Why Internal Family Systems Might Be the Right Therapy for You

Internal Family Systems (IFS) Therapy understands our inner world as having multiple parts that can learn to connect and understand one another

If you've ever caught yourself thinking "I know I should just let it go" while another part of you absolutely cannot let it go, you already understand the basic premise of Internal Family Systems therapy.

Internal Family Systems (IFS) was developed by Dr. Richard Schwartz and the core idea is straightforward: your mind isn't one unified thing. It's made up of parts. And at any given moment, one of those parts might be running the show.

Most clients I work with describe the same thing: they're in their head constantly.

A thought loop kicks in and suddenly they're replaying a conversation from three days ago, rehearsing what they should have said, anticipating every possible way something could go wrong. The mind just keeps going. And the instinct, naturally, is to try to shut it down.

Here's the problem with that: suppression doesn't work.

Try this right now. For the next ten seconds, do not think about penguins. Don't picture them. Don't let the word appear in your mind.

My guess is you're thinking about penguins.

That's not a failure of willpower. That's just how the mind works. The harder you push against a thought, the more it pushes back. The same is true for the emotions underneath those thought loops: anxiety, dread, self-doubt. Trying to muscle through them, or reason your way past them, tends to make them louder.

IFS offers a completely different approach. Instead of trying to suppress a thought loop, you step back from it.

You create some space and then, counterintuitively, you turn toward it with curiosity rather than resistance.

Here's the framework that makes this possible:

Imagine you're the driver of a bus. Every passenger on that bus is a part of you.

Some passengers are loud and reactive: the anger that comes out of nowhere, the anxiety that won't let you sleep, the part that keeps picking apart everything you said in that meeting.

Others are more strategic: the people-pleaser who keeps everything smooth, the inner critic who apparently never takes a day off.

Throughout any given day, these passengers rush the driver's seat and start steering.

IFS is about YOU getting back behind the wheel.

But here's what makes this model different from most: there are no bad passengers.

That relentless self-critic isn't a problem to be eliminated.

The thought loop running at 2am isn't broken wiring. These are parts doing a job, usually one they took on a long time ago, when they didn't have better options.

A part that learned to stay hypervigilant was trying to keep you safe.

A part that criticizes you first, before anyone else can, was trying to protect you from getting blindsided.

These parts developed when you were young and have been working that same shift ever since.

Underneath these protective parts are usually more vulnerable ones: parts carrying shame, fear, old wounds. The protectors are doing exactly what the name suggests.

The goal of IFS isn't to silence them. It's to develop a different relationship with them.

When a part feels genuinely understood rather than managed or pushed aside, it often becomes willing to step back.

And when that happens, you can start to work with what's underneath.

For a lot of the clients I work with, this shift is significant. Not because IFS hands them a technique to force themselves to feel better, but because it stops framing their inner experience as something to fight. The thought loop isn't the enemy.

The anxiety isn't the enemy.

They're passengers who have been doing their best with what they know, and they can learn something new.

If you want to go deeper on this framework before stepping into a therapy room, Colleen West's book We All Have Parts is one of the most accessible introductions out there.

Reach out today to work together with start healing with Internal Family Systems therapy today in-person in Vancouver, BC and virtually across BC

Book your free consultation at emotionwise.janeapp.com

William Devon-Sands (MSW RSW) is a Vancouver based therapy who has trained in Internal Family Systems Therapy (IFS) with the IFS Institute and has worked with many clients who are sturggling with anxiety, emotion regulation and relationship issues to find a compassionate way forward in self-growth and healing.