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When "internal family systems" therapy goes wrong...

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Justmehere

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I understand internal family systems therapy (IFS) is helpful to some. I have done some very light IFS around writing a letter to myself as a kid. That was very helpful. The therapist that I worked with to do that work didn't push to use it in any other ways. I only saw them while at a PTSD intensive treatment, but that small thing of writing to myself what I needed to hear as a kid, and what I needed to hear now as an adult, was very settling. I do not have DID, as verified a number of times by professionals, but it still helped.

IFS appears to be a style of therapy that is having a bit of popularity right now, and I'm not sure it's all good. As part of my process to sort myself out lately, have consulted with a handful of therapists. There have been a couple that said they "play" with "personality parts" for people without DID.

A trauma therapist I saw a few times a few years ago asked that I name my emotions. I thought they meant "anger," "fear" and ect. No. They meant names like Sally or Joe. It was the third session. I have never used any other names than my own name. I said no, refused, explained I don't have other names. She pressed in. I asked her why I should used the names she was suggesting. She explained it was part of IFS, etc, and that she also really liked one of the names because it was her favorite niece's name. I never went back.

Not long after that, I signed up here, and my name is "justmehere" is because when I first signed up, I was fed up. It's justmehere. (It fits in many other ways too.)

Another therapist, after some time working together, also asked I do the same thing. They also assured me I didn't have DID. They still wanted names. They proceeded to also suggest that I name myself after a TV show character that has a number for a name. They proceeded to describe the character of the show that I had never seen. I told her, "No. I will not call myself that name or any other name than my legal name." She didn't let it go. Several sessions in a row, she pushed for me to call myself a number as a proper now like the character in the show. She had other suggestions too. She kept using them until I was in tears and left the session telling her that I wondered if this a little bit like what deadnaming feels like for others. She stopped, didn't go there again, and I eventually quit that therapist as well.

While some are helped by IFS, there are ways it can go wrong. There are plenty of threads about the positives, has anyone else experienced any downsides of IFS or it's current popularity?
 
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I have a firm foundation in IFS with most of my prominent parts (emotions/behaviors) fleshed out. It was never suggested to me that I give these parts names other than “anger” or “push away”. I do it now on my own using a self help series. It’s geared toward “normal” people so I adjust my internal map based on my dissociated emotions.

I am not sure that what you describe is even pure IFS...?

To me it makes NO sense to name our parts. “Anger” is ANGER! “Push away” pushes people AWAY! Self explanatory, right?

IFS parts are one dimensional. They do one thing, they have one job. To give them names like sally or billy gives the impression that these parts are multi dimensional when they are not. This is actually the key difference between an IFS part and a DID part (from what I can tell).
 
Yeah, to go along with what @EveHarrington says, I have found IFS very helpful as a framework although I don’t do official parts work in session. There will be times when my T will use it to explain a reaction I have “that’s a firefighter who is trying to protect you,” sort of the thing. And I find that helpful. I’ve read several books. She has never suggested (nor have the books suggested) I name the parts. She has sometimes asked ages if they felt a certain age. But that’s it. I agree this is a problem with the way the therapists are using it and not the framework itself.
 
While some are helped by IFS, there are ways it can go wrong. There are plenty of threads about the positives, has anyone else experienced any downsides of IFS or it's current popularity?
IFS is probably best described as the opposite of helpful in my case.

So, yep. It takes an already incrediably narrow and specialized field and limits available options for therapy even further.
 
I did IFS for awhile with my previous therapist and while it wasn't destructive to me or anything, it also didn't really help me. I feel like I wasted time "finding" (making up?) and naming inside people that I could have been using for more useful, concrete things.

In the end I preferred not to do IFS, and my therapist respected my decision.
 
I am not sure that what you describe is even pure IFS...?
What I describe is actually quite common in IFS training programs.

One IFS training center puts it this way:
"Since your goal is to develop a relationship with each part, giving it a name enables you to keep track of it over time. The name can be a descriptive phrase, such as the Controlling Part or the Sooty Demon. It could be a person’s name, such as Walter." Names for Parts in IFS

Despite the lawsuits, Dr. Richard Schwartz, the founder of IFS, is still involved with one of the major organizations certifying IFS. At Outline of the Internal Family Systems Model, they describe how they use parts under "Basic Assumptions of the IFS Model:
"It is the nature of the mind to be subdivided into an indeterminate number of subpersonalities or parts.
and
"As we develop, our parts develop and form a complex system of interactions among themselves; therefore, systems theory can be applied to the internal system. When the system is reorganized, parts can change rapidly."
If a part has clothing they wear, that's complex. "Parts" are further described as these "subpersonalities" and "family members" that can have fantasies and preferences and emotions. Not just a single feeling state, emotion, or action.

Many IFS training systems actually teach therapists to ask questions like:
Does your inner critic have a shape? A name? An age? What are they dressed like? If you were to draw a picture of it, what would it look like? Parts Work: Who's Sitting Around Your Inner Conference Table?
Elsewhere on this site, he talks about how he developed the model, and at one point working with a client he calls Diane, and describes
It then occurred to me that I wasn’t talking to Diane, but to another part of her that constantly fought with the pessimist.
If it's not Diane, who is it? If the founder of IFS does this, then it's not surprising that others do as well, and seek to name, well, what the therapist believes is not Diane.

I think this aspect of IFS has a lot of potential for problems for some clients.
 
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I think this aspect of IFS has a lot of potential for problems for some clients.
This ^^^ is my understanding.

The issues around IFS and people suffering increasingly fragmented sense of self, without associated relief from their underlying mental health issues, continues to be an issue impacting the way that treatment is approached in my part of the world (Australia), where IFS is particularly unpopular among the mental health profession.

Much of the mental health profession here are particularly cautious about fragmenting personality as a method of treatment. In many practices, patients are often encouraged not to name or interact with distinct ‘parts’, even with a DID diagnosis. I’ve certainly come across that, together with the arguments in favour of treatments that promote an integrated concept of self to avoid the documented risks associated with fragmentation.

It actually surprises me that the Schwartz guys are still practicing, let alone that IFS seems to have survived that period.

Certainly you don’t need to look far for people who have genuinely benefited from IFS, so credit where it’s due, it IS helping a lot of people. But (as with any therapy) that certainly isn’t a uniform outcome, and if the press is to be believed, a ‘bad IFS outcome’ tends to do a lot more damage than, say, a ‘bad CBT outcome’. So if it isn’t working for you? Perhaps steer towards the more evidence-based approaches for ptsd.

ETA I have a bias though. I’m naturally cynical of therapy approaches that make a shittone of money for a few particular people. To me, that’s Scientology in a nutshell! But I digress...!!!
 
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I've been successful with IFS because my T uses it to help me focus on the emotions and thoughts that I can't face. I have "screamer' who I can separate out from my memories by the actions that define her. Eventually I have to come to terms with the fact that she is really an aspect of me and accept what she (I) did so keeping her as a separate entity for the time being lets me observe it from a safe distance.

They've explained it to me as completely different from DID because they aren't other people. They don't come forward or take over or any of that. They are just experiences that my brain put in a memory box to keep me going and they are still stuck there until I can face the emotions associated with them. Giving them some kind of name or lable helps keep them straight so they don't overlap -- which makes it easier to work on one by one.
 
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