can be accessed through various practices including: 

• Mindfulness: A basic mindfulness exercise involves focusing on your breath while allowing whatever thoughts and feelings to come up without judgment.

• Meditation: Guided meditations can help you to connect with your Core Self so you can experience yourself in a deeper way.

Discovering Core Self in IFS Parts Therapy

• Self Compassion: Practicing self compassion is key to connecting with your Core Self. Self compassion allows you to connect with yourself in a loving nonjudgmental way. 

• Focusing on Your Body: Taking time to notice physical sensations in your body in a gentle and loving way can help you to connect with your body's innate wisdom (see my article: The Mind-Body Connection: The Body Offers a Window Into the Unconscious Mind).

How is Core Self Different From Parts of Yourself?

• Parts: Everyone is made up of a multiplicity of selves.. In this case, I'm not talking about multiple personality disorder. Instead, I'm talking about the many subpersonalities that everyone possess that carry many emotions, beliefs and histories. There are no "bad parts" and it's not the goal of IFS to get rid of any of the parts. However, some of the parts might be in need of healing because they have taken on extreme roles due to trauma.

• Core Self: Core Self is distinct from parts. The Core Self, which is also called the True Self, Higher Self or the Self (with a capital "S"), is the source of your inner wisdom and healing. When you are within the perspective of your Core Self, the Core Self can work with your parts instead of being overwhelmed by parts.

The Core Self can be difficult to access when your parts are activated and "in charge" of you, but you can learn to access Core Self (as described in the vignette below).

Clinical Vignette

The following clinical vignette, which is a composite of many cases, illustrates how a client in IFS Parts Work Therapy can access Core Self to heal from trauma:

Tina

When Tina sought help in IFS Parts Work Therapy, she felt overwhelmed by unresolved childhood trauma.

Discovering Your Core Self in IFS Therapy

Although she had close friends, Tina had difficulty maintaining romantic relationships once they became serious. Over time, Tina became emotionally distant in her relationships because she felt too emotionally vulnerable to express her feelings with the partner she was seeing at the time.

Her pattern was that she would be happy and excited to get into a new relationship, but when she and her partner developed deeper feelings for each other, her trauma symptoms got triggered.

She grew up in a family where her mother was emotionally distant and her father, whom she felt a closer connection to, disappeared one day when she was seven years old. After that, her mother became depressed and barely got out of bed, so Tina's aunt came to help them.

No one ever discussed what happened to her father and, as many children do, Tina blamed herself for her father abandoning the family.

Several years later, Tina found out from a neighbor that her father left her family to be with another woman and he started a new family. When Tina tried to contact him, her father refused to talk to her.

Many years later, when Tina was in her 30s, her father contacted her out of the blue because he had terminal cancer. By then, his second wife had left him and his children from the second marriage didn't want to maintain contact with him.

Since her father had no one to look after him, Tina allowed him to stay with her while he had cancer treatment. She had a lot of ambivalence about taking him in, but she didn't feel she could send him away.

During the next two years, Tina and her father worked towards reconciling their father-daughter relationship. Her father regretted how he left her and her mother and he asked for Tina's forgiveness. Knowing he was going to die, Tina told him that she forgave him, but deep down she still felt the hurt and pain of her younger self who was abandoned.

This hurt and pain related to her father's abandonment carried over into her romantic relationships as soon as she became emotionally invested in the relationship.  She feared she would be abandoned again and she dealt with it by becoming emotionally numb.

When Tina sought help in IFS Parts Work Therapy, her therapist provided her with psychoeducation about IFS.

She also helped Tina to develop the necessary tools and coping strategies to do the deep work involved with IFS, and Tina also journaled and meditated between sessions.

After her therapist discussed Core Self, Tina took time during her busy week to access this deeper part of herself through mindfulness meditation.

Over time, she also learned to distinguish between the fearful and anxious parts of herself and her Core Self. She knew that whenever she felt fearful or anxious, she was looking through the perspective of one or more parts. And when she felt calm and compassionate, she was in touch with her Core Self.

Discovering Your Core Self in IFS Parts Work Therapy

This was the early stage of her IFS therapy and she was aware she and her therapist needed to do work on the parts that were causing her to feel fear and anxiety.  But after she learned to switch her perspective from her parts to her Core Self, she felt calmer and more in charge of her life.

Over time, with the help of IFS Therapy, Tina was able to develop a new relationship beyond the initial honeymoon stage. Although it was challenging for her, she used the tools she learned in IFS to heal her trauma and remain in her relationship.

