How Can IFS Parts Work Therapy Help You Discover Your True Self?

In prior articles, I have been discussing how an individual's social media self can create confusion between the carefully curated self and the True Self.

Discovering Your True Self in IFS Parts Work Therapy 

If you haven't read those articles, here are the links:

• Confusing Your Social Media Self With Your True Self 

• How Can Psychotherapy Help With Confusion Between Your Social Media Self and Your True Self?

Confusion About the Real You

Aside from social media, there are many ways you can get confused about your True Self.

Confusion about the True Self often occurs when external pressure, mental habits, or trauma disconnect you from your core feelings, values and desires:

• Social Masking (Persona Confusion)
• The Problem: Confusing your public role with your personal identity
• The Cause: Over-identifying with a job title, social status or family role
• The Result: Feeling empty when you step away from a specific role

• People Pleasing (Fawn Response)
• The Problem: Adopting the opinions or desires of others to feel safe or liked
• The Cause: Chronic seeking of external validation or childhood conditioning
• The Result: An inability to identify your own preferences when you are on your own

• Internalization of Parental and/or Societal Values
• The Problem: Mistaking internalized voices of your parents or society for your own
• The Cause: Growing up in a rigid, judgmental or dogmatic environment
• The Result: Pursuing goals you don't really care about, which can result in burnout, anxiety or depression

• Over-Identification With Your Passing Thoughts and Emotions
• The Problem: Believing you are your passing moods, anxiety or critical thoughts
• The Cause: Lack of mindfulness or psychological detachment
• The Result: A chaotic sense of identity that changes with shifting thoughts and emotions

• Trauma-Based Emotional Numbing
• The Problem: Numbing or disconnection from your body and emotional core
• The Cause: Survival strategies developed to survive overwhelming past experiences 
• The Result: Feeling like a detached observer of your own life rather than a participant

• The "Ego Ideal" Narrative
• The Problem: A preference for an idealized, "perfect" version of who you think you should be
• The Cause: Perfectionism and a refusal to accept your own flaws
• The Result: Rejecting your actual traits, talents and limitations

How Can IFS Parts Work Therapy Help You to Discover Your True Self?

IFS stands for Internal Family Systems (see my article: How Does IFS Therapy Help You to Understand Yourself?).

Discovering Your True Self in IFS Parts Work Therapy

IFS is considered an Experiential Therapy that is different from traditional talk therapy (see my articles: Why Experiential Therapy is More Effective Than Traditional Talk Therapy).

IFS can help you to discover your True Self (also known as Core Self in IFS) by identifying the protective "parts" of your personality that act as a shield to "protect" you from seeing yourself as you truly are in real life.

Understanding the IFS Parts Work Therapy Framework

In IFS "parts" are metaphors for internal aspects that make up your inner world.

IFS views your mind as having subpersonalities (or parts) that are, ideally, led by your Core Self with Core Self being the authentic essence who you are (see below).

With regard to the protector parts, you can think of them as defense mechanisms whose aim is to protect you, but who can get in the way of knowing your True Self (see my article: What Are the Similarities and Differences Between IFS and Contemporary Psychodynamic Psychotherapy?).

Core Self (also called "Self" in IFS): Your true essence characterized by the 8 Cs of IFS:

• Calmness: A grounded, steady state of the nervous system that allows you to observe and manage triggers without reacting immediately (see my article: Responding Instead of Reacting to Stress).

• Compassion:A warm, caring non-judgmental attitude toward yourself and others.

Discovering Your Tue Self in IFS Parts Work Therapy

• Curiosity: A desire to understand your thoughts and emotions (as well as the thoughts and emotions of others) which replaces judgment with an open, inquiring mindset

• Clarity: The ability to perceive situations, thoughts and emotions without distortion or mental fog

• Confidence: An internal sense of trust and capability rather than arrogance or a need to depend solely on external validation

• Courage: The inner strength to face difficult emotions, take risks and navigate vulnerable truths

• Creativity: The ability to think flexibly, realize your potential, and find solutions to problems (see my article: Creativity and Reclaiming the Power of Your Inner Voice)

• Connectedness: A sense of inner unity as well as a feeling of belonging and connection with the real world around you.

The parts include:

• Managers: Proactive parts of you that protect you in the same way that defense mechanisms do.

