Healing Perfectionism With IFS Therapy

In my prior article, Journal Prompts to Cope With Perfectionism, I began a discussion about perfectionism.

In the current article, I'm discussing perfectionism from an IFS therapy perspective (see my article: IFS is a Gentle, Evidence Based Therapy).

Healing Perfectionism With IFS Therapy

In the next article, I'll discuss how IFS Therapy can help with overcoming perfectionism.

How Do Defensive Parts Develop?

From an IFS therapy perspective, defensive parts usually develop at an early age.

In IFS these parts are known as proactive and reactive parts.

When you're faced with trauma or adversity, some of the internal parts of yourself are forced to take on extreme, rigid roles to protect you from pain. This usually occurs when you have had experiences as a child of rejection, failure, loneliness, conditional love, abuse or childhood emotional neglect.

The Core Self: 

From an IFS perspective, the Core Self is not a part. 

Everyone is born with a Core Self and a natural ability to heal. However, when there is childhood trauma, the Core Self can get blended with your defensive parts (both proactive and reactive parts). That can make it difficult to access the Core Self. 

Your IFS therapist can help you to discover your Core Self which helps with the healing process (see below for explanations about the proactive and reactive/defensive parts).

The Core Self and the 8 Cs

The Core Self is composed of the 8 Cs:

• Curiosity: Wanting to learn about your thoughts and feelings without judgment
• Compassion: Feeling kind towards your inner struggles
• Calm: Feeling steady and peaceful inside--even during rough times
• Clarity: Seeing your situation clearly without emotional fog
• Courage: Feeling able to face hard truths and uncomfortable emotions
• Confidence: Trusting that you can handle what comes your way
• Creativity: Opening up to new ideas and flexible ways of thinking
• Connectedness: Feeling a deep sense of belonging within yourself and with others

The Wounded and Defensive Parts:

This is the usual sequence of how wounded and defensive parts develop and how IFS healing process:

• 1. The Wounded Child Develops First During Childhood Trauma: Before the proactive or reactive parts develop, a vulnerable child part is wounded. The vulnerable child part is not a proactive or reactive part. It's the part that holds the trauma. As an example, a child might be rejected, yelled at or abused by a parent when she gets a bad grade at school. The child internalizes the parent's attitude towards her and believes "I'm unlovable" or "I'm powerless". In order to survive, the child's system buries the memory and painful emotion deep inside, which creates the exiled wounded child part.

• 2. The Perfectionist Part Steps Up to Prevent Pain (Proactive Part): Once the wounded part is buried, the internal system realizes it can never allow the wounded part to be triggered or exposed again. The proactive part emerges to police your life and prevent future pain before it can happen again. This part's strategy is, "If I can be perfect and never make mistakes, no one can ever reject or hurt me again."  This part takes over your consciousness and establishes impossibly high standards. This might work reasonably well for you as a child and you get praise from relatives and teachers, which reinforces this survival strategy. 

• 3. The Inner Critic Develops a Preemptive Shield: As life becomes more complex, maintaining 100% perfection becomes impossible. To protect you from the crushing blow of external judgment, a harsher manager called the inner critic, develops after the perfectionist develops. The inner critic believes that beating you up first (before you get external criticism) provides a safe shield. The inner critic's logic is, "If I criticize you for being lazy or messy before anyone else notices, I'll force you to fix it before others are able to hurt you." The inner critic often adopts the same words, attitude and tone of the critical authority figures from your past (parents, teachers and critical others). The inner critic learned that those voices are what define "safety" and "correctness".

• 4. The Parts Freeze in Time: The primary reason why these parts continue to be problems is that they are frozen in the past. Your perfectionist and critical parts often don't know that you are no longer child. They still believe you are that fragile child that couldn't survive without them.  

• 5. The Parts Take on Healthy Roles: As part of IFS therapy, you learn to have a dialogue and a relationship with these parts of yourself to help them to understand that you now have adult resilience.  As you develop a trusting relationship with these parts, they usually realize for the first time that you are no longer a fragile child that needs protection and they can relax instead of staying in exhausting roles. This allows them to take on healthy functions. For instance, instead of obsessively criticizing and striving for perfection, they might encourage you with a sense of healthy motivation.

Conclusion

For the sake of simplicity, I have described an inner world that has one wounded part, one proactive defensive part and one reactive defensive part. 

In reality, there are usually many wounded, proactive and reactive parts to heal.

