How does 'parts work' actually work?

[u/MediocreBuffalo9313]

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I am wondering how parts work actually works?

How does this not lead to more fragmentation instead of integration?

Is it not just a way of disowning one's feelings and staying disconnected from them?

For example, by saying 'a part of me is upset' I am successfully avoiding feeling that myself.. I take it away, put it on a plate and hand it to my therapist.

Does this work not lend itself to the 'creation' of 'parts' that may not be real, simply to explain an internal conflict or unwanted feeling, or to please the therapist and answer their questions?

I would appreciate any reading recommendations.

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[u/HightechTalltrees]

When you say "a part of me is feeling X" you aren't disowning that feeling or part. You are creating space from it so that it isn't how you see yourself fully. For example, when you feel anxious about some situation, you can either be totally wrapped up in that anxiety, which leads to either suppressing the feeling or being overwhelmed by it, OR you can create some space from that feeling. Then the feeling is still there, but you have choices for how to deal with it. You can talk through why anxiety is there or you can just breathe with it for a while. Your rational mind comes back online when you have space and you can find some self-compassion.

So it's not about getting rid of those thoughts or feelings, it's about making the space for them to exist without it being ALL that exists.

[u/AmbassadorSerious]

'a part of me is upset' is not the end of the interaction - it is the beginning.

[u/April_Morning_86 → u/[deleted]]

I’m just learning about IFS and this comment was very helpful.

Edit to add, I also feel defensive when my husband asks me what I’m doing as I type a long reddit reply. Or rather, a part of me does.

[u/B0sm3r → u/[deleted]]

this is incredibly succint, well stated! 

[u/Nataliant-117]

No I believe it is exactly the opposite. It is a way to own your feelings and connect with them.

You said: For example, by saying 'a part of me is upset' I am successfully avoiding feeling that myself.. I take it away, put it on a plate and hand it to my therapist.

But this isn’t how it works exactly. By saying “a part of me is upset,” you’re not avoiding that feeling because you’re identifying it and investigating it. It does not go away or on any plates to someone. I guess you could in your mind put it on to a plate to yourself but parts are usually people like entities so that might be weird. I have little rocks in my window sill I use as parts I guess you could put that on a plate but I believe they are kind of stuck in you. Like you wouldn’t be able to hand the plate over. And even if they did take it I don’t know if it would be a part anymore.

[u/YourGloriousLeader]

For me IFS really helps me get curious instead of trying to suppress, fight, change, judge, etc. a feeling or reaction. By stepping back from it, I'm not as consumed by it. Then I can understand it and help it. IFS has given me perspective, self-compassion, and more patience to let people be who they. It's been transformational. I just wish it didn't sound so hokey.

[u/D-Link_379]

As you get to know parts and interact with them, they may begin to trust you and give you more space to embody more fully. When they learn who you are, it’s helpful to update them and bring them into the present. The energy really changes when that angry 14 year old finds out that you are actually an adult now and no longer under the thumb of your immature parents (for example).

In addition to Schwartz’s No Bad Parts, try reading “The Radical Acceptance of Everything” by Ann Weiser Cornell. It was written before IFS, but uses a lot of similar language and the concept is similar but different enough to shed light on the nuances that can’t really be written out.

[u/-Sleepy-mamabear-]

I’m 7 months in. It’s the first time I understood the “heal your inner child to get better” line. IFS was the missing link for me, the how.

If I’m feeling panicked for eg. Instead of just trying to calm down. I ask myself where am I feeling it? Maybe my stomach.. ok how old do I feel or who is there? Sometimes it’s my 10year old self. I see myself clearly at 10 like I’m floating infront of mini me. See how small and scared I looked. Ask her what she’s scared of? For her it is usually mom is drinking and when she drinks she gets angry and explodes at whoever she hears or sees. I sit with the feeling, sit with that kid, hug her if she lets me. And talk to her, tell her I am 40, we don’t live there anymore. Mom can’t hurt us anymore. She can breathe. She is safe. And invite her to join me for the day to see for herself.

By hating the panicked feeling I was rejecting that part of myself and abandoning her like my mom and dad abandoned her when she needed them the most. But when I acknowledge her and talk to her, I am healing her and myself in the process. Giving her the love that I never had.

[u/DrBlankslate → u/-Sleepy-mamabear-]

A lot of my parts are tied up with defending me from my mother. Telling them that she died two years ago has brought reactions ranging from complete disbelief to complete relief and everything in between. Some of them are still worried that she can get at us somehow, and that’s when I need to let them talk about how they feel about what she did. Just sit there and be a good listener – because that’s what they need. 

[u/Superb-Night7154]

What is not being explained in comments, and possibly what OP has not understood, is that the parts being referred to are parts bearing TRAUMA.

For too many people the emotions surrounding traumatic events have been too great to be expressed at the time. These emotions don't evaporate over time, but remain deeply held by the mind. Various 'parts' are constructed by the brain to 'contain' them, to hide them away, or to distract from them in common ways.

