What is IFS therapy, and how can it help to heal trauma?

What is IFS therapy?

Have you ever sat in a therapy session, or even just on your own, you desperately want to feel better, but there is a part of you that shuts the door the moment you get close?

It feels like a push-pull scenario where you are pushing to get the help you need and want to participate in everything but something in your brain keeps shutting down and is stopping you.

Well this is exactly what IFS therapy was created for.

How can it help you to heal from trauma?

How can it help you to heal from trauma?

IFS stands for Internal Family Systems, developed by psychologist Richard Schwartz.

Your internal family is all the emotions that are happening inside of you. Just like a physical family, they all have there own attributes and personalities that can sometimes go against each other as well as compliment each ither. Especially when it come to therapy!

IFS teaches us that there are no bad parts.

Every part of you, including the ones that shut you down, make you lash out, or keep you stuck, was developed for a reason. They are trying to protect you.

IFS therapy starts from that place of curiosity. Instead of trying to override the parts that seem to be in the way, it asks what they need and why they showed up in the first place.

Will this help me to feel normal again?

IFS offers one of the most convincing explanations to help you to feel your normal self again.

Inside you, beneath all the protective parts, there is something called self-energy.

It’s a calm, clear, compassionate presence that IFS says exists in everyone, regardless of how much trauma they’ve been through.

Your self-energy didn’t get destroyed, it just got buried under the parts that had to work overtime to keep you safe.

As IFS therapy progresses and those parts begin to trust that it’s safe to settle, most people experience moments of unexpected steadiness. A sense of space. That’s your self-energy. And once you’ve felt it, even briefly, it becomes real evidence that there’s more to you than the pain.

Why you keep reacting the same way to previous therapies?

One of the most useful things IFS does is explain triggers. This could be that you have visited a certain place, or smelled a familiar smell somewhere that has made you feel anxious, unsafe, worried and made you want to get the hell out of there!

When something sets you off, a tone of voice, a situation, a feeling of being ignored or criticised, it’s usually because a part of you that carries an old wound has been activated. That part doesn’t know it’s 2026. It’s still operating from the moment the wound happened, doing its best to protect you using strategies that made complete sense back then.

IFS therapy helps you turn towards that part with curiosity.

What is it carrying? What did it need that it never got?

When you can sit with a frightened younger part of yourself and really witness what it’s been holding, something shifts.

Practical ways to start working with your internal family

You don’t have to be in therapy to begin getting curious about this.

Here are a few small things you can try on your own.

When a strong reaction comes up, instead of trying to suppress it or analyse it, try asking inwardly: “Which part of me is feeling this right now?”

You don’t need to answer straight away or even know which part it is, just by creating a small moment of distance and curiosity between you and the feeling can help.

If you notice a part that seems to be blocking you from opening up, in life or in therapy, try to approach it with interest rather than frustration.

What is it worried will happen if it lets its guard down? What has it been protecting you from?

And if you’re in therapy and feeling stuck, bring it up.

A good trauma therapist will want to know which parts of you feel resistant, and that information becomes the work.

If you would like to know more about IFS, my recent podcast episode of “Don’t get a therapist yet” opened up the discussion around this type of therapy with David Polidi. David is a therapist, author and co-founder of Empowered Through Compassion– a trauma-focused therapy practice specialising in Internal Family Systems (IFS), EMDR and motivational interviewing to support deep trauma healing for individuals and couples. He has also written a book- IFS Informed EMDR: Creative and collaborative Approaches.