Although I have focused on perfectionism, the IFS step-by-step process is the same for any other problem.

In my next article, I'll discuss how IFS therapy works to heal perfectionism.

Get Help in IFS Therapy

If you have been trying without success to work through your problems, you could benefit from working with an IFS therapist.

Get Help in IFS Therapy

IFS therapy can help you to heal your problems so you can be live a more fulfilling life free from your traumatic history.

About Me

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

Over the years I have helped many individual adults and couples.

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

I provide a 10-15 minute free phone call before setting up an appointment.

You can reach me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or you can email me.

Also See My Articles:

What is Somatic IFS? 

How Does IFS Therapy Help You to Understand Yourself? 

How Can IFS Therapy Help With Anxiety? 

Overcoming Childhood Trauma With the Ideal Parents Protocol

The Ideal Parents Protocol was originally developed by Alfred Pesso and Diane Boyden-Pesso in 1964 as part of their body-based psychomotor therapy (PBSP). 

Alfred Pesso taught his protocol at Harvard University where, decades later, Dr. Daniel Brown, a psychologist and hypnotherapist, adapted Pesso's concepts.

The Ideal Parents Protocol in Therapy

Although PBSP used group dynamics and physical touch, Dr. Brown changed the Ideal Parents Protocol into a solitary internal guided visualization process with no therapist touch involved in 2016 (see my article: How Can Visualization Transform Your Life?).

I learned the Ideal Parents Protocol from a PBSP colleague as well as in my advanced clinical hypnosis training about 20 years ago.

How Does the Ideal Parents Protocol Help Adult Psychotherapy Clients?

The Ideal Parents Protocol helps adult clients who were abused or neglected as children by their real parents. The protocol rewires their internal template of relationships by creating new imaginary memories of secure attachment.

The Ideal Parents Protocol in Therapy

The brain processes vivid, emotionally resonant imagination using the same neural pathways as real-world experiences. 

By visualizing Ideal Parents who satisfied childhood emotional needs, the adult brain constructs a new, positive blueprint for safety and connection.

The protocol can reverse the damage of childhood emotional neglect and abuse through five mechanisms:

• 1. Neutralizing Hypervigliance (Providing Safety and Protection): Abused and neglected children live in a chronic state of fight-or-flight because their caregivers were the source of developmental trauma.

• The Healing Mechanism: In the visualization, the client imagines parents who are safe, protective and non-threatening. Experiencing this imagined safety allows the adult's nervous system to let go of chronic survival strategies so they can learn what true safety and relaxation feel like.

• 2. Filling the Emotional "Empty Well" (Providing Nurturance): Emotionally neglected and abused children feel unseen, emotionally empty, unlovable and lonely because no one responded to their emotional distress.

• The Healing Mechanism: The adult client imagines parents who offer unconditional warmth and love as well as physical and emotional comfort. This targeted visualization acts like an emotional "time machine", filling in the gaps of emotional neglect and healing a history of abuse. It also helps the adult to develop self compassion and a sense of inherent self worth.

• 3. Validating Inner Reality (Providing Attunement): Abusive and neglectful parents often dismiss, minimize or gaslight a child's feelings. This teaches the child to ignore their own emotions and intuition.

• The Healing Mechanism: The Ideal Parents in the protocol are completely attuned.  They can read the client's facial expressions, voice and body language. They mirror and validate the client's feelings. This teaches the client to trust their own emotional reality.

• 4. Overcoming the Feeling of Being a Burden: Abused and neglected children usually feel their emotional and physical needs are an annoying burden to their parents. 

• The Healing Mechanism: The protocol guides the client to visualize parents who are delighted by the client's presence. The Ideal Parents express joy by just being around the client. This directly targets the adult's core shame of "taking up too much space" or being "needy". 

• 5. Building a Foundation For Independence: While abusive parents often control or sabotage a child's emotional and psychological growth, neglectful parents ignore the client's growth completely. This often leaves the adult afraid to take risks or to succeed.

• The Healing Mechanism: The client visualizes parents who are enthusiastic in encouraging the client to explore, achieve milestones and develop independence. This can instill a deep, internal sense of security, allowing the adult to confidently pursue career goals, hobbies and healthy adult relationships in the real world.

Conclusion

The Ideal Parents Protocol can provide a powerful healing experience.

Although the Ideal Parents Protocol cannot change a client's history, it can heal the emotional pain from the past by providing a client with the corrective emotional experience they deserve.