• Firefighters: Reactive parts that act out when the manager parts aren't enough. Firefighters act out when you feel judged, rejected, ignored or experience other triggers. Examples of firefighter reactions might include drinking, drugging, gambling and other compulsive and impulsive maladaptive behaviors as a way to blunt emotional pain.

• Exiles: Hidden parts of yourself that hold pain and trauma, loneliness, feelings of inadequacy and other painful feelings. 

How Can IFS Parts Work Help You to Discover Your True Self?

With regard to confusing your social media self with your True Self:

• Identifies the "Influencer" Manager Part: IFS helps you notice the specific part of your mind that curates your social media feed. This part strives for perfection, edits your life and seeks mostly external validation to protect you from criticism and other unpleasant feelings.

• Uncovers the Vulnerable Exile: Behind the polished online persona is usually an exiled part that feels lonely, invisible and "not enough". Your curated self on social media exists to prevent you from feeling this deep pain that is held by the exile part, but it comes at the expense of recognizing your True Self.

• Fosters "Unblending": In IFS Parts Work Therapy, you learn to step back from the anxious, image-conscious parts. This process is called "unblending" and it allows your authentic self, also known as your Core Self (or True Self) to emerge.

• Transitions From Only External Validation to Connection: Everyone needs external validation from time to time, but there are some people who rely mostly on external validation from social media. Once you unblend from your manager parts in IFS Therapy, your Core Self can offer validation to your hurt or traumatized exile parts. This reduces your reliance on "likes", comments, views and shares on social media.

What Steps Can You Take on Your Own?

If you don't have access to an IFS therapist, there are some steps you can take on your own:

• Notice the Impulse: When you feel an urgent need to post on social media, ask yourself, "Which part of me is driving this?"

• Extend Compassion: Don't get angry or judgmental with your image-conscious part. Acknowledge that it is just trying to protect you from rejection, hurt and emotional pain and extend compassion to it (see my article: Compassionate Self Acceptance).

• Check Your Energy: Notice if your online sharing comes from a place within you of anxiety, which is a part, or a place of calm and genuine connection (Core Self or True Self).

Conclusion

One short article can't give a complete picture of IFS, but I hope this article provides a sense of how IFS can help you discover and understand the various parts of your inner world.

Getting Help in IFS Therapy

IFS Therapy can help you to discover your True Self and distinguish your core identity from your protective and wounded inner parts.

Rather than struggling on your own, seek help from an IFS therapist so you can lead a more fulfilled life.

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 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.

How Can Psychotherapy Help With Confusion Between Your Social Media Self and Your True Self?

In the current article I'm continuing a discussion that I began in my prior article, Confusing the Curated Social Media Self With the True Self.

Throughout this article, I'll use the terms "True Self" and "Core Self" interchangeably. Both terms refer to the innate, authentic essence of a person that exists beneath social conditioning, defense mechanisms and superficial personality traits. It represents who you are at your most grounded, unmasked and alive state. 

True Self or Core Self can be contrasted with the false self who, according to British psychoanalyst, Donald Winnicott, is a defensive facade built to conform to parental or societal expectations. According to Winnicott, while a false self helps us to navigate certain societal situations, an overdeveloped false self makes a person feel empty, detached and numb.

How Therapy Can Help You Discover Your True Self

If this topic is interesting or relevant to you or someone close to you, I recommend that you read the prior article first.

How Do People Get Confused Between Their Social Media Self and Their True Self?

People confuse their social media persona with their True Self through psychological feedback loops, digital curation and social validation.

Mechanisms of Confusion

• The Feedback Loop: Online algorithms reward highly curated, idealized versions of "reality". Many users internalize this positive reinforcement and, over time, they prefer their the digital versions of themselves.

How Therapy Can Help You Discover Your True Self

• Algorithmic Mirroring: Social media can act as a distorted mirror where it can reflect a "perfect" image back to the user based on likes, comments and shares.

• Cognitive Dissonance: Over time, a painful gap can develop between the messy real-life experiences and the polished, curated online profiles. Many people bridge this gap by pretending (and sometimes actually believing) the online version is their only reality (see my article: What is Cognitive Dissonance?).

Psychological Factors

• Hyper-Curation: Many users selectively post only their achievements, best photo angles and happy (or seemingly happy) moments. Eventually, they can gradually forget that the boring and painful moments are also real and these moments are also part of who they are in real life (IRL).