Conclusion

Core Self is the innate essence that everyone possesses.

It can be challenging to access Core Self when you are immersed in parts, including anxious, fearful, shamed or angry parts.

IFS Parts Work Therapy provides ways to access Core Self during the initial stage of IFS Therapy.

Once clients can access their Core Self, they can work in IFS to deal with the wounded and traumatized parts.

Getting Help in IFS Parts Work Therapy

IFS Parts Work Therapy is an evidence-based effective form of trauma therapy.

If you're struggling with unresolved trauma, you could benefit from working with an IFS therapist so you can free yourself from the effects of your traumatic history.

About Me

I am a licensed New York psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP, EFT (for couples), Parts Work (IFS and Ego States Therapy), Somatic Experiencing and Certified Sex Therapist.

As a trauma therapist, I have helped many individual adults and couples to overcome trauma.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychtherapist.

To set up a consultation, call at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

Also See My Other IFS Articles:

How Does Parts Work Therapy, Like IFS and Ego States Therapy, Help You to Understand Yourself

Understanding the Different Parts of Yourself

Parts Work Therapy Can Be Empowering

How Can IFS Parts Work Therapy Help With Anxiety?

Is an Unconscious Part of Yourself Running Your Life?

How IFS Parts Work Therapy Can Help With Anxiety

Anyone who has ever had to deal with a high level of anxiety knows how unpleasant anxiety can be (see my article: Getting Help in Therapy For Anxiety).

IFS Parts Work Therapy Can Help With Anxiety

For a basic understanding of IFS (Internal Family Systems) Therapy, see the articles at the end of this blog post.

How Does IFS Help With Anxiety?

Rather than seeing anxiety as a flaw, from an IFS perspective, IFS teaches you to see anxiety as a part of yourself.

IFS therapists help clients with anxiety by teaching them to connect with their Core Self. 

According to IFS, the Core Self is innate in every person and consists of the 8 Cs:

• Calm
• Compassion (including self compassion)
• Curiosity
• Clarity
• Courage
• Confidence
• Creativity
• Connection

When you learn to connect with your Core Self, you can work with the various parts of yourself, including the anxious part, to understand the parts' intentions and help them to let go of the extreme roles they are in to reduce anxiety.

The intention of IFS isn't to do battle with your anxiety. Instead, the goal is to work with the anxious part so that you are emotionally balanced and mentally integrated.

This involves:

• Understanding the Parts: The main idea in IFS is that the mind is made up of a multiplicity of parts. Within your system of parts, you have parts that are "managers", "exiles" and "firefighters." An example of a manager might be a part who is a perfectionist who wants to do everything "perfectly" to prevent a future failure. An example of a firefighter part might be a part that uses alcohol to distract you and numb you from your emotions. An example of an "exile" is a young wounded part that carries shame from early trauma.

IFS Parts Work Therapy Can Help With Anxiety

• Identifying Triggers: An IFS therapist helps you to identify the triggers that activate the anxious part. An example of a trigger that activates anxiety might be a work deadline.

• Accessing Your Core Self: Core Self, as described above, is the "leader" of your parts. Your IFS therapist teaches you how to access your Core Self so that you can shift your perspective from seeing through your anxious part to gaining a balanced, centered and grounded perspective through Core Self.

• Communicating With Your Anxious Part: As you continue to develop skills in IFS, you also learn how to understand and dialog with your anxious part and any other part from the perspective of Core Self.  Your Core Self is the essence of who you are and, as such, Core Self is nonjudgmental and empathetic. Instead of battling your anxiety, you ask the anxious part of you what it's afraid of, how it's trying to protect you and what it needs.

• Releasing Burdens: By getting to the root of your anxiety, you help your anxious part to release the "burdens" it has been carrying. These are usually painful emotions or beliefs from past trauma. 

• Rebalancing the System: Once you are coming from the perspective of Core Self, Core Self can guide your parts to work together in a harmonious way. This reduces anxiety and helps the anxious part to develop a healthier role. Instead of being stuck in an extreme role, all your parts can work together to achieve your goals instead of remaining stuck in extreme protective roles.

Preparation in Therapy to Do IFS Parts Work to Overcome Anxiety

Just like any other therapy, when you do IFS to overcome anxiety, your IFS therapist can help you to develop a rapport with her. 

This is essential in any therapy, but it's especially important when doing the deep work involved in IFS because you need to trust your therapist. This isn't necessarily easy for people who have experienced trauma, especially if it involved family-related trauma (see my article: Can You Trust Your Therapist If You Couldn't Trust Your Family?).

