Slideshow

Notes for the session

Hello, welcome! This session is called “Beyond IFS: Toward a model of inner work that works for Plural systems.”

• The Internal Family Systems model of human ecology, called IFS for short, is quickly growing in popularity worldwide.
• It teaches that human psychology is naturally multiple, and that healing happens when we know and love every part of who we are.
• Yet despite the clear affinity between IFS and Plurality, the model is still largely taught and practiced without considering the real diversity of Plural experience.
• As a Plural IFS practitioner, I want to change that for everybody’s benefit.
• It’s our belief that a model of human multiplicity that works better for Plural systems will serve singlets better too.

Let me start by introducing my system.

Introducing ourselves

So, my name is Ash Chudgar.

• These days I think of myself as a median system of seven or so members, depending on how you count.
• We’re comfortable using he/him or they/them singular pronouns for general purposes.
• Among fellow Systems we really like having the freedom to use “we” as well as “I” to refer to our whole ensemble.
• Every Plural system is different, and the only one we really understand is our own. So we’ll use our own system as an example sometimes.

If you can’t see me,

• I’m a light-skinned person with a bald head, 45 years old.
• I have a brown beard tied into two braids.
• I’m wearing a green quilted coverall with a red lining.
• I’m sitting in front of a bunch of bookcases with books and plants on them.

If your system likes to take notes, you are welcome to — but I’ll also provide the slides at the end, if you want them.

Feel free to experience this session in whatever way works best for you! We won’t mind.

Our thanks

We were a little nervous submitting the session, because we know that IFS is really controversial in the Plural community, for very good reasons.

To our delight and panic, the session got approved — so we’ve been spending a lot of time learning from the IFS and plural communities to prepare. We want to offer our gratitude to a few folks in particular:

• My friend and colleague Forrest Merrill for their wisdom about dissociation,
• The coaching clients who have shared their plural experience with me,
• The public scholarship of Jamie Marich’s system,
• The Reddit communities of /r/internalfamilysystems and especially /r/plurals.

And of course thanks very much to the Stronghold system, and everymany who has volunteered to make this conference possible, and to every member of every system who is here!

From IFS to plurality

An important fact about our system: we came to understand our own plurality through IFS, well into adulthood:

• first by reading do-it-yourself IFS books,
• then by working with a skillful IFS practitioner,
• then by learning the model in the IFS Institute’s Level 1 training,
• then by working one-on-one with clients, including some Plural systems,
• then by reading up on Plurality and attending events like this one,
• and finally by coming to realize that, yup, we’re Plural ourselves.

So as a system, we have experienced IFS as profoundly healing and liberating. But our experience is not the norm.

Many if not most Plural systems encounter IFS as a therapeutic method in order to make sense of their system when it’s not working well.

• Too often, the IFS they encounter — through therapists or practitioners, independent reading, or social media — is unhelpful at best and traumatizing at worst.
• That means, for many systems (maybe yours), the most important concepts in IFS can be triggering all by themselves.

Content advisory

Hence this content advisory:

• We’re going to discuss the IFS term for members of plural systems, which is “parts.”
• We’ll talk a bit about the specific “roles” IFS describes for three separate kinds of parts.
• And we are going to talk about the so-called Self, the IFS concept that describes the internal “seat of consciousness.”

If your system has had bad experiences with these ideas in the past,

• I am truly sorry.
• I want to apologize to your system on the behalf of the IFS community.
• You deserve professional helpers and theoretical models that truly serve your system as it is.

In today’s presentation, that’s what I’m hoping we can help IFS evolve into. Here’s how:

Agenda

1. First, we’ll do a quick overview of IFS by the book — in this case, the current textbook that IFS practitioners are supposed to read to learn the model from. The idea here is to establish what “official IFS” actually says, and correct some common misconceptions.
2. Next, we’ll look at how Plural systems experience IFS in real life — which is often very different from IFS “by the book,” and works very badly for Plurals.
3. After that, I’ll offer a few very specific suggestions for evolving beyond “by-the-book” IFS, to make the model more helpful for Plural systems of all kinds.
4. Finally, we’ll offer you some practical invitations to make IFS work better for your system, if you want to.

