Parts Work: What is it?
Have you ever felt conflicted about a situation? Maybe torn between snuggling with your dogs in bed, but needing to get to work because you don’t want to disappoint your boss? Or on deciding to go to the gym to feel better, but that cappuccino ice cream has been calling your name instead? Everyone has different parts of themselves and your parts work together to protect you, your core Self.
You might have heard of parts work, inner child work, or of Internal Family Systems (IFS). These all encompass a way to work with our inner parts similar to bringing your entire family into therapy to learn how to better get along, have better balance, and overall have less conflict between its members. The more traumatic experiences someone goes through, the more polarized and imbalanced their parts tend to be. These parts communicate with us through our bodies via thoughts, emotions, sensations, or impulses.
There are a few categories of parts within a person.
Core Self: This is our natural essence and the north star to all of our parts. The Self emerges when you feel completely safe and centered and it embodies compassion, curiosity, calmness, creativity, clarity, and courage. Until the key parts below learn to trust the Self, it typically cannot take an active role in leading the inner system.
Exiles: These are the vulnerable parts of ourselves that are usually younger in age that hold distressing feelings and beliefs that are learned from experiences we’ve endured. These are the feelings of shame and despair coupled with the beliefs of “I’m bad”, “I’m not good enough”, “I’m shameful”, or “I don’t matter” that are always lurking underneath the surface.
We have two types of protector parts, which protect us from our exiles getting activated in distinctly separate ways.
Managers (A proactive protector): This is our resident inner critic, their main job is to run your life, keep your schedule, and make sure you stay “acceptable” by society’s standards. Some examples of how manager parts manifest in our life are people pleasing tendencies, perfectionistic qualities, anxiety, and general overachieving. Managers protect us by keeping everything in line so that we can try our best to control and prevent anything bad from happening that could result in humiliation or abandonment from others, which could activate our exiles.
Firefighters (A reactive protector): This is our ‘douse the pain’ button, their main job is to numb and deflect when anything hits too close to home. Some examples of how firefighter parts manifest in our lives are behaviors like addiction, binge eating, overspending, doomscrolling for hours, having anger issues and self-harm. Firefighters protect us by distracting, creating diversions, and automatically reacting to things so that we can create distance from our pain (our exiles pain) because it’s too hard to face.
Every part is valuable within the system and all parts try their best to protect and keep you safe. Sometimes they can be at odds with each other on how best to go about keeping you safe, which can feel like inner turmoil. Once your parts get to know and trust the core Self, the Self will naturally keep things running smoothly by intervening in conflicts and helping to negotiate things between parts. This work offers a route to resolve inner conflicts, bring balance to our inner world, and promote self-compassion.
An important first step toward this form of healing is to get curious about your different parts. If you resonate with this holistic view of our minds and would like to learn more, please schedule a free consultation with me using the contact form on the site. I would love to get to know you and your parts.
Sam Villarreal
Licensed Chemical Dependency Counselor and Licensed Professional Counselor Associate supervised by Melinda Porter, LPC-S