IFS Parts Work Therapy Can Help With Anxiety

Your therapist will also provide you with psychoeducation to understand IFS so that you know what is involved before you work with her in IFS therapy.

If your anxiety is getting in the way of day-to-day functioning, your IFS therapist will assess what level of care you might need and if you need adjunctive mental health treatment or another level of treatment.

Assuming that IFS outpatient psychotherapy is right for you, your therapist will also ensure you have the necessary coping skills and internal resources before beginning IFS.

Doing Your Own Work Between Therapy Sessions

Your IFS therapist will probably suggest that you do your own work between therapy sessions to cope with anxiety.

This could include:

Journaling

Meditation

Using Grounding Techniques

Getting Help in IFS Therapy

IFS is an evidence-based therapy developed by Dr. Richard C. Schwartz.

Getting Help in IFS Therapy

IFS is used throughout the United States and in many parts of the world.

Rather than struggling on your own, seek help from an IFS therapist so you can lead a meaningful life free from the effects of your history of trauma.

About Me

I am a licensed New York psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP, Parts Work (IFS and Ego States Therapy), EFT (for couples), Somatic Experiencing and Certified Sex Therapist.

I have helped many individual adults and couples to overcome trauma.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

My Other Articles About IFS:

How Does Parts Work Therapy, Like IFS and Ego States Therapy, Help You to Understand Yourself

Understanding the Different Parts of Yourself

Parts Work Therapy Can Be Empowering

Is an Unconscious Part of Yourself Running Your Life?

How Parts Work Therapy Helps to Empower You

As an experiential psychotherapist, I use many different types of experiential therapy to help clients to move beyond the intellectual part of their mind to get to the deeper, more creative part. Being able to access their creative, intuitive mind allows clients to access their imagination in a way that helps them to bypass the emotional blocks that would normally hinder their progress in therapy (see my articles: The Unconscious Mind and Experiential Therapy: The Symptom Contains the Solution).

How Parts Work Helps to Empower You

How to Access a Deeper Part of Yourself Through Parts Work Therapy

One way to help you to access the deeper parts of yourself is through Parts Work (also known as Ego States therapy or Internal Family Systems).  

Parts Work helps you to understand that each of us is made up of a multiplicity of selves.  When I say "multiplicity of selves," I'm not referring to multiple personality disorder.  I'm referring to the concept that everyone's personality is made up of many different parts, which includes your unconscious mind.  

You might be aware of certain parts but not others, so Parts Work helps you to access those deeper parts of your personality to help you to be more creative, solve problems and resolve inner conflicts.   

Most people have had the experience of thinking, "A part of me wants to change, but another part of me doesn't."  This is often the way most people approach change, whether they're in therapy or not, because change can be challenging and there's a certain amount of ambivalence about making a change--especially a big change--even when they know that the change would be beneficial.

Most people have access to certain parts of their personality, but they have no awareness of other unconscious parts.  Once you discover the parts of your personality that you normally don't have access to, you can use those parts, even after you complete therapy, to be more creative in solving your problems (see my article: Discovering and Giving Voice to Unconscious Parts of Yourself).

What Does an Experiential Parts Work Therapist Do in Therapy?

A psychotherapist who does Parts Work acts as a facilitator to help you identify and develop the parts of your personality by helping you to:

• Identify the various parts relevant to your problems.
• Calling out the various parts.
• Establish a rapport with the parts.
• Discover the role of these parts.
• Appreciate the role of these parts as it relates to your problems.
• Negotiate an agreement between conflicting parts.
• Integrate the parts together for an overall sense of wholeness and well-being.

The Uses of Inner Active Cards in Parts Work Therapy

Inner Active Cards, which were designed by Sharon Sargent Eckstein, are a set of 62 color illustrated cards (plus 10 blank cards to create your own images) that depict the inner life of the various parts you discover.

I have used Inner Active Cards with clients in Parts Work therapy sessions by allowing clients to choose cards from the deck that resonates with them.  Then, they use the cards they have chosen to say what's going on for the person illustrated in the card, discover and identify a similar part of themselves and learn to use this part to be more creative and solve their problems.

Many clients find the use of Inner Active Cards to be helpful to access the various parts of their personality that aren't immediately accessible to them.  These evocative cards are especially helpful for clients who have difficulty accessing their inner world.  

Inner Active cards can be used in therapy or on your own.  When these cards are used in Parts Work therapy, they help to bring clarity to the various parts of yourself and, with the help of your therapist, facilitate psychological transformation.

