Theory Archives - Parts with Presley

Types of protectors: What are managers and firefighters?

by Presley

In the story of Alma, she has two protectors, Clara and David. IFS distinguishes between these types of protectors: Clara is a manager, and David is a firefighter.

I didn’t give these terms in the IFS Theory 101 series because I find that distinguishing between types of protectors is one of the top causes of stress and confusion among learners of IFS, and one of the least important things for IFS clients to do. The distinction is mostly there to help practitioners.

But people do refer to managers and firefighters quite often, so if you’d like to know what they are, read on!

Parts are like muscles

by Presley

One day when I came to my physical therapy appointment, I overheard a physical therapist telling her patient to do an exercise one way instead of another way “so it’ll hit the right muscles instead of the wrong ones.” I noticed that all she meant by “the right muscles” was “the muscles you need to strengthen,” and all she meant by “the wrong muscles” was “the muscles that have been compensating for the weak ones.” It wasn’t a judgment about the muscles themselves being good or bad. That’s so obvious when it comes to muscles, but so hard to grasp when it comes to parts of our personality.

In parts work, we often want to isolate one part of ourselves at a time so we can understand it more deeply than we usually do. Everyday life is sort of like asking a classroom of kids what they did over summer break: the extroverted kids all talk at once, the introverted kids don’t even try, and all you hear are little snippets of “ice cream” and “summer camp.” But if you ask each child individually about their summer, you can learn their whole story. Similarly, if you ask a person how they feel about a big decision, their head will spin with snippets of their louder parts’ opinions: “it’ll be great!” “but I’m scared!” But if you can isolate each part and listen to it fully, you can find out the reasons behind the different stances, and discover latent opinions too.

The friends we made along the way

by Presley

This entry is part 6 of 6 in the series IFS Theory 101

In the last post, we saw that Self builds relationships with parts, and those relationships make it possible to release burdens. Since burdens are the source of so many of our problems, this release can transform our lives for the better. And yet, I don’t believe that Self builds relationships in order to release burdens. I believe that Self builds relationships for their own sake. The real treasure, as they say, is the friends we made along the way.

Techniques for releasing burdens are not yet as widely known as they should be, but there are in fact many such techniques. However, I stick with IFS instead of, or in addition to, everything else because it gives me the ability to explicitly maintain long-term relationships with my parts.

Release, not self-restraint

by Presley

This entry is part 5 of 6 in the series IFS Theory 101

In You are not your parts, I introduced the concept that you are a Self underneath all of your parts. Your Self is pretty great! When you’re centered in your Self, you can handle any feeling, and you’re in touch with your natural wisdom about what’s best for you. But we learned that some parts of you carry burdens that are like bulky backpacks, taking up space in your inner world, blocking the influence or “energy” of the Self from shining through. So one of the goals of IFS work is to release those burdens and allow Self-energy to flow more freely.

I also pointed out that burdens have the effect of locking doors in your inner world, isolating parts from each other and from the Self. In the story of Alma, it’s obvious that Belle, Alma’s exile, is locked up and alone. But even Alma’s protectors Clara and David feel like they’re on their own, which makes them believe that they can’t give up their problematic strategies. So it’s not just the burdens that create problems; it’s also the isolation. Another goal of IFS work, then, is to unlock these doors and foster connections in the inner world.

Your parts are not their burdens

by Presley

This entry is part 4 of 6 in the series IFS Theory 101

As I mentioned in You are not your parts, “you are not your thoughts” is a common saying in mindfulness practices. IFS introduces a layer into this picture: there’s you, and then your parts, and then your thoughts:

You are a Self
You have parts
Parts have thoughts, emotions, sensations, and impulses (some of which are burdens)

The way I see it, differentiating your Self from your parts allows for mindfulness, and differentiating your parts from their thoughts and feelings allows for self-compassion (or rather, parts-compassion!).

Burdens lock doors for you

by Presley

This entry is part 3 of 6 in the series IFS Theory 101

IFS has a theory of how bad experiences give people burdens and turn their parts into exiles and protectors. To get a sense for this theory, imagine a girl named Alma. She gets good grades, and has fun with her friends—her life is pretty good. But one year in school, she has a teacher who takes to embarrassing her in front of the class when she doesn’t know the answer to a question. Alma’s too embarrassed to talk to anyone about it, and so she doesn’t manage to process and release the shame.

Exile

That feeling has to go somewhere, so a part of Alma—let’s call her Belle—takes on the shame along with the belief “I’m not smart enough.” You can imagine Belle carrying a backpack weighed down with that emotion and belief. The painful things a part carries make up its burden.

We all have parts

by Presley

This entry is part 1 of 6 in the series IFS Theory 101

Internal Family Systems (IFS) holds that the mind is made of multiple subpersonalities – that when you say “a part of me is angry, but a part of me understands,” that’s literally true.

In modern Western thought, the idea of “multiple personalities” has been associated with extreme pathology, and that pathology has been extremely stigmatized. That’s given us a lot of incentive to ignore and downplay any experience of multiplicity we may have. But what do you notice if you tune into your inner world with an open mind about parts?