Getting Help in Therapy

If you have been struggling with unresolved childhood trauma, rather than struggling on your own, seek help from a licensed mental health professional who includes the Ideal Parents Protocol among her trauma therapy modalities.

Get Help in Therapy

When you have freed yourself from your traumatic past, you can live a more fulfilling life.

About Me

I am a licensed New York psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP, IFS Parts Work, Emotionally Focused Couples Therapist, Somatic Experiencing and Certified Sex Therapist.

As a trauma therapist, I have helped many individual adults and couples with the Ideal Parents Protocol and other modalities in trauma therapy.

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

I provide a free 10-15 minute phone call before setting up the first appointment.

You can reach at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email.

Also See My Articles

Using Your Imagination as a Powerful Tool For Change

Using the Mind-Body Connection to Create a Vision of What You Want 

How Can Imaginal Interweaves Heal Trauma?

Relationships: Asking Your Partner For Emotional Support

Many people in relationships have problems asking for their emotional needs to be met because it requires intense vulnerability and it also triggers deep fears of rejection, judgment or fear of abandonment.

Asking Your Partner For Emotional Support

In addition, our American culture treats emotional self reliance as a strength which causes many people to view their normal human needs as character flaws or signs of weakness.

Childhood Conditioning

Childhood conditioning can also play a role:

• Early Childhood Emotional Neglect: If someone's childhood emotional needs were minimized, ignored or punished, their nervous system learned that asking for their emotional needs to be met was emotionally and physically unsafe (see my article: What is Childhood Emotional Neglect?).

Childhood Emotional Neglect

• The "Easy" Child Trap: Many people learned as children that they had to earn love and approval by being low maintenance, quiet and overly accommodating and this belief often persists on an unconscious level in adulthood in their relationships.

• Hyper-Independence: Childhood emotional neglect often forces children to become overly self sufficient beyond their developmental capacity, but this is a pseudo-independence because it's a survival mechanism driven by fear and neglect rather than a natural, healthy stage of development. This builds thick emotional walls against relying on anyone else. This pattern continues into adulthood which makes it difficult to ask for emotional support in a relationship (see my article: Masking Vulnerability and Shame By Pretending You Don't Need Anyone).

Fears and Psychological Barriers

• Fear of Being a Burden: People frequently convince themselves that their feelings will overwhelm, stress out or inconvenience their partner. 

Fears and Psychological Barriers to Asking For Emotional Support

• Shame of Being "Needy": Internalized shame makes people worry they will be perceived by their partner as being too "needy", dramatic, high maintenance or emotionally unstable. They have learned from early childhood, often on an unconscious level, that their normal emotional needs were "too much". This often occurs because their parents were overburdened with just trying to survive. For example, the parents  might have been working two or more jobs just to be able to meet basic needs. In many cases, the parents also didn't have their own emotional needs met and this emotional neglect is part of a long line of intergenerational trauma (see my article: What is Intergenerational Trauma?.).

• The Mind Reading Myth: Many individuals have an unspoken belief that if their partner really loved them, they would automatically know what they need without being asked (see my article: Are You Expecting Your Partner to Be a Mind Reader?).

• Emotional Disconnection: Decades of suppressing feelings can leave someone fuzzy or completely unaware of their own emotional needs.

Relationship Dynamics

• Fear of Rocking the Boat: When a relationship is going relatively well, individuals might remain silent about their unmet emotional needs to protect the harmony in their relationship and avoid conflict.

• Past Experiences of a Partner Weaponing Vulnerability: Some people avoid asking for what they need emotionally because their emotional needs and vulnerabilities in prior relationships were used against them as leverage or ammunition during arguments.

What Are Practical Strategies For Asking For What You Need From Your Partner?

Focus on Your Internal State

• Identify Your Feelings: Pinpoint your emotional need (loneliness, feeling invisible, feeling overwhelmed) before speaking to your partner.

Locate Physical Sensations Related to Emotions

• Locate the Physical Sensation: Notice where the tension is located in your body to help you to connect with what you need. 

• Name the Core Deficit: Figure out if you need reassurance, physical touch, focused attention or validation (see my article: What is Emotional Validation and Why is It Such a Powerful Skill in Relationships?).

• Learn to Separate the Past From the Present: Acknowledge whether your current emotional reaction is being driven by old unresolved childhood wounds or prior relationship experiences (see my article: Learning to Separate Past Experiences From Your Current Experience).