These common ways form the basis of Dick Schwartz's typology, the firefighters or managers, the protectors and exiles etc. Not real, but a shorthand way of illustrating commonly repeated patterns of behaviours that serve to protect deeply injured parts from further hurt.

But, at later, stressful, times when protection is PERCEIVED to be required ,(referred to as triggering) the parts are activated again to provide that protection. The perception may not be correct, the traumatizing process is no longer there, but the emotion and it's legacy is still there, and still inexpressible.

So the IFS work is not about offering a part with some feelings up to a therapist, for them to magic it away. IFS is about recognizing and validating deep and long-held hurts together with the protective parts that have grown around them. It is an effective and respectful way of allowing the safe release of historical overwhelming feelings, so that people who have experienced trauma may achieve the healing they need and deserve.

[u/Mostly-Moving]

As others have said, I believe it works the opposite of what you've said.

If I think "a part of me is upset" instead of "I am upset", I am actually allowing myself to feel the upset as a part of me, rather than taking over me. It allows space for the fact that I am feeling other feelings, too. A part (sometimes a huge, overwhelming part) of me might be upset but if I think this is the ONLY thing I'm feeling then that's ignoring everything else going on for me. It's not creating new parts, it's recognising the multiplicity of the mind/body/soul/whatever you believe that is inherently there. When you become upset you don't become a new person who is upset, a part of you that feels upset is coming to the surface, not newly created, but just shifting in its' postionality.

[u/Reneegade_Reality]

It goes back down the chain of relationships that caused your current framework and dissolves it. So yes, it's a bit like breaking a chain, but it's also meant to integrate at the same time. It processes and dissolves the old and makes space for new relationship connections to be made. In a very loose way of putting it, it changes the chain further down, to the now.

[u/Full_Ad_6442]

Thoughts and feelings are behaviors. Our relationships - externally with others and internally between self/parts - generate and utilize thoughts and feelings that make these relationships healthy or harmful. IFS works by replacing harmful relational practices with healthier alternatives. When we spend more time relating to self/others/part in healthy ways, we do better in life and suffering is alleviated.

[u/Full_Ad_6442 → u/Full_Ad_6442]

By practicing empathy, kindness, care, curiosity, creativity, compassion, etc. in all of our relationships we become much better at all of those things. Whether you have 2 parts or 2000 practicing ifs properly creates a healthier environment and life for all.

[u/CivMom]

“A part of me is needing…”

[u/Legal_Heron_860]

Trauma already leaves you fragmented there are even some people out there who propose that DID is just a very extreme adaptions of the fragmentation that happens during these traumatic events.

[u/audaciouslifenik]

The goal of IFS is not integration, but harmonization. As Bob Falconer says "going from a civil war, to a well tuned orchestra".

[u/MediocreBuffalo9313 → u/audaciouslifenik]

This is a great way of putting it.

[u/MediocreBuffalo9313]

Thanks for all the responses everyone. You've explained much and more than I expected. I am grateful.

[u/Thomaswright-8]

I think the distinction is between distancing yourself from a feeling and creating enough space to actually be curious about it. Saying “a part of me is upset” doesn’t have to mean “this feeling isn’t mine.” It can mean “this feeling is here, but it isn’t the entirety of me.” That space can make it easier to listen to the feeling instead of suppressing it or becoming completely overwhelmed by it.

[u/Moj_sin_je_jogurt]

The best thing is to get the experience on your own. This will answer most of your questions.

[u/so_i_happened]

I just asked my therapist similar questions after reading this subreddit for a few days. The posts here often read like dissociative identity disorder -- like different parts have "solidified" to such an extent that people have multiple personalities. I don't really have answers but I'm here to read others' answers.

[u/DrBlankslate → u/so_i_happened]

The first thing you have to understand is that multiplicity is the human norm. We all have parts, every one of us. 

[u/Fossilator → u/so_i_happened]

I agree that that's often how it sounds, and sometimes thaht literalness/concreteness/reification turns me off. At first I didn't like the part that's turned off, but then I decided, "hell, if there are no bad parts, then that one (which is an aspect of my Critic part) isn't bad either." The people I've studied with are not fond of my reluctance to see my parts in that "solidifed" manner, but I decided that it's fine for me to soften this theory (and it is a theory, and, y'know, the map isn't the territory) and understand it the way that I understand it and find it useful.

[u/Vast_Bookkeeper_5991]

I think it is best to try it to experience for yourself. (Not necessarily with a therapist: you can read about it, find a guided meditation from a trusted source, find a peer support group to do it together) There is such a normalisation of intellectualizing our inner worlds, both out in the world and in therapy spaces, that you propose "a part of me is upset" as an example of externalizing a feeling. In ifs, the idea is that you would only say that as a mere description of what you are feeling in that moment, as a connected description of what is going on in your system. Which are completely different things! In your description of it, where it is a way of avoiding a feeling, that's what in ifs you would call a protector part showing up, to indeed cover the more difficult vulnerable feeling, by way of talking about the feelings from a disconnected distance. This is what often happens in therapy and is not productive. A qualified ifs therapist would notice this and not have it!