How Therapy Can Help You to Discover Your True Self

• Immediate Gratification: Dopamine hits from digital applause make the online persona feel more valuable and validated than the offline real person.

• Audience Conflation: People begin to perform for an invisible audience 24/7.  This performance erodes their ability to experience private moments without thinking about how they will post them.

Real World Consequences

• Identity Fragmentation: Individuals can feel empty when they disconnect from the Internet because their offline self lacks a clear purpose and an audience.

• Perpetual Performance: The pressure to maintain the online "personal brand' often leads to burnout, anxiety, depression and a loss of genuine spontaneity.

How Can Psychotherapy Can Help? 

Psychotherapy, especially Experiential Therapy like IFS Parts Work Therapy, can help individuals to disentangle their curated online persona from their True Self by underlying conscious and unconscious needs that drive the digital image (see my article: Why is Experiential Therapy More Effective Than Traditional Talk Therapy?).

Here's how Experiential Therapy, like IFS Parts Work, can address this modern psychological challenge:

Unmasking the Digital Persona

• Identify the Divide: Therapists can help with mapping out the specific differences between your offline reality and your online image.

How Therapy Can Help You Discover Your True Self

• Explore the "Why": Therapy can uncover the emotional and psychological drivers, including the strong need for a lot of external validation, fear of rejection or loneliness, that fuel the curated self.

• Expose the Feedback Loop: It can highlight how algorithms and "likes" manipulate your brain's reward system, which can drive you further from your authentic feelings.

Reconnecting With Your True Self

• Reclaim Somatic Awareness: Clients learn to reconnect with their physical sensations and immediate emotions rather than viewing their lives primarily through a lens of external validation and "shareability (see my article: The Mind-Body Connection: What is Somatic Awareness?).

How Therapy Can Help You to Discover Your True Self

• Clarify Core Values: Therapy can help clients to distinguish between societal and digital expectations to help identify what clients actually care about when no one is watching. 

• Build Self Compassion: Therapy can foster acceptance of clients' flawed, unedited and boring moments, reducing the shame that makes curation feel necessary.

Rewiring Rewards and Boundaries

• Implement Digital Detoxes: Therapists can help clients to develop structured breaks from social media to break the habit of self monitoring.

• Practice "Uncurated" Living: Clients can learn to experience moments that are purely for themselves without documenting them on social media.

How Therapy Can Help You Discover Your True Self

• Strengthen Real-World Bonds: Therapy can focus on deepening face-to-face relationships where you are accepted for your whole unedited self (see my article: What Are the Signs of Low Emotional Connection?).

My next article will discuss how Experiential Therapy, like IFS Parts Work, is especially helpful with these issues.

Conclusion

There are many ways discover your True Self, including meditation.  

Psychotherapy, especially Experiential Therapy like IFS Parts Work Therapy, has the benefit of using real-time emotional processing and relational interaction to uncover the True Self.  

Experiential therapy also offers relational mirroring as an interactive feedback loop, somatic and emotional enactment and personality integration.

Get Help in Therapy

If you are having difficulty with anxiety, depression or burnout, you could benefit from working with a licensed mental health professional who has an expertise in these areas.

How Therapy Can Help You to Discover Your True Self

Rather than struggling on your own, seek help from a skilled psychotherapist so you can lead a more fulfilling 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.

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.

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

 

Confusing Your Curated Social Media Self With Your True Self

What is the Curated Social Media Self?

The curated social media self is the carefully crafted digital persona users present on their social media.

Confusing Your Curated Self With Your True Self

The curated self includes the conscious selection, editing and organization of personal content, such as photographs, achievements and opinions, to showcase a highly favorable version of a usser's life rather than the unfiltered reality.

This phenomenon transforms everyday users into their own personal "brand managers". 

The curated self can take many different forms depending on the intended audience: a professional image, a picturesque lifestyle on Instagram or carefully curated views and opinions on other social media platforms.

The Psychological Impact of Believing in the Curated Social Media Self as Your True Self

Although there are many positive aspects of social media, including bridging geographical gaps, finding jobs, learning online, my focus is on the psychological impact of believing in your social media self as your true self and how it alters your psychology, relationships and self worth:

Psychological Fragmentation

• Loss of Your True Self: You can lose touch with your authentic emotions, personal challenges and baseline personality (see my article: Living Authentically).

Confusing Your Curated Self With Your True Self

• Identity Foreclosure: You stop growing because you feel you must conform to a fixed online brand.

