Introduction to Internal Family Systems by Richard Schwartz Ph.D

Author:Richard Schwartz, Ph.D. [Schwartz, Richard C.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: PSY041000 PSYCHOLOGY / Psychotherapy / Couples & Family, PSY006000 PSYCHOLOGY / Psychotherapy / Child & Adolescent, SEL000000 SELF-HELP / General
Publisher: Sounds True

Stuck in the Past

The experience with Anya’s critic produced a shift in my approach. Rather than trying to forcefully reorganize clients’ inner systems, I became increasingly curious about them. To really understand parts, I made an effort to drop all my presumptions about the nature of thought and emotion and allow myself to be educated by my clients. I interviewed hundreds of clients’ parts, trying to remain open and curious even with the ones that wanted to harm my client or others. It became clear that the roles of many of these parts were directed not only by their protective or polarized positions in the system but also by beliefs and emotions that seemed irrational. One client’s angry part sensed danger all around him even though he lived in a safe environment. Another client’s suicidal part was convinced that she had to die because she was evil. Still another client had a part that believed he was unlovable despite having many people in his life who clearly loved him.

Instead of challenging such beliefs, I began asking where the parts got those ideas. Immediately following that question, many clients would begin seeing images from their pasts. For some, it was as if they were watching specific scenes from a movie of their own childhood. The scenes were often of traumas—rejections, humiliations, physical or sexual abuse, and frightening or shameful events. Usually, these were not forgotten memories but rather events that had been minimized, trivialized, or obscured in these clients’ life narratives. Several clients became upset as they watched, weeping and cowering as if they had been pulled into the scenes and were reliving them. I wasn’t sure what to do as this was happening. In those early days, I was not totally comfortable in the presence of intense emotion, whether my own or that of clients or family members. As clients approached my threshold of emotional comfort, I was afraid they would be overwhelmed with feelings to the point of no return and that they would enter some kind of no-exit state of despair.

It’s no coincidence that I had been afraid of the same thing happening to me if I got too close to my own exiled feelings. Then, a crisis in my life wrenched forth some of those hurt and lonely parts of me, and I was forced to get to know and value them. After that, I was much better able to stay with my clients while they experienced intense emotion. Before that personal work, however, when clients were becoming agitated or tearful, I would ask them to step out of their trauma scenes and would have them watch from a more detached state. Clients were often able to do that, but some shut down entirely and had trouble returning to the scenes to complete the work.

Once a part was able to show when in a client’s past it picked up an irrational belief or emotion, the belief or emotion suddenly seemed far less irrational. Given what had happened to the client, it made perfect sense that they would have thought or felt that way during that time.

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