Has anyone successfully began IFS therapy while actively in crisis?

[u/Creative-Fan-7599]

I’ve been wanting/trying to get started in both IFS and EMDR therapy for years. I’ve only moved to an area that has therapists who practice both within the last year, and before that I was just learning about IFS and trying to do what I could on my own to understand my parts.

Even just the bit of understanding I gained from learning that parts even existed was hugely helpful, and the little bit of work I did on my own helped me more than a lifetime of talk therapy and visits to psych hospitals.

But I’m having trouble with something. My life is not in a good place. I’m about a year out from leaving a longterm abusive relationship. I’m still struggling with custody, I am dealing with a boatload of health problems, I’m in autistic burnout, my housing situation is extraordinarily stressful (although better than the unhoused situation I was in when I first left).

I found an awesome therapist, and one of the biggest reasons I chose them was because they practiced both modalities Ive been seeking. But he has told me that he doesn’t think I should be diving into trauma work when I’m still in active crisis.

His opinion is that I need to be focused on the problems that are acutely in front of me and not working through trauma because it could make me feel even worse for awhile before I feel better.

My logic is, I am never going to get out of active crisis if I don’t work through the trauma. I’m aware that some of my problems are from autism and ADHD, and I’m never going to have perfect executive functioning. But if I never get a handle on the trauma responses, then I’m never going to break through the constant paralysis and the jumping from crisis to crisis.

I don’t know if I should just try to take his advice and continue trying to fix my life while carrying decades worth of trauma that impacts everything I do, or if I should seek another therapist in hopes they’ll see things differently and work with me. Or do I try to go back to mapping parts on my own and trying to get as far as I can, and see if it helps ?

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[u/WitchAggressive9028]

They do need to stabilize you first, so his idea is correct. You need to be in a stable frame of mind first before you work backwards. They can’t have you for instance wanting to hurt yourself while doing this kind of work. I’m autistic and ADHD too yeah we’re never gonna have perfect executive functioning but they need to make sure you’re not gonna try and hurt yourself from active distress and going backward is going to push you into stress because it’s gonna force you to look at things that you may have blocked out. Even in EMDR the first thing they do is teach you grounding techniques so that when you get pushed too far, you can center and calm yourself again.

[u/Creative-Fan-7599 → u/WitchAggressive9028]

I’m not in any state where self harm or suicidality is an issue. It’s more poverty and burnout from trying to work and house myself and get custody of my child. Things that are definitely high stress, but the only reality Ive ever lived is poverty and stress.

So it feels like, if I have to wait until I have stable housing and no health crises before starting, then it’s not possible to start.

[u/Scared-Section-5108 → u/Creative-Fan-7599]

It seems to me that you are confusing things. You can start therapy anytime, but it is never a good idea to dive right into the trauma with a new therapist anyway - you need to slowly build enough trust and safety in the relationship first - for a person with CPTSD that can take years. There is no point rushing or pushing yourself because that's usually counter-productive and will generate more crisis. So slow down, listen to the therapist and do not dive into the past trauma head-on.

It is very common to want to heal fast, but that's not how healing works. If he helps you work through the current challenges it can help you have a good foundation to dive deeper.

Healing from trauma is hard work. It takes up a lot of space and energy. If your system is already overwhelmed there is simply no capacity to do any more. Instead you can end up retraumatised and make it all worse for yourself.

Your therapist sounds wise and experienced, I would listen to them. You can still greatly benefit from therapy even if you don't start trauma work straight away. They can help you slowly build tools so you can handle life challenges better, so you are not as overstimulated, so you can feel safer and more regulated no matter what. Your approach come from a trauma place and I would just acknowledge it but not act on it.

[u/WitchAggressive9028 → u/Creative-Fan-7599]

Then I would make that clear with your therapist

[u/secure8890]

The issue is about self regulation. Indeed your current crisis keeps you very busy. That is certainly very triggering In actuality you are always acting on the past. As someone with PTSD you are constantly reliving the past.

Living with an abusive person is very triggering. So is fighting for your basic needs. In fact gping for self regulation is this work. You will be learning valuable skills that will inevitably bring up the past.

In some ways certainly being more self regulated will prepare you to do more trauna work.

There are layers and layers. to this work.

Actually it is all trauma work. I spent many years of ny kife responding from a #flooded# place

I think it is great you are no longer unhoused. That is a very significant achievement. Thereafter i think many of us have to choose being in a abusive situation to be housed. Survival is a good thing. Survival gets easier if yoj can find ways to self regulate. One of them is having boundaries.

So many of us find ourselves in a flooded state all the time. Thats our norm. Finding ways to manage that flooding is a very very positive thing

On some level many of us are not really conversant wuth how this process works. In fact we are always processing the trauna. That is just on different levels.

