What do you think about IFS?

[binchilling]

Is IFS reliable therapy ? Are they trying make single to system? Isn't being system bad?

 

[Midnightmoon]

IFS very much is about 'no bad parts' (it's even in the title of the book!) Never used it as a sole modality but it can be quite a validating way of working with parts of self.

The word system is often used predominantly within dissociative disorder literature, where as 'parts' is a pretty common idea in loads of different modalities. Talking about parts can be really helpful for plenty of different needs/ conditions/ concerns. If you're talking specifically about structural dissociation then it tends to be an integrative approach anyway as everything (typically) is so fragmented.

 

[binchilling]

IFS very much is about 'no bad parts' (it's even in the title of the book!) Never used it as a sole modality but it can be quite a validating way of working with parts of self.

The word system is often used predominantly within dissociative disorder literature, where as 'parts' is a pretty common idea in loads of different modalities. Talking about parts can be really helpful for plenty of different needs/ conditions/ concerns. If you're talking specifically about structural dissociation then it tends to be an integrative approach anyway as everything (typically) is so fragmented.

Are u a system?

 

[Midnightmoon]

Are u a system?

I'm working on accepting it, yes. My T uses the word, I struggle with it, I use, 'everyone' to describe me and then inside

 

[Friday]

It’s not a modality that’s useful for me.

I spoke about why that’s the case in detail (below) awhile back.

It seems to be really effective in certain vet-circles because it plays out the opposite as it does in (a lot of) the general population... instead of distancing, and fragmenting, and disavowing responsibility... it’s introducing, and bringing closer, and conceptualizing.

There was a vet group I was a part of for awhile that called PTSD TheBeast. It was a concept I was able to really relate to -all teeth & claws & temper & I predicitble nature; learning short leashes & new SOPs/new partnerships/new balance whilst relearning discipline- that unlike IFS was/is super useful to me... because it was bringing things closer, rather than breaking them off and shoving them away.

The closest parallel I can draw (the difference -for me- between TheBeast kind of conceptualizing and IFS as practiced ‘round these parts) is the difference between 2 people hitting things when they’re mad, and the vastly different/ durn near opposite results.

• Jill & Joe Average (no background fighting) being told to “go hit a pillow”? Is just training them to hit things when they’re mad. No surprise, when they get mad? They start lashing out, hitting things fairly at random, just like they’ve trained themselves to do.
• A trained fighter blowing off steam on a heavy bag, meanwhile, isn’t training themselves to hit things when they’re mad. It’s training them to focus and direct their rage in a controlled environment of their choosing. It’s more control, and conscious decision making, not less.

Same action, but the difference is where they’re starting from, and therefore what they’re learning or reinforcing. The trained fighter is reasserting control, reconnecting with years of training discipline. The untrained pillow hitter isn’t reconnecting with anything, because there’s nothing to connect with, they’re learning a brand new skill; hit things when mad. <<< That’s not to say that untrained fighters “shouldn’t” have the same sorts of physical needs/outlets. It’s saying the new skill that they learn? Needs to be discipline, not blind flailing. IE back up a step and get. trained. Learn the discipline, so that’s what you’re reinforcing as you’re blowing off steam. Bottom line is same action = different results based on where they’re starting from.

For me? I already broke, and broke badly. It took me a long ass time to duct tape all my broken pieces back together in quasi-working fashion ... and re-fragmenting myself? Into even more broken pieces, along new fault lines, in addition to the old ones? Is just a reeeeeeally bad idea. FUBAR bad. Hence IFS is really not useful to me.

I know a helluva lot of people who didn’t break. More like they origami’d... folding the parts of themselves that they can’t deal with, right now, away. Until they almost become 2 dimensional representations of themselves. These are the people I see IFS work great for IF...

• A good therapist? Is able to help unfold those pieces. Reintroducing the shape and structure of those pieces to the whole, giving them their proper place, (not folded away, sometimes under layers and layers of folds until they’re invisible and not just out of the way but completely obscured or forgotten). And voila! (Long process made short ;)) A 3 dimsenional self starts emerging.
• A shit therapist? (IMO) hands over the scissors and has their client start cutting along the folds :banghead:creating broken pieces, fragmented selves, artificial separation. (For a few different reasons, ranging from laziness, to wanting a sexy client, to well intentioned idiot; assessing the problem wrongly and creating far more problems).

So, FWIW, how I see it

- Is a person Fragmented or Folded (where are they starting from?)
- What do they need to learn? (What brings them together instead of distancing?)
- How good is their therapist?

 

[dart.cree]

I think a very valid case can be made that ALL people are Collectives. Otherwise we wouldn't have expressions like "Part of me wants to go tot he party. Part of me knows I need to study.

I suspect that we split and merge parts often. And this ability to combine parts for tasks, and split them too is one of the ways people are adaptable.

With trauama, some of these parts were split further, and to some degree are dissociated from the rest. So part of the problem with trauma is that we DON'T have access to all the parts. But that at the time we lost access, we needed to have that part maintained as a separate identity to keep from being totally overwhelmed all the time.

In the worst case, DID, some parts don't share memory at all, and act as fully autonymous agents. Most of us ahve parts that have isolated blocks of memory of their own, but are not autonymous, or have somewhat autonymous parts that share common memory.

I ahve several parts that have merged back in, but that can still work almost independently or in small teams. Teacher is one. Teacher was formed when an impossibly inept asocial nerd was put in front of a classroom. I became a different person in front of a class. The scared teenage self that was normal me cowered, while Teacher ran a pretty good class. Even now, one of my social refuges is to get into either teacher or student mode.

I have wordsmith. May or may not be part of teacher. Wordsmith is better with the written word.

I have Explorer. He's good at facing dangerous situations where quick response is needed. He has saved lives on expeditions.

Slipstick -- nerdy, good with numbers, estimating, evalulation.

Rebel -- the teenage version of me that couldn't actual rebel out of fear, but who is very creative at raising shit. He and wordsmith would make a great team for writing movie scripts.

Ghost is hypervigilant. The perfect guardian.

I wish that I could communicate better with them.