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? 

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?

 

How to "Get Out of Your Head" to Heal With Experiential Therapy

In an earlier article, Healing From the Inside Out: Why Insight Isn't Enough, I discussed how traditional psychotherapy has focused on helping clients to understand and develop intellectual insight into their problems.

How to Get Our of Your Head to Heal With Experiential Therapy

While intellectual insight is an important first step, it's usually not enough to heal and create change (see my article: Why Experiential Therapy is More Effective Than Regular Talk Therapy For Trauma).

As I discussed in the prior article, traditional psychotherapy without the mind-body connection creates intellectual insight into clients' problems, but it often doesn't help with the necessary emotional shift necessary for healing and change.

This is why Experiential Therapy is more effective for healing and change.

What Are the Various Types Experiential Therapy?

Experiential Therapy includes many body-oriented therapies including:

• EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing
  

• AEDP (Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy)

• Somatic Experiencing

• Parts Work Therapy (IFS and Ego States Therapy)

How Does Experiential Therapy Work?

Although each modality is set up in a different way, all Experiential Therapy has certain aspects in common:

• Creating Experiences: Compared to traditional psychotherapy, all Experiential Therapy involves creating experiences to bring about a deeper connection between thoughts and emotions. 

• Emotional Processing: After preparing a client by helping them through the Preparation and Resource Phase, Experiential Therapy allows thoughts, memories and emotions to come to the surface in a deeper way than traditional therapy. Most Experiential Therapists track clients' moment-to-moment experiences so that what comes up is within clients' window of tolerance within the safe environment of the therapist's office. This is important in terms of the work being neither overwhelming nor causing emotional numbing.

Getting Out of Your Head to Heal with Experiential Therapy

• Connecting the Mind and the Body: Experiential Therapy creates a bridge by connecting rational thoughts with deeper emotions, including unresolved trauma. This approach helps to identify and shift unconscious core beliefs (e.g., "I'm unlovable" or "I'm powerless") and patterns that often don't respond to therapy that is more cognitive talk therapy approaches (see my article: Experiential Psychotherapy and the Mind-Body Connection: The Body Offers a Window Into the Unconscious Mind).

• Memory Reconsolidation: By creating new experiences, Experiential Therapy can activate memory reconsolidation, rewiring neural pathways related to traumatic experiences from the past. Memory reconsolidation is essential for transformation (see my article: Riding the Waves From Trauma to Transformation With Experiential Therapy).

What Are the Benefits of Experiential Therapy?

The benefits include:

• Increased Self Awareness: Clients become more attuned to their thoughts and emotions and how these thoughts and emotions interact with their body and behavior (see my article: What is Self Reflective Awareness and Why Is It Important to You?).

• Developing New Skills: With Experiential Therapy clients learn and practice new and healthier ways of coping with stress, managing difficult emotions, resolving conflict and overcoming unresolved trauma.

Getting Out of Your Head to Heal With Experiential Therapy

• Reframing Negative Patterns: Clients learn how to experience situations in new ways by reframing negative thoughts and beliefs. This helps clients to stop harmful patterns from repeating. 

• Enhancing Empathy and Communication Skills: As enhanced empathy and communication skills emerge, clients can improve their relationship with themselves and others (see my article: What is Compassionate Empathy?).

• Providing Stress Relief: The process of engaging with and releasing suppressed emotions and processing unresolved trauma provides stress relief.

Getting Help in Experiential Therapy

If traditional therapy was only partially helpful, you could benefit from working with a licensed mental health professional who uses Experiential Therapy to help you to work through trauma and heal (see my article: What is a Trauma Therapist?).

Getting Out of Your Head to Heal With Experiential Therapy

A skilled Experiential Therapist can help you to complete trauma processing so you can lead a more meaningful life.

Rather than struggling on your own, seek help in Experiential Therapy so you can heal and move on with your life.

About Me

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

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 business hours or email me.

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

The current article discusses how Parts Work Therapy, including IFS (Internal Family Systems) and Ego States Therapy, can help you to understand yourself.

What is Parts Work Therapy?