Okay: So what does IFS teach?

IFS by the book

Core IFS concepts

Back to those trigger warnings — they’re the core IFS concepts.

“Parts”:

Parts are discrete, autonomous mental systems, each with their own … abilities, desires, and views of the world. … Every one of us contains an inner tribe of people. (Schwartz & Sweezy, 30f)

• IFS says that psychic multiplicity is in fact universal.
• It’s been characterized as “opting in to DID,” which is kinda right in some ways.

“Roles”

In response to danger, the individuals in human systems … take on roles that can be categorized by three groups … Managers … Exiles … Firefighters. (31)

• IFS says that the parts of people tend to respond to trauma in three typical ways:
• Some parts manage day-to-day life in order to keep overwhelming feelings at bay.
  • Others are exiled, kept out of awareness, along with their overwhelming feelings (like shame, terror, and so forth).
  • And then firefighters respond quickly when exiles emerge into awareness by using strategies that reduce overwhelm (by using numbing substances or distracting behavior, for example).
  • IFS teaches that all systems have parts that play these roles.

“Self”

Everyone can access the active, compassionate leader we call the Self, which is characterized by clarity, perspective, compassion … effective leadership. (44)

• IFS says that everyone has access to a Self, a “seat of consciousness” that is always calm, compassionate, and courageous.
• IFS teaches that this Self can’t be harmed or killed, and doesn’t need to develop. It’s just there in everybody, always available.
• IFS teaches that parts who play those three roles get in the way of Self’s leadership by occupying the seat of consciousness instead.

Now, by-the-book IFS is really, really clear about these concepts. But as people practice the model and talk about it on social media, they get badly distorted in a few important ways:

IFS misconceptions

We see these IFS misconceptions everywhere — not only on Reddit or Facebook, but also among trained IFS practitioners who ought to know better! We’re going to scribble through them to show how mistaken they are.

• A misconception about Parts is that they are “just metaphors” for feelings or mental states. This misconception can be really infuriating to Plural systems, as you can imagine.
• There are two common misconceptions about those three roles IFS says Parts play:
• First, it’s sometimes said that, once they abandon their roles, Parts should be integrated into Self. This is not true, but you hear it everywhere. And even some IFS practitioners who say this isn’t true actually act as though it is.
• It’s also said that parts are just the roles the play. Again, absolutely not true; but you hear this all the time. Sometimes people even reduce parts to specific feelings, like “my anger part” or “my shaming part,” which is just not helpful at all.
• Finally, a misconception about Self: that it’s “just the part who is (or should be) in charge.” That is not IFS teaching at all, but again — it’s a common idea.

Let’s correct the record about what “by-the-book IFS” actually says:

Common misconceptions corrected

First, “Parts populate our inner world. They are not metaphors … . Rather, they are inner beings with full personalities.” (Schwartz & Falconer, 94)

Second, “Parts do not disappear under Self-leadership, but their extreme roles do, as does the rigid three-group arrangement of managers, firefighters, and exiles.” (Schwartz & Sweezy, 39)

• Integration into the self is not, absolutely not, the goal of IFS. We can’t emphasize that enough.
• IFS teaching is also clear that parts are not just the roles they play; IFS says that parts get to decide what they do, and what they do can change.

Finally, “The Self (is) either an active inner leader or an expansive, boundaryless state of mind … an “I” or an expansive sense of space and energy. (Schwartz & Sweezy, 45)

• In IFS, the Self is not just a special boss-part. It’s more like what you might call Buddha-nature, or the “inner light,” or a “compassionate awareness.”
• For by-the-book IFS, Self is fundamentally different in kind from Parts.

So, that’s what IFS teaches by chapter and verse. But:

• Those common misconceptions about IFS are everywhere — not only on social media, but even among IFS practitioners who should know better.
• And even strictly by-the-book IFS, as we’ve presented it here, often doesn’t work for Plural systems.

Plural experiences of IFS

From here on out, we’ll be leaving the IFS textbook aside and staying with the real experience of Plural systems.