Use Specific Communication Techniques

• Lead With Vulnerability: Use "I feel" statements rather than "You make me feel..." statements.

Asking Your Partner For Emotional Support

• Say the Hard Truth: If you feel afraid to express your needs, start with a phrase like, "It's really scary for me to admit this, but..."

• Describe Your Internal State: Feel into your internal state and become aware if you're telling yourself a story that might not be true. For instance, recognize if you're telling yourself something like "He's bored with me" or "He doesn't love me anymore" when this isn't true. Then, tell your partner, "I'm telling myself that you're bored with me" (or whatever you're feeling) and allow your partner to respond.

• Make Requests That Are Actionable: Ask for specific behaviors instead of vague concepts. For example, instead of saying "I need you show you care more", say "I need you to hold my hand while I'm talking to you about my feelings."

Asking Your Partner For Emotional Support

• Ask For a Specific Time: Ask your partner something like, "Can we find 20 minutes tonight to talk about something that has been weighing on me?" If it's not the right time, schedule another time that works for both of you. If you have children, choose a time when you won't be interrupted.

• Remove All Digital Distractions: Turn off and put away phones, turn off the TV, put away the computer and other distractions and sit face-to-face before diving into your discussion.

• Reassure Your Partner in Advance: If they haven't done anything that is making you unhappy, reassure them that they're not in trouble--you just need to share your feelings.

• Keep the Conversation to a Manageable Length: Focus on a specific emotional needs rather than listing months or years of unmet emotional needs (see my article: How to Stop "Kitchen Sinking" Your Partner).

Responding to Your Partner's Reaction

• Appreciate Your Partner's Willingness to Listen and Communicate: Thank your partner for listening--even if the conversation is awkward and uncomfortable. Recognize that your partner is experiencing their own emotional vulnerability by just listening.

Express Appreciation to Your Partner

• Validate Your Partner's Perspective: Acknowledge your partner's response. For instance, if your partner is opening up to hearing your unmet needs and you recognize that your partner is tired, acknowledge this to them by saying something like, "I realize you're tired and I appreciate that you're hearing me out."

• Allow Room For Pauses: Give your partner time to emotionally process what you are saying without rushing in to fill in the silence.

• Schedule a Future Check In: Propose circling back in a few days to see how the new approach to communicating your needs is working for you and for your partner.

Get Help in Couples Therapy

Communicating your emotional needs to your partner can be challenging especially if you never learned to do it before.

Get Help in Couples Therapy

A skilled couples therapist who is a licensed mental health professional can help you to learn to express your emotional needs and work out problems in your relationship.

Rather than struggling on your own, seek help from an experienced couples therapist so you can have a more fulfilling relationship.

About Me

I am a licensed New York psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP, IFS, Emotionally Focused Therapy for couples, Somatic Experiencing and Certified Sex Therapist.

I have helped many individual adults and couples over the years.

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

Before setting up an appointment, I provide a free 10-15 minute telephone call.

You can call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

Relationships: How is Curiosity a Gateway to Empathy?

Curiosity is a gateway to empathy by shifting your mindset from judgment to exploration. 

Curiosity as a Gateway to Empathy

Curiosity is the capacity to feel and understand another person's internal experience. However, you cannot share a feeling that you have not first tried to understand. Curiosity bridges this gap by creating the cognitive framework for deeper emotional connection. 

Curiosity breaks down the barriers to true empathy through several important mechanisms:

Curiosity Replaces Judgment With Inquiry: 

• Assumptions Are Blocked: When you enter an interaction with a curious mindset, your brain stops trying to instantly categorize, label and judge the other person's behavior.

• Understanding "Why" Becomes Prioritized: Instead of dismissing a behavior you don't like with a statement like, "He's being hostile towards me", curiosity poses the question, "What is causing him to react in this way?"

• Cognitive Loops Are Interrupted: This simple shift de-escalates emotional defensiveness which makes space to objectively observe the other person's reality.

Curiosity Unlocks Deep Listening:

• Focus is Externalized: Curiosity allows you to set aside your internal dialog, your biases and your premeditated responses.

Curiosity as a Gateway to Empathy

• Meaning is Prioritized Over Winning: When you focus on trying to understand the meaning of the interaction, you stop focusing on your counter-argument or a need to offer unsolicited advice.

• Open-Ended Exploration is Invited: By asking non-judgmental questions, you actively invite the other person to share their nuanced, authentic experience.

