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Inner Family System
(IFS)
"There is a core within each of us that is intact and perfect. Working with the inner parts can help us to connect with this core and live our authentic essence."
Richard Schwartz, founder of the IFS
Richard Schwartz's IFS (Internal Family Systems) approach assumes that every person is made up of different inner parts that have different needs, emotions and personality traits. These parts can come into conflict with each other, which can lead to inner tensions and emotional problems. By working with the IFS, these inner parts can be better understood, accepted and brought into harmony, leading to holistic self-healing and personal development.
Each inner aspect manifests itself through specific thoughts, emotions, and somatic experiences. Psychological—and often physical—symptoms are mechanisms that these aspects have developed to protect the overall system.
In somatic work with inner aspects, your bodily landscape becomes the source of insight into your self-understanding.
The body is the compass that always reveals the truth about our needs and our state of being. Somatic experiences such as tightness, expansiveness, heaviness, lightness, warmth, cold, tension, and relaxation
serve as indicators of the voices and states of inner parts. Change occurs when these states are acknowledged, consciously perceived, and their voices and needs are heard.
The Guest House
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
Rumi, persian Poet, 1207-1273