• My system knows how IFS doesn’t work for us. But we wanted to understand how IFS doesn’t work for other systems.
• To find out, we asked the IFS and Plural Reddit communities that exact question.

The conversations that ensued were just massively interesting. Here are some highlights.

What plurals say

The trouble with “parts”

First, how do Plural systems experience the idea of “parts”?

• “Not everyone is plural!” IFS says everybody is; plural systems know better.
• “We’re not metaphorical!” Members of Plural systems rightly resent being told that their headmates are just metaphors for something else.
• In fact, some IFS practitioners struggle to grasp that some people really are internal multiple, rather than being “multiple” as a sort of therapeutic fiction. “IFS therapists I’ve worked with have been dismissive about us being a system.”

The trouble with “roles”

The idea of “roles” rubs Plural systems the wrong way, too:

• “We are not just roles. We are people.” By-the-book IFS agrees. But much real-world practice treats parts as nothing more than functional units.
• “We also particularly dislike thinking of ourselves as a family.” That’s fair, right? For lots of Plurals, “family” has never been particularly safe!
• “Not every system is an internal family system.” I take this to mean that not every system is what Internal Family Systems says it should be. And IFS can do a lot of harm to Plurals by insisting otherwise.

The trouble with “Self”

Finally, the concept of Self is very troublesome for many of us:

• “No one is ‘in charge,’ and no one should be.” This is true in my system as well.
• “Systems don’t need to be/have hierarchies.” In fact, many plural systems (including this one) are deliberately anti-hierarchical.
• “You need to be both in Self and in parts depending on the context. And this is what IFS pathologizes.” There is a really pernicious notion in IFS-world that you’re either “in a part” (which is bad) or “in Self” (which is good). This isn’t technically IFS teaching. But in practice, it’s 100% how people behave. So you will see a lot of IFS practitioners doing a really elaborate job of performing being “in Self.”

So, in the words of our fellow Systems: the core concepts of IFS often just do not work. They’re not helpful, they’re not therapeutic, and they can be really harmful.

But I think we can make them work better.

Beyond IFS: Suggestions

Those huge problems with IFS are real.

But it’s also true that IFS is far and away the most Plural-friendly psychotherapeutic model available today. (If there’s a better one, please tell me!)

So we want to offer some suggestions for ways the IFS model can serve Plural systems, of every kind, better.

Evolving the core concepts

First, the core concepts:

• We think IFS can evolve to conceptualize the members of plural systems in much more accurate and respectful ways than by calling them all “parts.”
• Rather than imposing a three-role taxonomy, IFS can evolve to encounter the structure of each person’s system as it actually is.
• And rather than insisting on “Self-leadership,” IFS can adopt a more flexible understanding of how agency is distributed among the members of each individual system.

So here are my suggestions for adapting IFS to serve Plural systems better.

From “parts” to members

1. Not everyone is plural. This is important: this idea keeps us from thinking that IFS ought to apply to everybody, and preserving the uniqueness of Plural experience.
2. System members are often not accurately described as “parts.” Some are headmates, some are alters, some are introjects or fictives, and on and on and on — there are many kinds of beings in each system.
3. Each system is unique. Each system member is unique. This suggestion comes naturally to skilled IFS practitioners, but we want to stress it: every member of every system is unique. There is no universal template that fits everybody.

From “roles” to system

1. Externally imposed taxonomies are usually inaccurate. The categories of “exile,” “manager,” and “firefighter” can be useful sort of “field guides” for IFS practitioners to have in mind. We use them that way in our own practice! But the idea that every member of every system has to fall into one of these categories is just wrong.
2. There is no “right way” to be a system. IFS often gives people the impression that the only healthy kind of system is a nuclear family, or a “well-run company,” or a “presidential democracy.” These are common forms of social structure in America right now, but obviously there are many, many, many other ways to describe well-functioning systems.
3. Each system has the right to determine its ideal structure. The idea here is that the ideal organization of any Plural system will arise from within, rather than being imposed from without.

