Getting to Know the Parts of Internal Family Systems Therapy
"No. 4" by Hilma af Klint
Last week, we took our first look at the philosophy and theory of Internal Family Systems Therapy, which asserts that our identity, thoughts, feelings, and actions are all influenced by an internal system of parts that make us who we uniquely are. This begs the questions, who are our parts, what are their roles, and how do we get to know them?
Our internal systems are fluid and ever-changing and may be comprised of numerous different parts that come and go as we move through life. Most of our parts can be sorted into one of three categories: managers, firefighters, and exiles. Managers and firefighters are the protectors of our internal systems and are often the explicit guardians of our exiled parts, which are the young, vulnerable parts of ourselves that carry our deepest pains, fears, and negative beliefs.
In this article, we’ll explore the different types of parts that comprise Internal Family Systems Theory, how they might commonly show up in our own internal systems, and how we can communicate with and integrate these parts of ourselves to improve our social, emotional, and mental health.
Managers
Manager parts are the rule-makers, spreadsheet-keepers, achievement-seekers, emotion-avoiders, and stiff upper lip-ers of our internal systems. Manager parts are proactive in that they attempt to predict problems and triggers before they happen and manage or avoid them through routine and structure, busyness, goal-setting, or prioritizing others’ needs.
When we’ve experienced trauma, managers often step in and develop strategies to try to prevent us from experiencing that same pain, fear, or overwhelm again.
You may already be thinking of some of your own manager parts, such as the part of you that lives for color-coded schedules and to-do lists, the part of you that would prefer to bury yourself in work rather than feel a difficult emotion, or maybe the part of you that likes to judge everything that you do. Here are a few more common ways managers might show up as protector parts.
The Perfectionist
If there’s a part of you that likes to play judge, jury, and executioner when it comes to living up to the extremely high standards you’ve set for yourself, you’ve likely got a perfectionist part on your hands. This type of manager puts its energy into striving for excellence, success, achievement, and, yes, perfection in a variety of different areas in our lives. Maybe you have a perfectionist part that pushes you to be the best at your job through hard work and striving, or maybe your perfectionist part focuses its attention on your appearance and how you’re perceived by others, driving you to place a great deal of emphasis on how you look and how you show up in your interactions. Wherever and however your perfectionist part shows up, you can expect for it to come with self-judgmental thoughts and likely a sense of pressure and inevitable frustration in attempting to meet an unsustainable ideal of perfection. Perfectionist parts try to keep us safe from pain and overwhelm by keeping our attention focused on pursuing success, achievement, or whatever other aspirations we associate with perfection, all as a means to avoid anticipated pain that may come with perceived failure, boredom, or rejection.
The Intellectual
If you’d feel more comfortable explaining heady scientific theories or debating with your peers than you would talking about your emotions, let alone feeling them, an intellectual part is probably hanging out in your internal system. A great example of when an intellectual part is in charge can be seen in individuals who come to therapy and can perfectly explain the ins and outs of the behaviors and thought patterns they want to change, as well as the treatment modalities that could help them, yet they find themselves unable to make meaningful therapeutic change due to the mental block they experience when they’re invited to go inside themselves and feel their emotions, rather than just theorize about them. An intellectual part is quite good at keeping you in your mind, out of your body, and out of the emotions, traumas, and memories your body holds, effectively avoiding the potential pain that might reside there.
The Caregiver
Maybe you’re the one that all your friends go to when they need advice or a shoulder to cry on, but the thought of you asking someone else for help makes you want to recoil. You’re empathetic and good at reading the room and other people’s needs, but your own needs are a mystery to you. Conflict and rejection are your worst nightmares and drive you to take care of others and manage situations even if it comes at the expense of your own feelings, desires, and needs. If you have strong caregiver parts, this is likely resonating with you, as caregiver parts are managers that are incredibly adept at people-pleasing and keeping the peace with others as a means of keeping yourself safe from painful experiences like loneliness, ruptured relationships, and isolation.
Firefighters
Where manager parts are proactive, firefighter parts are the reactive protectors of our internal systems that step in to manage painful emotions, experiences, and memories that our manager parts are unable to resolve. These parts turn to various forms of distraction and numbing to avoid pain at all costs, which is why our thoughts, feelings, and actions often feel impulsive, extreme, out of control, or even self-destructive when our firefighters are the ones in charge. Indeed, people often seek therapy to address behaviors and patterns that are being spurred by firefighter parts, such as substance use, binge eating, or difficulty regulating anger. While we may find that we benefit from our manager parts even when they are operating in a dysfunctional way, behaviors being driven by our firefighter parts are almost always experienced as being distressing and unwanted. It’s important, therefore, to remember, that while we may not like the outcomes our firefighter parts bring about, their intention is still to protect us from pain and overwhelm, even if it means taking extreme and destructive measures to do so. Below are a few common ways firefighter parts might show up in our internal systems.
