I believe that trauma is at the root of most of my clients’ problems. I use Internal Family Systems (IFS), an integrative, mindfulness-based approach developed by Richard Schwartz, to help heal their trauma.
First I help my clients acquire the skills of mindful observation of their feelings without negative judgment. Next, they learn to use the language of “parts” to describe their often confusing actions and reactions as they happen. The trick is to not identify with them. (It’s like Walt Whitman said, “Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes.”)
How Internal Family Systems Helps to Heal Trauma
Identification with difficult or contradictory emotions often intensifies them or evokes shame. Learning to notice your feelings without identifying with them is the first step. It allows you to develop an increased ability to hold a curious and compassionate attitude to whatever they are. Practicing acceptance for these emotions is an essential part of finding clarity, calm, and confidence.
I believe all distressing thoughts, feelings, and body responses are communications from trauma-related parts. This assumption is consistent with split-brain neuroscience findings on the activity and abilities associated with each of the two hemispheres.
Teaching clients to identify and communicate with these parts helps them to differentiate their feelings rather then identify with them. Clients learn to be mindful of internal conflicts, ambivalence, or confusion as manifestations of struggles between parts triggered by each other as well as by trauma-related stimuli.
Where There’s Smoke…
When their symptoms represent implicit memories held by trauma-related parts expressing survival responses, individuals continue to feel unsafe, and their parts continue to defend, as if threatened now. At first my clients are often incapable of determining a real versus a perceived threat. It’s like the smoke detector goes off because the toast has burnt, but they think there’s actually a raging inferno in the basement.
When clients misunderstand their trauma responses it’s because it feels like proof that they’re somehow defective or trapped in a hopeless situation. Once again, the felt sense is that they are in danger. Our first priority in treatment, therefore, must be to challenge this subjective perception that their symptoms are indicative of current danger or proof of their defectiveness. We challenge that belief by calling attention to these reactions as communication from parts.
More Calm, Clarity, and Confidence
When my clients are provided with this education, encouraged to become mindful and curious instead of reactive, helped to develop new response to triggers, they begin to build capacity to self-regulate and enjoy much more calm, clarity, and confidence and truly heal.
If you’d like to find out more, click the button below and schedule a free, 15-minute call with me. We’ll discuss how I may be able to help you use Internal Family Systems to enjoy more calm, clarity, and confidence in your life.