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2. Understanding Parts: Exploring the Inner Landscape

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2. Understanding Parts: Exploring the Inner Landscape

This article deepens our exploration of Internal Family Systems (IFS) theory by examining what parts are, how they function, and what happens when they influence our experience through activation and blending.

We All Have Different Parts

Before diving into the technical details, it's essential to establish a fundamental understanding: we all have different parts. This isn't merely theoretical—it's something we can recognize from grounded, everyday observation.

Consider yourself engaged in two different activities. For instance, compare your state during competitive sports versus cuddling on the couch with a partner. During sports, you might be intensely competitive, driven to win, operating in a completely different mindset with different bodily responses. On the couch during a calm evening, you're an entirely different person. Through the IFS lens, these represent different parts of you becoming active depending on the situation.

Another example emerges in decision-making moments, such as standing in a supermarket deciding what to buy. You might hear one voice saying "that chocolate cake is awesome" while another insists "no, you should eat fruit." Two voices—possibly two parts.

A third perspective reveals itself in automatic behaviors and patterns. We all have certain behaviors—perhaps related to smartphone use or eating—that persist even when we try to break them. We find ourselves in an automatic groove where something else seems to be doing it, and stopping proves remarkably difficult even when we consciously try. These are parts at work.

Healthy Parts and Extreme Parts

An important clarification: we all have many, many healthy parts. Much of what goes well in your life—your skills, abilities, things that come easily to you that others work hard to achieve—are very likely parts that have learned to do certain things exceptionally well, almost automatically. These healthy parts deserve celebration.

However, we all also have some parts stuck in extreme roles, extreme behaviors, and extreme ways of looking at the world that are not helpful and actually create problems. It is these parts stuck in extreme roles that IFS theory and therapy addresses. IFS specifically works with parts stuck in extreme roles—both protectors and exiles.

Parts as "Little People Inside of Us"

To understand what parts are, we can draw on a concept articulated by Richard Schwartz and Jay Earley: parts are a little bit like little people inside of us. While this perspective might initially seem strange—raising questions about multiple personalities—what this actually means is that parts have their own distinct characteristics.

Parts Have Their Own Perspective on the World

Different parts view the same thing differently. For example, one part might look at a large group of people as opportunities for connection and fun, while another part views that same group as dangerous and threatening. These two parts see identical circumstances through completely different lenses.

Parts Have Their Own Motivation

Parts are trying to achieve something—to make something happen or avoid something in your life. Different parts attempt to make different things happen and avoid different things. One part might work to ensure you're safe in a relationship, while another part wants to ensure you're listened to. These parts can find themselves at odds because they have genuinely different motivations.

Parts Have Different Beliefs

Different parts see the world, see you, see other humans, see work—everything—differently because they look at the world through different frameworks. One part might believe the world is a great adventure, while another believes the world is deadly and dangerous. Through these beliefs, they perceive reality differently, and when they're active, you perceive the world differently too.

Parts Have Their Own Feelings

Specific parts, whenever they're active or influencing your system, make you feel differently. One part might feel very timid, and whenever that part is active, you start feeling timid. Another part might feel angry or sad. Different parts bring different feelings to the system.

Parts Have Different Memories

Parts literally hold specific memories that aren't accessible when you're not connected to that part. This often marks the beginning of self-exploration work and therapeutic work with clients.

Parts Have Different Behavior

Parts act and behave in consistent ways, but different parts behave differently. Whenever a certain part is active or blended with you, you display a certain behavior, and this happens repeatedly because that is the behavior this part exhibits.

Parts Have Positive Intent

Every single part, no matter how it sees the world, no matter what its beliefs are, what feelings it carries, or what behavior it exhibits, is trying to do something positive for the system within its framework. Every part is attempting to ensure good things happen and bad things don't happen. This positive intent exists in every single part—a crucial perspective in IFS theory.

When we understand parts as "little people," we're recognizing them as complete internal entities that see the world in specific ways, hold certain motivations, beliefs, feelings, behaviors, and memories, all organized around a positive intent to help the system.

Activation and Blending: When Parts Take Over

Two critical concepts in IFS theory describe what happens when parts influence us: activation and blending.

