Finding My Way with Internal Family System – A Model That Has Transformed My Practice

Over the past few months, I’ve been exploring Internal Family Systems (IFS), and something about it has really stayed with me. What began as curiosity has grown into something far more personal and integrated. It’s become a lens through which I see myself, my clients and the emotional ecosystems we all carry within us.

My first use of IFS in therapy was with a 24-year-old male client. He showed up with a strong sense of responsibility – the kind that’s often praised in young men – being the helper, the protector, the one who holds it all together. But underneath that was something tender and unseen.

I found myself wondering what these roles were protecting. What had he been forced to carry, and why?

Around the same time, I was having rich conversations with one of my closest friends, who had just finished reading one of Richard Schwartz’s books, No Bad Parts. I had also shared with her my experience of attending a training session that completely blew my mind. It felt like something revolutionary had clicked for us. We started using IFS language in our own catch-ups.

As mothers, wives and professional women, we’d reflect on the parts of ourselves that showed up in different moments – the inner critic, the fixer, the avoider – and what they were trying to do for us. At first it was casual, something between friends, but the more we talked, the more it sank in. This wasn’t just a helpful tool. It felt validating. What I love most about IFS is that it’s non-pathologising.

It doesn’t ask, “What’s wrong with you?” It asks, “What happened to you – and how have the different parts of you tried to cope?”

There’s no shaming, no diagnosing, just genuine curiosity about why we do what we do, and how we’ve survived. For anyone unfamiliar with it, Internal Family Systems is a therapeutic model based on the idea that we all have multiple ‘parts’ within us – like an internal family system.

These parts have different roles: some protect, some distract, some carry wounds.

At the core of each person is a Self – a calm, compassionate inner presence that can lead the system when the parts learn to trust it.

IFS helps people build relationships with their parts, especially the ones they usually push away. Over time, those parts can begin to soften and release the burdens they’ve been holding. It’s a model rooted in connection, not correction. That resonates deeply with me – both professionally and culturally.

I was raised communally, surrounded by aunties, cousins, elders and neighbours who were all part of my everyday world.

The idea that “I am because we are” wasn’t just a saying – it was lived.

That phrase, rooted in the African philosophy of Ubuntu, has always shaped how I understand identity. We don’t exist in isolation. Our lives are entangled with others, and so too are our internal worlds. IFS, while focused on the inner system, mirrors that truth. It reflects a deep understanding that we are made up of many internal voices, each with its own history, story and intention.

It also challenges the Western notion of the singular, rational self – the “I think, therefore I am” mindset. Instead, it offers a more relational, compassionate view – one that honours complexity and interconnectedness. That feels far more aligned with how I see the world. I’ve already seen the impact of this work. One of my clients has shifted from blaming a controlling part of himself to building a relationship with it. He’s learning to understand that part’s story – what it’s trying to prevent, and what it needs. In doing so, his system has started to soften. There’s more ease, more curiosity, less inner war.

Another client has come to understand that the controlling and overbearing “OCD” – a manager part – is still burdened with the responsibility of keeping him safe. That’s all it could do when life felt unpredictable and unsafe in childhood. Attending to this has helped unburden him, allowing him to move towards greater compassion and alliance with that part of himself.

Personally, IFS has helped me be more compassionate with myself. I can now see my own protectors more clearly – the part of me that over-functions, the part that retreats, the part that pleases. Not with shame, but with understanding. It’s a different kind of self-awareness, one that doesn’t demand perfection but invites presence.

More importantly, in my client work, I see the meeting of minds and multiple systems playing out internally and externally within the therapeutic space. IFS has given me the freedom to name the activation of parts in dialogue, allowing for deeper, more meaningful and human-to-human connection with my clients.

So what now?

What started as a burning curiosity and a social affair has led me to register for further formal training in IFS. Not just because it’s a powerful clinical tool, but because it feels aligned with who I am and the practitioner I want to grow into.

It gives language to what I’ve always felt – that healing isn’t about fixing brokenness, but about listening to the parts of us that have long been silenced, and inviting them back into the fold.

More importantly, it reminds my clients that the answer to their healing lies within them.

If you are interested in our services and would like to book a consultation, you can contact us here: https://www.abantutherapy.co.uk/contact