Curiosity Expands Your Imagination

• Perspective-Taking is Activated: Curiosity and empathy encourages you to put yourself in the other person's place.

Curiosity as a Gateway to Empathy

• New Perspectives Can Be Explored: Curiosity provides the spark to wonder about other perspectives and other realities that are different from your own.

• Biases Are Dismantled: Curiosity can help you to bridge the gap so you can empathize with others.

Clinical Vignette

The following vignette, which is a composite of many cases, illustrates how curiosity can lead to empathy:

Ann and Frank

Ann and Frank were married for 10 years.  During that time, whenever Ann became fearful or anxious, Frank became impatient and harsh with her, "Why are you afraid to go on this job interview? You have the skills and experience to get this job. Stop worrying so much."

Curiosity as a Gateway to Empathy

Whenever Frank spoke to her in this way, Ann felt her feelings were dismissed by Frank and  then she felt ashamed of herself. Logically, she knew had the right skills and experience, but she didn't feel this way emotionally.

When they attended their next couples therapy session, Ann brought up how dismissed and ashamed she felt whenever Frank scolded her for being fearful and anxious. 

When their therapist explored what was happening for Frank emotionally when Ann got anxious or fearful, at first, he said he wasn't aware of feeling anything about it. So, their therapist asked Frank to slow down and sense into his body while remembering the conversation he had with Ann.

After a few moments, Frank remembered, "When I was child, whenever I tried to talk to my father about how scared I was of trying out for the Little League team, my father yelled at me and told me I had to face my fears and stop being a baby. He gave me a disgusted look like he was ashamed of me for being scared. That's how it was whenever I told him I was scared--until I stopped telling him."

As he said this, Frank's eyes welled up with tears, "I felt so ashamed, so I pushed down my fears and toughed it out."

At that point, Frank realized he was dismissing and shaming Ann in the same way his father dismissed and shamed him, "All I ever wanted was for my father to encourage me and give me emotional support. I realize now that's what Ann wanted, but whenever she feels anxious and afraid, it brings up those old feelings for me that I pushed down when I was a kid. It's so hard for me to tolerate because it triggers my own insecurities." Then, he apologized to Ann.

Their therapist spoke to them about using curiosity as a way to avoid judgment, criticism, dismissiveness and shaming.

Ann and Frank practiced these new skills in their couples therapy sessions as well as between therapy sessions. When he was able to get curious, he felt empathetic towards Ann and he discovered that Ann's fear and anxiety were also tied to her own childhood experiences of emotional neglect.

Frank became much more emotionally supportive and, in the process, he was able to talk in session about his own insecurities that he was never able to express as a child. Feeling understood for the first time by his wife and his therapist helped Frank to heal these old wounds.

Ann was also able to talk about how she was affected by emotional neglect in her family and she realized that, as adults, she and Frank could be emotionally supportive of each other as one way to heal their emotional wounds.

Being able to support one another also helped Ann and Frank to deepen their emotional connection (see my article: How to Develop Emotional Depth in Your Relationship).

Conclusion

Curiosity is a gateway to empathy.

Understanding the underlying issues that get in the way of being curious can help you to understand the emotional barriers you might be experiencing to feeling empathetic (e.g., unresolved traumatic childhood experiences).

Get Help in Therapy

If you have difficulty letting go of defensiveness that gets in the way of getting curious, you could benefit from working with a licensed mental health professional.

Get Help in Therapy

Working through these issues in therapy can help you to live a more meaningful life.

About Me

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

I have helped many individual adults and couples over the years.

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.

Also See My Articles:

Developing Curiosity and Self Compassion 

Maintaining a Sense of Wonder As An Adult 

Nurturing Your Relationship 

How IFS Parts Work Therapy Can Help You to Recognize When a Younger Traumatized Part of Yourself Has Taken Over

I've written prior articles about IFS (Internal Family Systems) Parts Work as a trauma therapy (see a links for these articles at this end of this article).

This article provides a basic understanding of what happens when a younger part of you, also known as an exile in IFS, takes over when you get triggered.

Recognizing When a Younger Part of Yourself Has Taken Over

There is a lot more to IFS than exiles, including protector parts ("Manager" Parts and "Firefighter Parts") which you can read about in a book I recommend at the end of the article.