From “Self-leadership” to agency

1. “Self-leadership” is not self-evidently ideal or desirable. Your system might, in fact, work best when Self is a “good CEO” in charge of the “workers.” But that’s hardly obvious or self-evident, right? IFS thinks it is, but it’s just not.
2. Many systems flourish without hierarchy. In fact, lots of systems choose a model of system responsibility that’s radically democratic or even straight-up anarchist. My system, for example, uses a principle of “substantial unanimity” in decision-making.
3. Independent action by system members is often beneficial. Right this second, for example, a member of my system called the Professor is giving this talk. (We used to be a literal professor in the real world, so he’s got practice!) In IFS terms, we are “in Self” only to the extent that the Professor is sort of a conduit for what we think of as the light inside us.

We are really eager to hear what you think of these suggestions in the Q&A!

For now, we want to conclude with a few offerings:

Offerings

• Lots of Plural systems, with or without DID or OSDD diagnoses, end up considering working with an IFS therapist or other IFS practitioner. I’ll offer some questions you might want to ask such people to figure out if they’ll be a good fit.
• Then I’ll offer a couple resources that might be handy for further inquiry, IFS-wise and Plurality-wise.

Questions to ask IFS practitioners

Now, you might or might not have access to an IFS professional at all — there aren’t a lot of us! And if you do, you might have to just take whoever you can get and hope for the best.

But if your system does have the freedom to be selective, here are some questions to ask:

1. How did you learn IFS? Here, you’re looking for an answer that includes some kind of live, supervised, intensive training: one that includes both theoretical learning and opportunities to practice. If they say something like independent reading, social media, or YouTube videos — those are red flags. Evasiveness of any kind is a get-up-and-go dealbreaker. IFS is not hard to learn, but it does take a lot of in-person practice and nuanced theoretical understanding.
2. For you, what is a healthy system like? Here, you’re asking if the professional has a rigid idea of what “health” looks like. If they talk about integrating parts into Self, that’s a giant red flag. IFS professionals should never, ever tell you that you need to banish your internal complexity or any member of your system.
3. Would you be open to finding alternatives to the concepts of “parts” or “Self”? Here you’re looking for enthusiasm, or at least curiosity. A Plural-safe IFS practitioner is going to be very interested in what you mean here, and that might start a really good conversation. But if the answer here is any version of “no,” that’s probably a deal-breaker. If they’re not curious about how your system is different from the model they learned up front, they probably won’t honor your experience in therapy.
4. Do you benefit from using IFS in your own life? “Yes, and here’s how” is a great answer to this question. “You know, I don’t make time for my parts as often as I should” is an acceptable answer. “No” (or evasiveness) is a potential dealbreaker. An IFS professional who doesn’t use the model in their own life can’t really use the model skillfully, and might well do harm unintentionally.
5. Would you feel comfortable telling us/me a little bit about your system? If they are flummoxed by the question, or evasive, or just say no, that’s a red flag. Skilled IFS practitioners expect to be asked about their “parts,” and should be fluent in talking about them. (Even if only to say, “Huh, parts of me are surprised you asked!” or something like that.)

If you do use these questions, I am very curious how practitioners will respond!

Finally, we have a few resources to offer your system that have been helpful to ours: -

Resources

If your system is interested in exploring IFS, here are three great resources to start with:

• The textbook of IFS by Richard Schwartz, the founder of the model, and Martha Sweezy.
• A book Robert Falconer wrote with Schwartz, called Many Minds, One Self. It offers a much richer account of plurality than IFS does. (In fact, it’s my hunch that Schwartz had next to nothing to do with writing the book!)
• And a person called Levi has created a marvelous free online guide to IFS (and more) that lots of Systems find helpful.

And then two Plural resources I’ve found especially helpful: Jamie Marich’s brilliant first-person guide to plurality called Dissociation Made Simple, and the welcoming Plural community on Reddit.

That’s all for this session!

• If your system has a use for these slides and our notes, you can find them at chud.gr/ppwc25.
• If you want to learn more about us, you’re welcome: visit us as chudgar.com.
• You are also welcome to get in touch by email, which my system likes best.

From my system to yours, thank you for your attention! We can’t wait to get to know you better in the Q&A.