• Hypervigilance: You constantly monitor your behavior to make sure it matches your online image.

• Depersonalization: You begin viewing your life as only content to be documented online.

Emotional Consequences

• Fragile Self Esteem: Your mood can fluctuate based on audience engagement and shifting algorithms.

• Chronic Anxiety: You can live in a state of chronic anxiety due to fear of public rejection, mistakes or fear of being "cancelled".

Confusing Your Curated Self With Your True Self

• Loneliness: You can feel unloved because people praise the "character" or persona they see online and not the real you (see my article: Coping With Loneliness).

• Loss of Joy For Real Life: Real life experiences can lose joy unless they generate online validation or metric boosts.

Social and Behavioral Issues

• Superficial Relationships: You might treat friends like props or networking nodes rather than forming genuine human connections.

Confusing Your Curated Self with Your True Self

• Performative Lifestyle: You make major life choices based on aesthetic appeal rather than personal utility.  You can reduce real life experiences into experiences that are lived for the camera only.

• Impaired Empathy: You might view social issues and personal tragedy through the lens of personal branding.

• Social Media Burnout: Social media burnout is a state of chronic mental, emotional and physical exhaustion triggered by prolonged and compulsive engagement with digital networks, especially if you constantly compare yourself to others on social media and assume that their curated selves are authentic (see my article: How to Stop Comparing Yourself Unfavorably to Others).

What is a Digital Detox?

If you can identify with some or all of the problems mentioned above, you might be ready for a digital detox.

A digital detox is a time when a person voluntarily refrains from using digital devices like smartphones, computers, tablets and social media platforms.  

The goal is not to abandon technology forever, but to reduce stress, curb constant digital distractions and focus on real-world social interactions. 

What Are the Signs That You Might Benefit From a Digital Detox?

Consider stepping back from your screens if you notice any of the following indicators:

• Reaching for your phone as soon as you wake up

• Losing track of time while mindlessly scrolling

Confusing Your Curated Self With Your True Self

• Experiencing FOMO (fear of missing out) when you are away from your device

• Mood changes like feeling anxious, irritable, angry, sad or depressed while browsing social media

• Disrupted Sleep caused by late night notifications or screen glare

• Spending time comparing yourself to others on social media

• Recognizing you have superficial relationships because you haven't made an effort to develop meaningful relationships

• Feeling lonely because your relationships are primarily online or any of the other psychological, emotional, social or behavioral issues mentioned above

How Can Psychotherapy Help

Psychotherapy, especially Experiential Therapy, can help by bridging the gap between your online persona and their authentic true self offline (see my article: Why is Experiential Therapy More Effective Than Traditional Talk Therapy?).

Getting Help in Therapy

A skilled psychotherapist can help you to:

• Deconstruct the digital mask
• Help build grounded reality
• Heal the psychic split so you can experience your true self

I will write more about this in my next article:

How Can Psychotherapy Help With Confusion Between Your Social Media and Your True Self?

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 Therapy.

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

To find out more 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.

 

What is Dual Awareness in Psychotherapy?

The concept of dual awareness is essential in psychotherapy, especially when working on unresolved trauma (see my article: Why is Experiential Therapy More Effective Than Traditional Talk Therapy to Overcome Trauma?).

Dual Awareness in Trauma Therapy

What is Dual Awareness in Trauma Therapy?

The ability to maintain dual awareness is especially important when processing traumatic memories in trauma therapy (see my article: Healing in Trauma Therapy).

Dual awareness is the ability to process traumatic memories while remaining grounded in the safety of the here-and-now.

Dual Awareness in Trauma Therapy

In other words, clients need to balance two realities: the here-and-now as well as the traumatic memory that is being worked in therapy. That means they are aware that, even though they are discussing a traumatic memory, they are safe with their therapist (see my article: Why Establishing Safety is So Important in Trauma Therapy).

Before doing any processing in trauma therapy, it's important for the trauma therapist to prepare clients for the work by ensuring clients have internal and external resources or coping skills, including the ability to remain present and embodied (see my article: Developing Coping Strategies in Trauma Therapy).

To remain embodied means maintaining a conscious connection to their emotions and bodily experiences while processing traumatic emotions (see my article: What is Somatic Awareness?).

