Internal family systems (IFS) is considered not just a passing emotional state or customary thought pattern but a distinct mental system with its own history, abilities, needs, and Worldview. Trauma injects parts with beliefs and emotions that seize them out of their naturally valuable state. For instance, we all have parts of our personality that are youthful and fun. When we are abused, these are the parts that are hurt the most, and they become frozen, carrying the pain, terror, and betrayal of abuse. This burden makes them toxic—parts of ourselves that we need to deny at all costs. Because they are locked away inside, IFS calls them exiles. At this point, other parts of the human system organize to protect the internal family from the exiles. #RyanPhillippe 1 of 5

These protectors keep the toxic parts away, but in so doing they take on some of the energy of the abuser. Critical and perfectionistic managers can make sure we never get close to anyone or drive us to be relentlessly productive. Another group of protectors, which IFS calls firefighters, are emergency responders, acting impulsively whenever and experience triggers an exiled emotion. Emotional literacy blends emotional sensitivity, understanding, and savvy. It means knowing what you are feeling while you are feeling it, and being able to both contain and openly express it. Each split-off part holds different memories, beliefs, and physical sensations; some hold the shame, others the rage, some the pleasure and excitement, another the intense loneliness or the abject compliance. These are all aspects of the abuse experience. The critical insight is that all of these parts have a function: to protect the self from feeling the full terror of annihilation. #RyanPhillippe 2 of 5

The point is not to get rid of shame—an impossibility—but to develop enough intimacy with it so that it cannot crush or run you, regardless of its intensity. Children who act out their pain rather than locking it down are often diagnosed with oppositional defiant behavior, attachment disorder, or conduct disorder. However, these labels ignore the fact that rage withdrawal are only facets of a whole range of desperate attempts at survival. Trying to control a child’s behavior while failing to address the underlying issue—the abuse—leads to treatments that are ineffective at best and harmful as worst. #RyanPhillippe 3 of 5

As children grow up, their parts do not spontaneously integrate into a coherent personality but continue to lead a relatively autonomous existence. Parts that are out may be entirely unaware of the other parts of the system. Recognize that each part is stuck with burdens from the past and respecting its function in the overall system makes it feel less threatening or overwhelming. If one accepts the basic idea that people have an innate drive toward nurturing their own health, this implies that, when people have chronic problems, something gets in the way of accessing inner resources. Recognizing this, it is important to seek comfort and remove yourself from the problem. The first step in this collaboration is to assume the internal system that all parts are welcome and that all of them—even those that are suicidal or destructive—were formed in an attempt to protect the self-system, no matter how much they now seem to threaten it.  #RyanPhillippe 4 of 5

The internal system of an abuse victim differs from the non-abuse system with regard to the consistent absence of effective leadership, the extreme rules under which the parts function, and the absence of any consistent balance or harmony. Typically, the parts operate around outdated assumptions and beliefs derived from the childhood abuse, believing, for example, that it is still extremely dangerous to reveal secrets about childhood experienced with the World. However, rather than being a passive observer, this mindful Self can help recognize the inner system, and communicate with the parts in ways that help those parts trust that there is someone inside who can deal with all the aspects of life. #RyanPhillippe 5 of 5