The Rebel
The rebel part comes out in moments when our autonomy is being challenged, when we’re feeling frustrated by unattainable expectations, or when the careful routine and structure imposed by our manager parts fails to protect us from overwhelming emotions and experiences. Our rebel parts drive us toward risky and defiant behaviors that are designed to distract us from our emotional experience, such as by lashing out at others, engaging in substance use, or making impulsive or self-destructive decisions like suddenly quitting a job, burning bridges in relationships, or engaging in self-harm or suicidal ideation. The behaviors, thoughts, and feelings of our rebel parts are often so intense and extreme that they serve as a perfect distraction from the actual pain or trauma we may have experienced.
The Dissociative
The name of the game for dissociative parts is numbing us to whatever painful emotion, memory, or experience we may have. You might have a dissociative part that likes to scroll for hours on social media, one that likes to escape reality through persistent daydreaming, or one that engages in compulsive exercise or restrictive eating to keep you disconnected from your body. Dissociative parts will do whatever it takes to keep us out of the here-and-now and away from whatever overwhelming experiences might arise if we were to acknowledge and process our emotions.
The Self-Soother
Self-soothing parts try to numb painful emotions and experiences through a variety of comforting means. Maybe in times of overwhelm and distress, you turn to food for comfort in a way that doesn’t feel aligned with your values. Maybe you’re someone who considers online shopping to be your version of therapy, or maybe you prefer to escape into movies and television shows rather than face what’s stressing you out. It’s important to note that the aforementioned forms of self-soothing are not inherently dysfunctional, but when it feels like we’re doing more emotional numbing rather than emotional coping through these behaviors, it might be time to get curious about why our self-soothing parts are taking over so much control in our lives.
All Parts Are Good Parts
After this brief introduction to the types of parts that might make up our internal systems, you might be asking yourself why you’d want any of these parts to begin with if they can lead to such distress and dysfunction. In Internal Family Systems Therapy, the goal is never to get rid of a part, but instead to get curious about our parts, offer care to them, and show them that our core self is capable of coping with the painful experiences they try to protect us from.
Once parts no longer feel that they must protect us from pain and overwhelm, they can instead offer us their strengths to enhance our well-being. Inherent to Internal Family Systems Therapy is the belief that all parts are good parts. For example, a perfectionist part that used to drive you to overwork yourself due to a constant barrage of negative self-judgment may transform into a motivational part that helps you feel purposeful and competent in your work. Even the most seemingly destructive firefighter parts have gifts to offer too, as seen in rebellious parts that transform into parts of ourselves that advocate and fight for social justice, and stand up for ourselves and others in moments when our rights are being challenged.
The key to transforming our manager and firefighter parts from dysfunctional to functional lies in demonstrating to these parts that they no longer have to protect us, nor our exiled parts, from pain, but instead that our core self is capable of bearing witness to the pain, overwhelm, and even trauma that our exiled parts hold. It is often the case that when a manager or firefighter part has taken over control, it is to keep an exiled part from becoming triggered and subsequently activating the painful emotions and memories they are burdened with. As such, when a client begins Internal Family Systems Therapy, they usually have a much easier time getting to know their managers and firefighters because these parts work so hard to keep the exiled parts out of their awareness.
Exiled Parts
Exiled parts of our internal system develop out of painful, overwhelming, and traumatic experiences and carry the intense emotions, memories, and negative beliefs associated with those experiences. These parts commonly carry emotions like shame, terror, grief, abandonment, and worthlessness, and as such, are often very vulnerable and young parts of ourselves.
Because the experiences our exiled parts carry are so painful and overwhelming, manager and firefighter parts step in and push those parts away, effectively exiling those parts from our internal system. The cost of doing this for our protective parts, however, is that they must actively guard against our exiled parts resurfacing, either through the careful planning and rigidity of our managers, or the extreme distraction and numbing of our firefighters. So long as our exiled parts remain alone in carrying their burdens, so too will our protective parts feel the need to be in control, creating an internal system that is easily overwhelmed and likely not driving us toward actions, relationships, and thought patterns that are aligned with our true values and goals.
Exiled parts need us to let them know that they are safe now, that the burdens they carry have been acknowledged and are in the past, and that they no longer have to carry those burdens alone but instead can be integrated into our system and supported with self-energy from our core self. In turn, as our protective parts see that they no longer have to guard against our exiled parts, but can co-exist with them, their efforts and energy can be directed toward activities and goals that do align with the lives we want to live.
Internal Family Systems Therapy guides clients through the process of both getting to know their protective parts and the functions they serve, and eventually, once they’ve built up enough self-energy and a strong core self, making contact with their exiled parts and welcoming them back into the fold of their internal system with compassion, care, and understanding.
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