How Does Parts Work Therapy Help to Empower You?

• The premise of Parts Work is that the power to change resides within you.
• When you learn to access the various parts of your unconscious mind, you have a tool you can use even after you leave therapy.
• You can use Parts Work for any problem you might have.
• Once you learn how to access and negotiate with the various parts of yourself, your sense of self and self esteem improve and you feel empowered.

Getting Help in Therapy

People often discover that regular talk therapy helps them to be more insightful about their problems, but this intellectual understanding often doesn't bring about the change they want (see my article: Why Experiential Therapy is More Effective Than Regular Talk Therapy).

Experiential therapy includes Parts Work, Somatic Experiencing, AEDP, EMDR, EFT and clinical hypnosis, among other therapies.  

Rather than struggling on your own, you could benefit from working with an experiential therapist who can help you to overcome the obstacles getting in the way of your transformation.

About Me

I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP, EFT, Parts Work and Somatic Experiencing therapist (see my article: The Therapeutic Benefits of Integrative Therapy).

I work with individual adults and couples.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during regular business hours or email me.

Developing Internal Resources and Coping Skills

Whether you realize it or not, you have internal resources and coping abilities that you can tap into when you're facing a challenging situation or life event. Very often, the question is how to access these internal resources and coping abilities when you need them the most.

Developing Internal Resources and Coping Skills

As a psychotherapist in New York City, I see many clients who are overwhelmed after trying to deal with problems on their own. Often, by the time they come to therapy, they're feeling emotionally depleted and defeated by their problems. 

As a psychotherapist, I treat each client as an individual and I don't have a standard way of working with all clients. However, often, as a start, I find it useful to help clients to access their own confidence, internal resources and coping abilities to deal with whatever obstacles they're facing.

What Are Internal Resources?
Our internal resources are made up of the various internal aspects of ourselves that have the emotional strength, compassion, confidence and overall wherewithal to deal with the issues that we're facing. When we're able to remember and re-experience these internal aspects in a deep way, we can use them as part of our coping strategies to face our problems. This might not be enough to actually resolve our problems, but it's a good way to start.

Examples of Internal Resources:

Remembering a time when you felt the inner emotional fortitude to deal with a particular problem or fear with courage and confidence. This might have been a time when, initially, you didn't think you could find it within yourself to deal with this problem but, ultimately, you did, and you felt good about that. How can you take that experience of yourself and use it to deal with whatever problem you're facing now?

Remembering someone special in your life (e.g., a teacher, mentor, friend, family member, psychotherapist, coach) who helped you when you faced a particular obstacle.
This might involve recalling some advice this person gave you or how supported you felt when this person helped you. What might this person say to you now in your current situation?

If you can't think of anyone in particular that helped you in the past, you can also think about other people that you admire, possibly people in your every day life, a character from a movie or a historical figure, and ask yourself what that person might do.
You could close your eyes and imagine what that person might tell you or what it might feel like to be that person in the particular situation that you're dealing with now.

Developing Internal Resources and Coping Skills

What If You Can't Access Your Internal Resources?
Sometimes, just remembering that you've faced similar or worse problems in the past or remembering how an important person in your life might have helped you, is enough to help you access your internal resources and coping skills.

However, there are other times when you might feel so "stuck" in your particular problem that just the act of remembering these experiences on your own is not enough to help you. At those times, it's often helpful to work with a licensed mental health professional who can help you to rediscover your internal resources and coping abilities so that you can overcome the problems that you're facing.

How I Work to Help Clients to Access Their Internal Resources and Coping Abilities:
As I mentioned before, as a psychotherapist, I see each client as a unique person, and I don't have a particular approach that I use with all clients. However, I often find it very helpful to use Richard Schwartz's Internal Family Systems model to help clients to overcome internal conflicts and rediscover their coping abilities.

The name "Internal Family Systems" can be misleading, and you might think that it involves bringing your family into treatment. However, this is not the case.

The main idea in Richard Schwartz's theory is that we all have internal parts (or aspects of ourselves) that we can access and use to help us. When I use the term "internal parts," I'm referring to our inner emotional world.

We often see these internal parts when we're having a debate with ourselves about a particular problem or question: "A part of me wants to sleep later in the morning, but another part of me knows I feel better when I get up early and go to the gym."

One of the reasons why I like the Internal Family Systems model is that it's a gentle, positive, optimistic, strengths-based theory. As opposed to many other psychological theories that look at what's wrong with a person, Internal Family Systems looks at what's right. It also puts us in touch with our internal core selves.

