Parts Work
Sometimes when a client is feeling stuck—or when I am perhaps feeling stuck with a client—I think about parts work.
The term “parts work” comes from a modality of therapy called Internal Family Systems, or IFS. IFS is founded upon the premise that the nature of the human mind is to be divided into many “parts” or sub personalities. These parts are inherently altruistic, wanting the best for us, but can pick up “burdens” along the way that morph their good intentions into something maladaptive or sometimes harmful. Trauma, attachment wounds, life experiences and criticisms all can encumber these parts with a heavier load than they were intended to carry. Additionally, the parts inside us form their own relationships and systems, often informed by those same burdens. This can lead to “polarization” or conflicts between these parts. It’s this very sort of dichotomy that I find often leaves us the most stuck.
To change or not to change, to leave or not to leave, to want and not to want, to heal and to identify strongly with the wound. These are just a few polarizations we can encounter that leave us feeling stuck, heavy, confused— conflicted. But parts work can offer a door in. By distilling these parts down to their core messages and beliefs, we can look at the pieces of us caught in a tug of war. Sometimes I like to talk to the parts. Ask them where they are in the body, how old they are— what they might want and need. Sometimes the parts don’t want to talk, need something else, perhaps more time and gentle presence — and that is its own powerful information too.
When things feel overwhelming and intractable, parts work is there. We are not our addictive patterns— they are parts of us. We are not our inner critics and angry exploders— they are parts of us. And as IFS teaches, there are “no bad parts”. All of our parts are here to help us, however outmoded or maladaptive their current manifestations might be. With intentional work we can teach them new tricks, form new relationships among parts and move forward from places that once felt intractable.
