BeFriending the Blues: How IFS Therapy Can Help Heal Depression
By Clarissa Harwell, LCSW and Clinician at the IFS Telehealth Collective
Heavy, numb, empty. I don’t recognize myself anymore.
Nothing matters. Why bother?
Nothing helps.
No energy.
I give up.
These are common refrains among people experiencing depression. Whether or not you have ever been diagnosed with depression, you may have felt like this briefly or for a more prolonged period of time.
Imagine for a moment that those feelings, difficult as they may be, are actually worth befriending. That’s hard to believe, right? It makes sense to be skeptical when these feelings have hijacked your life, but battling them has never really worked, has it? So, please join me on a little journey exploring depression from an Internal Family SystemsSM (IFS) perspective and discover why some parts of you feel what they feel and do what they do. And, more importantly, let’s look at how we transform and heal them with IFS therapy.
In my personal explorations and from my work with clients, I’ve observed that most people find it challenging to appreciate their depressed parts. On the other hand, fun-loving, logical, or comedic parts of your personality might be more readily appreciated when you can easily see the ways that they help and the benefits they provide.
So how can your depressed parts - those that make it hard to function, impossible to find joy, and who feel hopeless - serve you? How can that possibly be true? In IFS therapy, developed by Richard Schwartz, Ph.D., we recognize there’s a positive intention behind every part of your rich personality. Your IFS therapist can guide you in the process of learning about them - why they do what they do, what those parts need, and what they’re afraid will happen if they don’t keep doing what they do.
Even if you’ve done hurtful things or made some terrible mistakes, the parts involved in those behaviors can be understood and reconciled inside. Ultimately, there are no bad sides of you. Zero. Nil. In fact, every facet of a person serves a purpose and does what it does for reasons that make sense, even if we don’t yet understand those reasons. If we can allow ourselves to be curious about a part’s intentions and all it has experienced, we’ll begin to understand and learn what it needs to heal. Building this new way of relating to ourselves is the foundation of the IFS therapeutic journey.
Attempts to Help Can Hurt
If you’ve ever experienced a bout of depression, you’ve likely felt at its mercy — as though it has taken over your whole world. People sometimes describe depression as feeling like a shell of their former self. In a sense, you have been taken over — your best Self, that is — hijacked by the parts that carry emotional wounds and all the protective responses that together create the tableau of depression.
You may be wondering how in the world depressive symptoms and behaviors could be helpful. They sure don't feel like they're helping. I know. Consider for a moment some of the positive intentions I’ve encountered when exploring parts connected to depression. Parts that:
- Incessantly criticize your actions and inactions in an attempt to motivate you to do better or to avert criticism from others.
- Keep you feeling numb to protect you from a difficult situation in your life, or to shut out the noise from the inner critics.
- Prevent you from feeling happiness because happiness leaves you open and vulnerable to being hurt.
- Stop you from feeling hopeful as a way to protect you from disappointment
- Stop you from taking risks that might result in being emotionally hurt or rejected
- Shut you down emotionally so that nothing worse can happen
- Feel so worthless and all alone in the world
These are but a few shades of blue that, when combined, can create a darkness that’s hard to shake, and when befriended, can begin to lighten up.
The difference with IFS therapy is that your therapist can show you how to know and care for these suffering parts without being overwhelmed by them. When what’s pained inside is met with your authentic interest and care - your Self - the process feels safer, and those burdened parts begin to heal in a lasting way.
Feeling Conflicted & Stuck
Depression can feel like a stuckness or immobility with warring parts inside. For some, immobility or a “freeze” state can feel like the safest survival strategy. Meanwhile, there may be other parts desperately wanting to move forward and climb out of that frozen depressive state. It’s a common tangle and important to acknowledge each side while trying to get them unstuck.
When someone in therapy feels stuck, it’s often an indicator that a polarization may be present. In IFS therapy, a polarization is simply two or more parts that have opposing strategies, desires, or beliefs. An example of a polarization in someone experiencing depression is feeling like you should get up, wash your face, go for a walk and call a friend while another part of you wants you to stay in bed and isolate. People describe polarizations as inner conflict, a war in their mind, the devil and angel on their shoulders, or the cause of discomfort and anxiety.
Indeed, polarizations can lead to distress. So how do we resolve them? Taking time to hear from each viewpoint is crucial, and recognizing how each side is competing to help. When polarized feelings or beliefs occur, and we tend to each one, the tension and discomfort within you typically recedes, allowing for more clarity and compassion. Frequently we hear terms like “battling depression” or “fighting against anxiety”. IFS takes a different approach. Instead of battling, we befriend. Instead of fighting, we extend curiosity and compassion. Decades of working with IFS have shown this to be profoundly healing.
So, Where Is This Depression Coming From?
Depression is a word that gets uttered casually - “I’m so depressed, I didn’t get the job.” It’s too depressing to watch that movie”, “I had the most depressing day.” It’s so common that it’s meaning now encompasses much more than its origin as a mental health diagnosis. Melancholy and emptiness are sometimes identified as depression. For some people saying they are depressed can mean a bad mood, sadness, feeling unmotivated, or aimless. For others, it can elicit fear and feel like a life sentence.
Mariel Pastor, IFS Therapist and Trainer, sees depression as an umbrella term that describes various ways that the different internal parts interact that result in symptoms. Rather than simply a diagnosis, depression is an expression of many burdened and polarized parts. Likewise, she views depression as having one or multiple causes. For some, there could be a genetic predisposition; others may have experienced the loss of a loved one or some other trauma, a difficult transition, an oppressive relationship, job loss, a pandemic, a medical issue, etc., that triggered their depression. Still, others accumulate months or years of stress that seem to gradually shift into depression. Sometimes there is a clear cause; often, there is not. It can be a passing mood or a long-lasting episode. All sorts of variables factor in-context matters.
Dick Schwartz, the developer of the IFS Model, recognizes that parts can push the “biological buttons and that biological conditions can affect parts.” Your depression is unique to you and the interplay of your parts. No matter the cause, depression is worth knowing, befriending, and attending to. Rather than simply treating symptoms, IFS therapy will help you understand your own system and heal it from the inside out.
Depression Detective
As a therapist, I sometimes feel like a friendly detective. IFS therapists are in the role of being curious and open to whatever parts disclose about what’s got them so down. We listen to the parts for clues about how they function and what keeps them from functioning better. More importantly, we help you listen inside from your most authentic Self to your parts, something they’ve been waiting for a long time. Through this kind of attuned Self-compassion, you’ll come to discover these parts were worth loving all along.
The path of discovery is full of surprises as we learn more about who we really are and how we can feel whole again. Feeling depressed is not easy, and finding a skilled therapist at the IFS Telehealth Collective who can help is worth it. Online therapy with an IFS Telehealth Collective therapist can support you. You’ve made it this far - keep going!
If you live in California, Florida, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, or Oregon, please contact our Client Care Coordinator or call 503-447-3244 to help you get matched with an IFS trained therapist. We are here to support you as you feel and heal your way through depression.
If you don’t see your state listed above, join our interest list, and we’ll notify you as soon as we begin seeing clients in your area.