Let's start with the basics about Parts Work.

Parts Work Therapy

Parts Work Therapy is a type of Experiential Therapy which incorporates the mind-body connection.

Parts Work Therapy is a general term that encompasses different types of therapy including IFS and Ego State Therapy.

Ego States Therapy was developed by John Watkins, Ph.D and Helen Watkins M.A. in the 1970s to treat traumatized clients. Ego States Therapy combines elements of psychodynamic psychotherapy and hypnotherapy to look at various parts of a client's personality.  The Watkins developed Ego States Therapy to work with traumatized clients.

IFS (Internal Family Systems) Therapy was developed by Richard C. Schwartz in the 1980s.  Similar to Ego States Therapy, IFS also looks at various aspects of a client's personality. Schwartz, who is a family therapist, began to notice patterns in his work as a family therapist, including certain alliances and conflicts between family members, which were similar to various parts of an individual client's personality. Similar to Ego States Therapy, IFS was developed to work with traumatized clients.

How Does Parts Work Therapy Work?

Regardless of whether a psychotherapist uses Ego States Therapy or IFS, she uses Parts Work to explore the various aspects of a client's personality.

Parts Work Therapy

IFS and Ego States Therapy practitioners believe that everyone is made up of various personality subparts that might be in conflict with each other or might be aligned (similar to individual family members who might be either aligned or in conflict with each other).

Each of these parts has their own individual perspectives, beliefs, thoughts and feelings. 

These parts are often unconscious, which makes it difficult to work with on your own before you're familiar with Parts Work.

The goal of Parts Work Therapy is to identify the various parts related to the client's presenting problem, engage with each part compassionately, resolve conflicts between parts and integrate the various parts so they work together in a healthy way.

Example of Parts Work Therapy   

The Client's Presenting Problem:

The following example,which is a composite of many cases with all identifying information omitted, is a simplified illustration of Parts Work Therapy:

Joe's presenting problem is that he feels scared and conflicted about whether to take a new job.  

Part of him would like to take the new job offer because he would make more money and he would advance in his career. But another part of him is afraid he will fail if he takes the new job.

Parts Work Therapy

The Parts Work therapist's job is to help the client to explore and identify the various parts involved in the presenting problem.

There can be many different types of parts and combinations of parts involved in any given presenting problem.  This example represents a simplified illustration where there are three parts involved (in many cases, there are more than three parts).

Using Parts Work Therapy,  Joe and his therapist identify three parts of himself that create his inner conflict:

• A Younger Child Part:  A six or seven years old frightened child part

• An Inner Critic Part: A part that developed around the age of seven that internalized the clients' critical parents

• A Caretaker Part: A part that developed in the client's early teens who has a compassionate attitude towards the client

Joe discovers that the younger child part of himself is frightened to make a change. He also realizes that this is the part that tends to get frightened whenever he is considering making a change.

He also discovers that the inner critic part is adding to the younger child part's fear by engaging in negative talk like, "You're not good enough to take this other job. You're better off sticking with the job you know, even though you're making less money, because if you take the new job, you're going to fail. Stick with what's familiar so you're safe."

Joe recognizes that this inner critic part, which integrated his critical parents, also developed early in his childhood. 

His Parts Work therapist helps Joe to see that, even though this part comes across as critical, it also has "good intentions" because it's trying to protect Joe from the possibility of failure.  

Joe identifies the caretaker part of himself which developed during his teenage years when he had to fend for himself most of the time because his parents were preoccupied with their own problems. Since he couldn't rely on them to help him, he had to develop (on an unconscious level) this caretaker part to help him through difficult situations.

Joe discovered in Parts Work Therapy that the caretaker part integrated aspects of several important people in his life including his high school basketball coach and his English teacher.

Joe's Parts Work therapist helped Joe to have a dialog with each of these parts so he could understand them better. Then, his therapist helped to facilitate a discussion among the three parts so he could understand their dynamic together and how their ongoing dialog created inner conflict for him.

Through these discussions, Joe's Parts Work therapist helped Joe to befriend and speak compassionately to his inner critic. 

