How IFS Therapy Works

Added: 2026-05-06

[00:00:00]I will also show a little bit of how I did IFS. So to begin with, you really you sit with a therapist and you close your eyes and your therapist will basically like ask you a question like, "So what's here for you right now?" And you will um you will find what you're feeling and you'll kind of like focus on it. You kind of like notice where you feel it in your body and you ask it a series of questions. So this feeling you might ask like when did I first notice it? Um or how old does this part feel?

[00:00:27]And you get answers to that question like I got answers to that question.

[00:00:31]Often like a memory would come up and it's like okay when I feel this way it's connected to a memory of a time in my life when I didn't feel safe. For example, like feeling like really um kind of anxious and feeling like I couldn't speak, you know. And when I got close to that part um I remembered I was in a car accident when I was 11. and I was hit by a car and my mom came to the scene of the accident and she rode with me in the ambulance and as she was riding with me in the ambulance I could see how scared my mom was and so in that moment like a part of me took over it's like I can't scare my mom like she's terrified and so even though I'm the one with a broken leg and I'm in shock and I'm experiencing a physical trauma I also feel this sense of responsibility for how my mom is feeling so I'm telling her like I'm okay mom it's okay I'm fine you know but like years later the sort the energy of that has has metamorphosized into a part of me that feels like I can't speak up for like how I'm really feeling, you know, and I'm feeling really anxious about it. So, IFS is kind of a little bit magical in a way that it will kind of connect what you're feeling in your body or what sensations you're having or what thoughts you're having with kind of like childhood memories. And once you kind of bring those into the open, your therapist can guide you to kind of unbburden them. And it is a little bit magical because it's like you still have the memory of what happened. you're still fully conscious of it. And yet you you relate to it in the same way. So when I look back on that accident and how I responded to like my mom's fear in that moment, I just feel like so much tenderness and compassion. I don't feel like it's this awful memory that has to be locked in a basement. Like don't ever go there. That freaks me out, you know? So I IFS really helps you respond to yourself in a completely different way. And it's a loving way. And that to me was it just brings so much joy to life, you know, when suddenly you're feeling compassion inside for yourself instead of >> anxiety and self-criticism. You know, it's a different paradigm.