Intrusive thoughts from an IFS perspective

Hello IFS friends,

Internal Family Systems classifies consciousness into three separate parts: two types of protectors and one type of part they protect.

The protectors are managers and firefighters. Managers are proactive protectors. Firefighters are reactive protectors. The protected part is called an exile.

In IFS, most of what we experience as “thoughts” are parts.

The more wordy a part tends to be, the more likely it is to be a manager as opposed to a firefighter.

Firefighters are primarily behaviors: scrolling, eating, shopping, gambling, sex, drugs, partying, staying up late, etc. They are the parts that drive our addictions, and our addictions happen through action.

Managers are primarily thoughts—criticisms, judgments, interpretations, and directions.

So intrusive thoughts would usually be manager parts on overdrive.

Of course, they may be teaming up with firefighters, because sometimes there are groups of parts that get together to create a certain pattern—we can’t know for sure by hearing a description of what’s going on; we have to get curious about the individual parts.

How do managers and firefighters protect us?

When exile pain is triggered, it’s like the basement of our house is on fire.

Firefighters spring into action immediately to numb or distract us from that pain until the flames are out.

While you’re enjoying shoving cookies down your mouth, you also can’t necessarily be crying about something that happened when you were six.

Managers drown out feelings with thoughts. They minimize, criticize, deny, bargain, and do the theoretical end-runs around the raw reality of our emotions.

Intrusive thoughts may be managers who are hyper-concerned about emotions breaking through, and are doing everything they can to keep your focus on their thoughts and away from your feelings.

My advice for intrusive thoughts would be to start by approaching them as managers, and to begin to develop a Self-to-part relationship with them.

When a lot of other parts are annoyed by these parts, this can be challenging—in which case working with an IFS practitioner might be a good start, just to get unblended from all the other parts who are reacting to the intrusive thoughts.

Ultimately, these protectors have a reason why they are manufacturing these intrusive thoughts.

The goal is to develop our relationship with them and find out what purpose these thoughts are serving for them, and then to help meet that need in a different way.

If you enjoy understanding more about parts, I’ll be teaching more about them in a four-part series: “The Inner Life of Parts” in September and October.

Each Saturday from 11 AM – 1 PM central, we’ll look at one specific aspect of the IFS model: managers September 19, firefighters October 3, exiles on October 10, and Self October 24.

This is a different kind of class than my usual closed, intimate, unrecorded five-person groups.

It’s open to everyone, recorded so you can watch it afterwards, and focused on understanding the IFS model rather than on the small-group learning and practice that happens in my closed classes.

To learn more and sign up: radicalifs.com/innerlives

To connecting more deeply to our parts, day by day,
Melissa