He let the inner critic part know that he understood the inner critic's primary goal was to protect Joe from failure and disappointment. However, he needed the inner critic to step aside temporarily so he could make a decision about the new job offer.

In his dialog with the inner critic, Joe assured the part that he wasn't getting rid of him--he was merely asking him to take a back seat temporarily. 

In saying this, Joe recognized that there were aspects of this critical part that could be useful (without the criticism) to help him in the future. 

Parts Work Therapy

For instance, the inner critic part tended to be careful and cautious. If that part could be softened so it was no longer critical, it could be valuable in another situation that was risky. However, in the current presenting problem, Joe knew objectively that he would most likely succeed in the new job--he just didn't feel that way because of the conflict between the parts.

Once the inner critic part had a chance to be heard, it was willing to step aside, as many parts are often willing to do when asked to do so. That allowed the caretaker part to soothe the younger child part so that Joe no longer felt conflicted about his decision.

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

The example above, which is a simplified version of this type of therapy, illustrates how Parts Work Therapy can help you.

The client identified the presenting problem. Then, the Parts Work therapist helped the client to identify the various aspects of himself that were involved with the problem.

If the same client presented with a different problem, he might identify a different set of parts.

Parts Work Therapy Can Be Done Online

Once the parts were identified, the client discovered how each part functioned individually as well as how they interact with each other. He also realized how a certain part, the inner critic, was getting in the way.  

At the same time, he realized that no part is bad and no part is meant to be discarded or gotten rid of because every part has good intentions, even though they might be going about things in a distorted way. The problematic part just needs to be worked with so it can function in a healthy way.

Once Joe was able to ask the inner critic to step away, he was freed up to allow the caretaker part to nurture the frightened child part so that Joe could make the decision that he objectively knew was best for him.

Once Joe's dilemma was resolved, he could choose to end therapy or he could remain to deal with the underlying trauma that created aspects of these parts. It would be his choice.

There is more to Parts Work Therapy than can be presented in a blog article, but I hope this gives you an idea of how it works.

Conclusion

Parts Work Therapy recognizes that everyone is made up of many aspects.

Various parts work might together in a harmonious way while other conflicting parts need to be identified and worked with for the well-being of the client.

Parts Work Therapy

There are no bad parts.

As in the example above, there might be parts that need to temporarily step aside to work through the presenting problem. Sometimes this is easier said than done, especially with recalcitrant parts that are attempting to protect the client but who function in skewed way.

In the simplified example above, for the sake of explaining Parts Work Therapy, there was only one part that needed to step aside, but in many cases there might be many parts.  

Sometimes there are several parts and they function in a blended way so that each one needs to be identified separately, determine how they function together and how they might be in conflict with other parts.

Parts Work usually isn't accomplished in just one or two sessions. Depending upon the client, the presenting problem and the parts involved, it could take months or longer.

Parts Work Therapy can be used in combination with any other type of therapy, including psychodynamic therapy, cognitive-behavioral therapy, EMDR, Somatic Experiencing, AEDP, hypnotherapy and other modalities.

As previously mentioned, Parts Work Therapy, both Ego States Therapy and IFS, was developed for trauma, but it can be used for any problem.

An important aspect of Parts Work Therapy is that, once a client becomes attuned to their parts, they can do aspects of the work on their own.  

I have had many clients who became adept at identifying their parts and having dialogs with these parts, including asking a particular part to step aside temporarily.

Getting Help in Parts Work Therapy

If you have been unable to work through problems on your own, you could benefit from getting help from a Parts Work therapist.

Parts Work Therapy

Rather than struggling on your own, seek help from a licensed mental health professional who does Parts work 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/Ego States/IFS, Somatic Experiencing and Sex Therapist.

I have over 20 years of experience helping individual adults and couples to resolve their problems.

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.

See my other articles about Parts Work Therapy:

How Parts Work Therapy Can Be Empowering

How Parts Work Can Help You to Be More Creative

Understanding the Different Aspects of Yourself That Make You Who You Are

Is an Unconscious Part of You Running Your Life?

Discovering and Giving Voice to Different Parts of Yourself