Activation: When Parts Enter Our Field of Awareness

The IFS perspective recognizes that parts can be non-active at certain times. For example, you might have a very task-driven part that wants you to get everything done and maintains the perfect to-do list. This part might be active frequently in your life, but there are also times when it's not active—times when that's simply not how you behave.

Parts that aren't active exist outside the space in and around our body. But when parts become active, they enter our field of awareness and begin influencing us.

Activation means the part is in our field and influencing us. When the task-driven "doer" part activates, it communicates its agenda—"work, work"—and you might feel the impulse to work, hear a voice saying you need to do more, or think about all the things you need to accomplish.

When a part is activated, its feelings, thoughts, perspectives, and behaviors—including its motivation—start to influence us. We begin to:

  • Think like the part
  • See the world the way the part sees it (recognizing how much needs to be done)
  • Show the behavior of the part
  • Feel the urgency that the part constantly feels

Crucially, when a part is only activated, there's usually some space where, even though the part wants you to act right now, you might still be able to choose not to act immediately.

Blending: When Parts Take Over Completely

Blending represents a different experience. This is when the part takes over the Self or the seat of consciousness. The part doesn't just influence us—we become the part. We start to think, feel, see, and behave almost exactly like the part, and it feels natural to us.

When a part is blended, we think "this is just the way I am." Most of us have parts that are chronically blended—parts whose thoughts, actions, and feelings we identify with much of the time. Blending occurs when the part has taken over the seat of consciousness and we genuinely think and feel like that part.

The distinction is crucial: activation means the part is active and influencing us but hasn't completely taken over, while blending means we've become identified with the part entirely.

Parts as "One-Dimensional People"

Parts are a little bit like one-dimensional people inside of us. This characterization clarifies an important distinction: humans have many different facets, many different parts, and in different situations will look at the world very differently. Parts, however, are more one-dimensional.

What Makes Parts One-Dimensional?

Parts are stuck in time. Most protectors use strategies established years, sometimes decades ago. They continue using these strategies because that's the developmental level available when the part began acting this way. Rather than seeing the world objectively or recognizing "I've grown so much, I have so many abilities now, and I could act differently," parts remain frozen at an earlier point in development and maintain a very narrow, one-dimensional focus and behavior.

Parts operate in if-then patterns. From a cognitive perspective, many parts function like conditional statements: if the part perceives something based on its beliefs, it will then act a certain way. Very little flexibility exists between perception and behavior—it's simply if-then, using old strategies because they're stuck in time.

Parts are fixated on their role. They have specific behaviors they perform for specific reasons—protectors trying to keep pain away through managing the world or because of the exiles—and they continue performing that role repeatedly with very little variation.

Exiles: One-Dimensional in Their Own Way

The same principles apply to exiles, though somewhat differently (and they're visualized differently for reasons that will be explored in dedicated exile content).

Exiles also have:

  • Their own perspective—they see the world in specific ways and are often aware of particular pain or beliefs
  • Their own motivation—for exiles, this is often wanting to be seen
  • Specific beliefs—frequently painful beliefs
  • All associated emotions and memories
  • Very limited behavior—often centered on trying to be seen

Exiles are also stuck in time. They have less of an if-then pattern because they're not primarily using strategies; instead, they're holding onto specific things from our past.

Accessing the Self: When Parts Relax

As soon as parts relax—when they're not blended with us and perhaps giving enough space so they're still slightly active but not very loud—we can access the Self. The Self is always underneath. This interplay between parts and Self forms the heart of IFS theory and therapy.

Conclusion

Understanding parts means recognizing them as internal entities with their own perspectives, motivations, beliefs, feelings, memories, and behaviors—all organized around positive intent. They can be activated (influencing us while we maintain some space) or blended (taking over completely). Parts are somewhat one-dimensional, stuck in time and fixed in their roles, using strategies developed long ago.

This framework—recognizing both our healthy parts and those stuck in extreme roles, understanding how parts activate and blend, and knowing that the Self emerges when parts relax—provides the foundation for the transformative work possible through Internal Family Systems.

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