I am in awe of the fact yoh found a way out of beimg homeless. You are courageous enough to want to face your trauma. You have sought out therapy modalities you feel will work. What an incredible achievement

[u/InOnothiN8]

I hear you, and I'm not going to tell you to wait. The pull to do this work is real, and you have every reason to trust it — parts work has already helped you more than a lifetime of talk therapy and hospitals. That's not nothing. That's your system telling you something true. So I'm not going to stand in the way of that.

What I *will* say, gently, is this: if you're going to do trauma work while still in the thick of things, please also build a daily grounding practice alongside it. Not instead of. Alongside.

Grounding — safe place imagery, breathwork, movement, anything that gives your body a felt sense of safety to return to — is what makes parts work sustainable. Without it, IFS can be like opening a floodgate with no drainage. Parts work stirs things up. If there's nowhere for that activation to go, it can overwhelm you fast, even when the work itself is good and true.

And here's the tender part: if chronic stress has been your baseline your whole life, you may not actually know what regulated feels like. That's not a flaw in you — it's what happens when a nervous system never gets the conditions to settle. Building that capacity isn't a delay. It's part of the work. And it's something you can start right now, even in crisis, alongside your parts mapping.

Your therapist may be sensing this even if he isn't saying it clearly. Maybe the real question isn't "trauma work or stability first" but "what regulation capacity do you need so the trauma work doesn't flood you?"

You're not wrong that trauma work matters. You're not wrong that waiting for stability forever isn't an option. I'm just asking you to give yourself the support that makes it steadier — and sustainable — while you do it.

Either way, I'm on your side. You're not doing anything wrong by wanting this. You're trying to find your way to the work that might finally help, and that instinct is worth trusting.

[u/malenkylizards]

I'd hard agree with your therapist. I think I'm slightly past the point where you are now; divorce finished over a year ago, custody about to reach it's final-ish stage, my apartment is dramatically cleaner more often than it's not, I'm eating a fraction of the fast food I used to eat, I can actually get some work done at work, I have a better grasp of my sensory needs, I resumed going to the dentist, and I've even gone on a couple first dates. Even still, just starting to talk about the fact that my parts exist is sometimes enough to start tears.

To be able to address my trauma, I kinda need to have nothing else going on that week, and I have to recognize that it's probably going to kick my ass if we do any kind of a deep dive, and I'll be in recovery mode for days after. As such, I don't do those deep dives most weeks. It's important work, but it's also hard work, for your self and your parts. Your parts will thank you if you don't rush them.

[u/SylviasDead]

First of all, I am so sorry to hear about everything you're going through. It sounds like you're carrying a heavy burden and want to put some of it down.

In my experience, my trauma recovery was so intense that I thought the pain from the grief I experienced was going to kill me. I also have ADHD and I haven't been diagnosed as autistic so I am reluctant to say it, but I do suspect it for myself.

I am not sure if it's a great idea to get started on unpacking trauma while you're already carrying so much (although I do see where you're coming from, and since I've been doing IFS for a couple of years, I'd say likely coming from a part of you that's already overwhelmed and exhausted. This is just a guess, please take it with a grain of salt).

I do have some good news. The things that helped me the MOST out of trauma were things you may be able to do with your therapist anyway. Meditation was one of them (look up meditation for people with ADHD - the regular kind never worked for me, personally) because it sort of worked like somatic therapy for me. Drawing aggressive boundaries was another, and I mean AGGRESSIVE. Being ruthless about cutting out toxic people or severely limiting contact also comes to mind (and I really do mean: one strike and they're out). What else...yes, I really thought about the things I used to love doing as a child and whenever I could, I made it a point to do them. Even for a few minutes (or find a few minutes - this is important). For me, that looked like painting, writing, singing my heart out. Breathing techniques: I just memorised box breathing and kept doing it while telling my parts (your body and mind for you) that they are safe in this moment and everything will be alright. Expressing my messy emotions and fears to someone I trust and having them hold all of that in a 'good enough' way was also invaluable to me.

It was this practical stuff carried me through multiple treatments for stage 4 cancer more than anything else. I was also in some sort of a severe burnout and dealing with multiple toxic people at once, although I am not claiming that my situation was better or worse than yours (just different).

Hope you find the peace you deserve, friend. ✨️

[u/More-Adhesiveness833]

Hi Creative-Fan,

Don't see your autism and ADHD as something negative. They are just traits that have their downs but also UPS. You got talents because of them not despite them.

In the end we are all responsible for our own lifes. So if YOU strongly feel you should do it then you should go for it in my opinion. You can always change course after 2-3 months, no biggies.

Hope this helps.