Key Concepts of Dual Awareness:

Prior to processing traumatic memories, their therapist helps prepare clients to:

• Balance Two Realities: Clients acknowledge feeling certain emotions related to past traumatic memories at the same time that they know they are safe in the moment with their therapist. 

• Develop an Observing Self: Clients learn to develop an observing self who witnesses their internal experiences (thoughts, emotions, bodily sensations) while processing memories from the past. This observing self can go by many names including Core Self, Adult Self, Higher Self or whatever name is meaningful to clients. Because they have developed a part of themselves that can witness their experiences, they don't feel overwhelmed. This also helps to prevent retraumatization.

Therapeutic Techniques: Trauma therapists often use various techniques to help clients to balance processing past memories with remaining grounded in the present moment. 

Some of these techniques include:

• Pendulation which was developed in Somatic Experiencing Therapy, where the therapist helps clients to shift their awareness from a traumatic memory or experience to a calm or neutral experience or to their Core Self/Adult Self as a way to work on these memories in manageable segments so clients don't become overwhelmed.

• Imaginal Interweaves: Prior to choosing a traumatic memory to work on, clients choose people from their past or present life who would be emotionally supportive. While working on the memory, clients imagine these individuals are accompanying them on their healing journey to undo feelings of aloneness. These people might include a favorite relative, a best friend from the past or the present, a loving teacher and so on. If clients can't imagine anyone they know, they can also choose a person they don't know personally, like a character from a movie or a book, that they can imagine being with them in an emotionally supportive role. In some circumstances, clients might choose someone who they imagine could have intervened directly, like a protective or powerful person who would have protected them when they were younger.  In reality, clients know there might not have been anyone in the original traumatic memory that helped them, but dual awareness allows them to imagine and have a felt sense of being helped or protected.

Dual Awareness in Trauma Therapy

• Breathing Exercises: Being able to pause the work and take a cleansing breath can help the trauma work to remain manageable and tolerable. Clients can also use breathing exercises between sessions.

• Containment: Containment can include clients imagining they can put the traumatic memory away in a box of their choosing at the end of the session. Some clients like to imagine that their therapist keeps the box for them or that they keep the box themselves in a safe place until the next time they work on the memory.

• Learning How to Manage and Reduce Triggers : A trigger is a person, place or thing that causes an unexpected intense reaction related to an experience from the past (see my article: 8 Tips For Coping With Triggers).

What Are the Different Types of Trauma Therapy?

There are different types of trauma therapy including:

• EMDR Therapy (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing

• AEDP (Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy)

• Somatic Experiencing

• Parts Work Therapy (IFS and Ego States Therapy)

Getting Help in Trauma Therapy

Trauma therapy can help you to process traumatic memories so they no longer affect you in your current life.

Getting Help in Trauma Therapy

Rather than struggling on your own, seek help from a licensed mental health professional who is trained as a trauma therapist so you can live a more meaningful life free from 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.

I have over 25 years of experiencing helping 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 business hours or email me.

Also See My Articles:

What is a Trauma Therapist? 

Overcoming Trauma: You're Not Defined By What Happened to You 

What is Complex Trauma? 

How Are Emotions Processed in Internal Family Systems (IFS) Parts Work Therapy?

I have been focusing on how emotions are processed in different types of therapies (see links below for prior articles).

What is Parts Work Therapy

IFS, which stands for Internal Family Systems, was developed by Richard Schwartz as a form of trauma therapy in the 1980s.

Processing Emotions in Parts Work

Prior to IFS, Ego States Therapy, which is another form of parts work therapy, was developed by psychiatrists John and Helen Watkins in the 1970s, so IFS wasn't the first type of parts work. 

Ego States Therapy is a psychodynamic approach which is used to resolve inner conflicts, trauma and improve emotional regulation by fostering communication and harmony between the different parts of a person's personality.

I learned Ego States Therapy while I was learning how to do hypnotherapy in 2011 and when I learned IFS a few years later, I saw the similarities between Ego States Therapy and IFS immediately.

Ego States Therapy and IFS have the following similarities:

• The personality is perceived as consisting of separate subparts rather than perceiving the personality as a single, unified whole. Subparts are a part of everyone's personality. This is different from multiple personality disorder.

• Both Ego States Therapy and IFS strive to help the various parts of the personality to work together. The goal is not to get rid of any parts because there are no bad parts. All parts have good intentions even if the intentions aren't apparent at first.

