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.
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| Parts Work Therapy |
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.
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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.
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| 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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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 set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.
See my other articles about Parts Work Therapy:
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