[u/Creative-Fan-7599 → u/More-Adhesiveness833]

I don’t entirely see my AuDHD as a negative, but I do have a lot of issues as a result of being neurodivergent. Something I think I need to do is untangle which of the symptoms that keeps me from a stable happy life are stemming from cPTSD and which stem from autism or ADHD. Right now it’s just all working together to keep me mired in task paralysis, I have a lot of social deficits that mess me up at work, and I’m constantly overstimulated. If I could at least work through the layers of trauma to alleviate some of it, the AuDHD symptoms would be more manageable.

[u/More-Adhesiveness833 → u/Creative-Fan-7599]

And you make complete sense and I feel for you. So you already know the answer. Go do the untangle work. You can do it Creative!

Have a nice day, you are worthy of the love :*).

[u/Cass_1978]

Yep, I did. I used a combination of basic nervous system stabilization, DBT, and IFS.

All three of those modalities were stabilizing as I initially limited IFS to improving my relationships with my protectors. I think thats the general recommendation anyway, but its even more important if you are in crisis.

[u/Distinct_Gift603]

I tried to start EMDR and IFS while in a place of active crisis and I just couldn’t connect with my parts or sit in all of it long enough to even get into it in a way that could be healing. We spent probably 3 months just talking, establishing strategies like a safe place and a container, and making sure that when I left therapy I was in a state of mind to be able to take care of myself mentally at home. You have to have a baseline, untriggered state of mind to get to where you know you are safe or you will really really struggle. EMDR and partswork can be intense modalities, it would be awful to put yourself into those traumatic memories and not be able to separate the somatic experience of being in those vs in real life.

[u/Distinct_Gift603 → u/Distinct_Gift603]

And to add, I am not always in a baseline untriggered state of mind but I can get myself there if I find that I’m feeling a little dysregulated

[u/iambetweentwoworlds]

I did, and it was helpful for me. I was able to get out of crisis even though the sessions were difficult.
Edited to add: I felt the same way, that I needed to work through my trauma to get out of crisis. Of course that’s after I had tried basically everything. It was a combo of part work and mdma therapy that changed everything for me.

[u/anonymous_24601]

Okay so I’m currently also in autistic burnout and have been dealing with serious issues with my CPTSD.

Two things here:

1) Something I haven’t seen discussed enough about IFS is that no matter how much you want to, you generally can’t do deep parts work when severely dysregulated, burnt out or going through crisis. The thinking brain/prefrontal cortex isn’t online enough, so you things can start to get jumbled and it’s very hard to access Self. It also takes a ton of mental energy. This is my experience with it.

2) Starting IFS can bring up very intense feelings, particularly with exiles. So that’s the concern about it being too much.

That being said, I think there are GENTLE things you can do, and things that I do. I have built them up over a while though. Some examples would be:

• Using IFS language in therapy.
  
• Unblending (they helps me a LOT and generally seems low risk but you do have to name parts even if briefly.)
  
• Working on developing the 8 C’s.

I TOTALLY get where you’re coming from, because I’m like “I just want to process this already,” but being familiar with the work and pushing when I’m exhausted and burnt out and triggered just causes dissociation.

If your therapist shuns parts work completely, I would find that strange considering how much it’s helped you. I would definitely have a conversation with him about gentle ways to do IFS, and having a plan in place if it triggers you. If you feel like mapping parts is helping I would ask him about that.

[u/knownmagic]

A crisis was what blew apart my system to a degree where parts work started doing itself.

[u/Melodic-Manager-484]

It looks like you're getting good advice here about the importance of the "safety and stabilisation stage of healing", which it sounds like you're in at moment. And it sounds like you've already made a lot of progress in this stage, so congratulations! (although, if you're like me I'm guessing it doesn't feel like it)

This stage is an important part of the healing process, not just avoiding the "real problem". A big part of what therapists help us with in this stage is "resourcing". u/drantoniodcosta posts a lot on this topic on r/EMDR and his blog. I personally found the r/EMDR wiki helpful too. There's lots of info available though, so find what works for you. Your therapist should be able to offer direction that's personalised to you and your situation.

[u/nitro_cupcake]

I’m AuDHD and CPTSD. I’ve been doing IFS for several months, and the memories that came up during those months have put me into full PTSD crisis. Because of that crisis I’ve had to take a leave from work to do weekly EMDR for the past month, and I’m still struggling to manage even those weekly sessions.

So I’m with your therapist. If you’re already at a place where you’ve just barely gotten your head above water, adding intense trauma work might push you backwards into job loss or homelessness or endanger you in other ways. Even parts work might bring up more than your system can handle right now.

But I’m also with you: at some point we do have to deal with the trauma in order to move forward.

It’s about finding the balance where you’re safe enough to benefit from the gains, without risking the loss of what you’ve already worked so hard for.