• Both types of parts work are effective for trauma, PTSD and resolving inner conflict.

• Ego States Therapy uses guided imagery and sometimes hypnotherapy to identify and communicate with specific parts, also known as Ego States. IFS uses somatic awareness to identify and communicate with parts.

How Does IFS Parts Work Process Emotions?

Similar to Ego States Therapy, IFS identifies specific parts using compassionate curiosity through the Core Self, which is also known as the Self, Adult Self or Higher Self (see my article: Discovering Your Core Self in IFS Parts Work Therapy).

Here are the key stages of emotional processing in IFS:

• Identifying "Trailheads": Emotional triggers or intense feelings (anger, fear, sadness and so on) are recognized as "trailheads". In other words, they are recognized as gateways to understanding a part.

• Unblending and Self Compassion: Instead of being overtaken by an emotion, you learn to separate from it. This separation or externalization allows for your calm and compassionate Core Self to observe and connect with the emotion without judgment. This is similar to mindfulness where you learn to observe your experiences.

Processing Emotions in Parts Work: Befriending Parts

• Befriending Protective Parts: Before accessing deeply painful emotions, IFS focuses on understanding "managers" (proactive protector parts) and "firefighter" parts (reactive, numbing parts). You learn that these protective parts, which would be identified as defense mechanisms in psychodynamic or psychoanalytic therapy, have positive intentions of protecting you, such as preventing future harm.

• Witnessing the Unburdened Exiles: Once you have developed a trusting relationship with the protective parts, they can allow the Core Self to access the wounded, vulnerable "exile" parts which hold the trauma. The Core Self listens to and observes the exile's story and helps them to release the painful emotions or limiting beliefs they carry. This is called unburdening the exiles.

The 6 Fs of IFS

To process emotions, IFS often uses a structured process to engage with the parts:

• Find: Locate/sense the emotion/part in the body.

• Focus: Bring your attention to it.

• Flesh Out: Get to know the parts (images, sensations, memories).

• Befriend the Part: Listen to and understand the part's intention.

• Fears: Listen to and understand what the part fears if it stops doing what it's doing. For example, a protector part might be afraid when you ask the part to step aside because it fears letting go of control. This is similar to how defense mechanisms work. For instance, you might unconsciously protect yourself with denial about a problem and letting go of that denial can make you afraid. So, whether you conceive of it as a part or a defense mechanism, you have to gain its trust so it feels safe enough to let go.

Through the IFS or Ego States Therapy process, emotions are no longer suppressed or acted out impulsively. Instead, emotions are validated and released. This leads to healing and internal integration which is an essential part of mental health.

Emotional Blocks in Parts Work

After reading the summary above, it would be easy to think that processing emotions in Parts Work, either IFS or Ego States Therapy, is simple, but this isn't always the case (see my article: Working With Emotional Blocks).

Just like in any other therapy, you can experience emotional blocks that get in the way of processing emotions. For instance, in attempting to feel compassion, you might access a critical part instead that gets in the way and needs to be worked with before you can access self compassion. This critical part is often a protector part and it also functions as an emotional block.

In addition, the mind can resist what's unfamiliar. So, if your familiar experience is to berate yourself because you internalized that experience at a young age, you have accessed a protector part that is difficult to let go of because it has become a longstanding part of you.

Although it might not sound like it's protective, all parts have good intentions so it's important to find out what the intention is when a part blocks progress. Then, you can form a trusting relationship with the part so it will eventually let go of criticizing and judging you.

Conclusion

IFS and Ego States Therapy are two of several types of trauma therapies.

The trauma therapist assesses each client to determine which type of trauma therapy--whether it's EMDR, AEDP, Somatic Experiencing, Parts Work or a combination of these modalities is for a particular client. 

Getting Help in Trauma Therapy

If you have unresolved trauma that you have been unable to work through on your own, you could benefit from working with a licensed mental health professional who is a trauma therapist (see my article: What is a Trauma Therapist?).

Getting Help in Trauma Therapy

Freeing yourself from unresolved trauma can help you to live a more fulfilling 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 over 25 years of experience helping 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 business hours or email me.

Also See My Articles:

Trauma Therapy: The Mind Has a Powerful Innate Ability to Heal Itself

What Does Processing Your Emotions Mean? 

How Are Emotions Processed in EMDR Therapy?

How Are Emotions Processed in AEDP?

What is the Life Cycle of an Emotion?