When I'm helping clients to access these internal parts, I will often help them to get into a relaxed meditative state or I use clinical hypnosis.

I've discussed clinical hypnosis in detail in prior posts (see post dated May 31, 2009). As a reminder, I'll reiterate that when you're seeing a licensed mental health professional who is trained in hypnotherapy, clinical hypnosis is a safe and very effective tool in therapy.

You maintain dual awareness of the here-and-now as well as whatever you're working on in hypnosis, and you're in complete control at all times. Clinical hypnosis can help you to access your internal resources because it allows you to experience your unconscious mind where your internal resources are located.

For more information about Richard Schwartz's Internal Family System, you can visit his web site: http://www.selfleadership.org/.

Getting Help in Therapy
If you feel like you're stuck emotionally and you're unable to overcome the emotional challenges that you're currently facing, you could benefit from seeing a licensed psychotherapist.

Getting Help in Therapy

I'm a licensed psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP and Somatic Experiencing in New York City who works with individuals and couples. 

I have helped many clients to access their own internal resources and coping abilities to overcome their problems.

To find out more about me, visit my web site: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist

To set up a consultation, please call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

Overcoming the Internal Critic

At one time or another, most people have experienced the negative effects of the internal critic. The internal critic is that negative voice that says things like, "You're not good enough." "You're unlovable." "You can't write." "You can't do anything right." Learning to overcome the internal critic is essential to your overall health and well being.

Overcoming the Internal Critic

The Internal Critic Often Develops at a Young Age
Most of the time, the internal critic develops when you're young. Authority figures, like parents, grandparents, other relatives, and teachers, who are often well meaning, might have tried to instill certain values in you as part of the socialization process. However, although well intentioned, these messages are not always delivered and received in a balanced and helpful way.

Sometimes these messages are harsh and, at times, cruel. Sometimes these messages can be emotionally abusive or traumatic ("You should learn to be more polite like your cousin. If you don't learn how to behave around people, you're never going to amount to anything"). When you're very young, you don't have the cognitive or emotional capacity to defend yourself against these harsh comments so you take them in and believe them. Later on, when you're older, you have already internalized these messages at such a deep level that you don't need anyone to repeat them to you any more because you're saying them to yourself now. These negative messages develop into the internal critic and they are detrimental to your self esteem, your relationships, your career and other areas of your life.

So what can you do?
First, realize that you're not alone. This is a common problem that many people face.

Second, recognize that the internal critic is only a part of who you are. It's not your entire being. We tend to think of ourselves as being unitary beings but, in fact, our internal world has a multiplicity of selves. These different aspects are often referred to as "parts" in psychotherapy. These parts often pull us in different directions at once, especially when we feel ambivalent about something important to us.

As an example, you can think about the last time that you felt highly ambivalent about something that was important to you and how you might have felt pulled in different directions internally ("A part of me wants to pursue a career in medicine. But another part wants to focus on sports. And there's another part that wants a career in the arts. Then, there's another part that says I'll never succeed at anything that I do. But there's another part that says I have talent in all of these areas and I can do well in any of them. I don't know what to do."

To clarify: I'm not talking about multiple personality disorder. What I'm describing is a normal, common occurrence in most people.

The Internal Critic is Only a Part of Who You Are
Often, when clients come to me to overcome the effects of an internal critic, depending upon the issues involved, I'll help them to recognize that their internal critic is only one part of them. The internal critic might be a large part, but it's still only one part. Most people are relieved to realize this. It makes the internal critic seem less overwhelming and more manageable. Then, depending upon the particular issue, I might use clinical hypnosis, EMDR, or Internal Family Systems (IFS) or a combination of these treatment modalities to help clients to overcome the internal critic and bring balance and harmony to their internal world.

EMDR and Clinical Hypnosis to Overcome the Internal Critic
In prior posts, I described clinical hypnosis and EMDR. Among other things, clinical hypnosis is particularly helpful for creative blocks and other emotional blocks. EMDR is usually helpful in dealing with trauma. Internal Family Systems helps to differentiate among the different parts, including the internal critic, and help bring them into harmony.

The goal of IFS is to empower you to strengthen your core self, which is the essence of who you are that always knows what's best for you and who can overcome the internal critic. 

Getting Help in Therapy
If you feel overwhelmed by your internal critic, don't suffer alone. Seek help from a licensed mental health professional who has experience dealing with this issue.

About Me
I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist. I have helped many clients to overcome the effects of their internal critics.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.