The focus for this article is how to recognize when you're immersed in a traumatized younger part of yourself which has taken over your current emotional experience and how to understand that this part is usually rooted in earlier traumatic experiences (see my article: Working Through Emotional Trauma: Separating "Then" From "Now").

What Are Younger Parts of Yourself?

In Parts Work Therapy, like IFS, there is a recognition that we all have many different parts that make up our inner world, including younger parts. 

You can think of parts as being metaphors for your intrapsychic experiences. Thinking of them as parts, as opposed to intrapsychic experiences, helps to simplify the concept of internal parts.

Recognizing When a Younger Part of Yourself Has Taken Over

Another way of thinking about a younger part is using the term "inner child" which has been popularized and made accessible in the work of John Bradshaw who wrote Homecoming: Reclaiming and Healing Your Inner Child.

Parts Work Therapy, including Internal Family Systems (IFS) Therapy and Ego States Therapy, also recognizes that traumatized individuals carry younger, vulnerable parts of their psyche and these parts carry heavy unprocessed traumatic emotional burdens including shame, fear and feelings of being unworthy.

In IFS these parts are called "exiles".

What Are the Characteristics and Examples of Exiles?

Some of the common characteristics include:

• Vulnerability: They represent younger, childlike selves needing care.

• Frozen in Time: These parts relive past traumatic experiences in the present including experiences of childhood emotional neglect and abuse. Not only are these parts frozen in time, they also have the same childhood capabilities you had at the time of the trauma. This is why when these younger parts/exiles erupt, you can't think logically and handle the current situation like an adult. In other words, you don't have access to the logical part of your brain at that moment.

Trauma Response: Frozen in Time

• Burdened Beliefs: These parts carry the burden of the original trauma and they often hold beliefs like "I'm unlovable" or "I'm broken".

• Examples of Exiles: The rejected child, the abused child, the neglected child, the frightened toddler, the unloved teenager or the humiliated younger self are some of the many examples of exiled younger parts.

How Do Exiles Function?

The feelings associated with exiles are usually too painful to feel on a conscious level so they remain unconscious until they are triggered.

This doesn't mean that exiles are "bad" or that any part of your inner world is bad. Rather than thinking of them as something to get rid of, which you can't do anyway, think about these parts as stuck or frozen in time and, through IFS Parts Work Therapy, they can be "updated" to be a healthier part of you.

When these feelings get triggered, they can suddenly erupt without warning (see my article: Parts Work Therapy: Is an Unconscious Part of Yourself Running Your Life?).

How Do You Know When a Younger Part (Exile) Has Taken Over?

The following are signs that an exile might have been triggered and taken over:

• Intense Emotional Flooding: A sudden and rapid onset of fear, sadness, hopelessness, helplessness or terror

• Reactions That Are Disproportionate to the Situation: A relatively minor event can trigger an extreme response which can relate to feelings of rejection or abandonment (see my article: Responding Instead of Reacting).

Triggered and Overreacting 

• Feeling "Young": You might feel small, young--like you're a child again--even though you're an adult.

• Somatic Sensations: Sensations might include a heaviness or tightness in your chest, intense cold, feeling unsafe and so on.

• Negative Core Beliefs: Sudden feelings of "I'm unlovable" or "I'm broken" or "I'm unsafe"

• A Sudden Need to Escape: You might feel a sudden need to escape in the moment and, afterwards, you might engage in compulsive behaviors to numb yourself again including:

• Compulsive cleaning or organizing
• Compulsive working 
• Compulsive shopping and/or overspending
• Drinking excessively
• Using drugs to numb out
• Out of Control Sexual Behavior
  
• Compulsive gambling including grief gambling
• Scrolling on your phone aimlessly for lengthy periods of time
• Other forms of compulsive and impulsive behavior used to numb and distract yourself

When you're immersed in an exiled part, the feelings are usually raw and painful. 

Since you're "blended" with this part, you no longer have the ability to witness your feelings in an objective and logical way. Instead of saying, "A part of me feels devastated", you experience the devastation as a overall feeling, like "I am devastated."

There is no separation between your Core Self (also known as Adult Self or Higher Self) and the exiled part because your Core Self is wrapped up in the exiled part, so you can't take space from the experience to be objective.

What to Do When Your Core Self is Blended With an Exile Part

This requires practice. Instead of lashing out at your loved ones, pause so you can observe what you're feeling instead of completely identifying with the feeling.

To unblend from this younger part/exile:

• Name the Feeling: Acknowledge the sensation: "I'm feeling frightened right now" or "I'm feeling unlovable right now" or "I'm feeling abandoned right now". This will help you to observe what is happening to you instead of being immersed in the experience (see my article: Overcoming Fear of Abandonment).

• Ask the Part For Space: If possible, have an internal dialog with the exile/traumatized part and ask this younger part for space so you can be in the present moment and not stuck in feelings related to your traumatic past.

• Be Curious and Compassionate: Instead of being judgmental and self-blaming, get curious and feel compassionate towards this part of yourself.

Clinical Vignette

The following clinical vignette is a composite of many cases and illustrates the dynamics described in this article:

Dana

Dana had a significant history of childhood trauma including emotional neglect and physical abuse.  There was no one available to help Dana as a child during her traumatic experiences.

After she graduated college, Dana moved far away from her family. She believed that if she moved away from Southern California, where her family lived, to New York City, her family would no longer affect her.

She developed a career as an executive coach which she really enjoyed. Her clients praised her work and she finally felt free of her family's influence.

When she got into an exclusive relationship with Tom, she felt like everything in her life was falling into place. Several months after they met, they moved in together in Manhattan.

Tom had a career as a management consultant that involved a lot of travel, which Dana knew about from the start of their relationship. However, his frequent travel brought up feelings of loneliness, abandonment, fear and panic.

If he didn't call or text her several times a day, Dana would have doubts about Tom and their relationship. Even though she knew he was in all day meetings, she still believed he could have found times during the day to call her instead of waiting until the evening.

Stuck in a Child Part

During those evening calls, Dana needed constant reassurance that Tom still loved her and he wasn't abandoning her. When Tom asked Dana where her fears were coming from, she was so immersed in her younger traumatized part that she couldn't think clearly. 

There were times in the middle of the night that Dana would feel on the verge of a panic attack and she called Tom and woke him up. Groggy with sleep, Tom couldn't understand why Dana was feeling so panicky and neither could she.

Afterward, they would talk about it and Dana would feel calmer for the moment--until the next time she got triggered with feelings of rejection and fear of abandonment.  Then, the cycle would begin again where Dana would demand reassurance from Tom, but nothing he said reassured her for long.

After several similar incidents, Tom spoke to Dana about getting help in therapy. He was kind and compassionate, but he knew that there was nothing he could do to help Dana overcome these problems. She needed professional help.

When Dana began therapy with an IFS therapist, she became aware that her triggers were related to unresolved trauma. 

Her therapist helped Dana to develop better coping skills including: Skills to develop a stronger observing self who could pause, witness herself when she was triggered, name the feeling and have a dialog with that inner part of herself to ask it to give her space so she could get curious about what was happening to her and approach this part with curiosity and compassion.

As Dana learned to remain grounded and not get derailed by her younger self, she had fewer incidents where she panicked when Tom was away. 

The work wasn't easy or quick. She still had times when she would regress into that younger part, but she would also recover faster than she had in the past (see my article: Progress in Therapy Isn't Linear).

Once Dana was stabilized, her IFS therapist was able to begin work with Dana on her traumatic history. 

The work was experiential--feeling the parts that came up--rather than just talking about it as she would have done in traditional talk therapy (see my article: Why is Experiential Therapy, Like IFS, More Effective Than Traditional Talk Therapy to Overcome Trauma?).

Over time, Dana was able to work through her unresolved childhood trauma so it was no longer affecting her or her relationship.

Her childlike part still came up at times, but once it was no longer carrying the burden of the childhood trauma, she experienced this part as being happy and playful rather than triggering unresolved trauma.

Conclusion

One blog article can't explain all the nuances of IFS. So, I suggest you read No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma and Restoring Wholeness With Internal Family Systems by Richard C. Schwartz.

Get Help in Parts Work Therapy

There are many different types of Experiential Therapy for trauma, aside from IFS Parts Work, including EMDR Therapy, Somatic Experiencing, AEDP and other trauma-related therapies.

Get Help in IFS Parts Work Therapy

Parts Work is unique in that you can do deep intrapsychic work without spending the amount of time you might in psychoanalysis.

A skilled IFS therapist can help you to work through unresolved trauma so you can have a more meaningful life.

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 over the years.

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.

Also See My Articles

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

Discovering Your Core Self in IFS Therapy

How IFS Therapy Can Help You With Anxiety 

How Are Emotions Processed in IFS Therapy?