When the Past Is Still Present: How IFS Therapy Transforms Trauma
Written by By Suzy Fauria, LMSW
As we find our way in this new, post-pandemic world and redefine how to be in safe togetherness, what all are we carrying with us from 15 months of isolation, significant loss, and instability? How does the shock of sudden and forced transitions live in your body? What frightening images are now part of your mental anthology? What has the stillness revealed to you? Just as our world is new, we, too, may have taken on a new texture of our existence.
The COVID-19 Pandemic may have left various wounds or marks on our psyches, relationships, and communities — some of which are yet to be discovered. Likewise, this time of quiet disconnection may have shed light on unresolved painful histories. Perhaps past hurts and harms that were neatly tucked away came clamoring to the surface. Or maybe our old ways of coping needed a sudden tuneup otherwise we would collapse beneath ourselves. And so the question is: what will you do with all that needs to be healed? What is at risk of reemerging without tending to your traumas?
Whereas traditional trauma therapy protocols approach treatment in phases, where first the client is given exercises to practice stabilizing the nervous system before processing the traumatic memories, Internal Family SystemsSM therapy welcomes even extreme parts of the personality at the onset, and does so safely and collaboratively, through the healing presence of Self energy. Well-trained IFS therapists know how to create safety and bring confidence to the therapeutic relationship, helping clients relieve the painful wounds that may be holding their parts back.
As an evidence-based therapeutic approach, IFS is a collaborative healing process clients can trust. With IFS, traumatized inner systems can shift from surviving to thriving.
Defining Trauma
Trauma is often described as distressing experiences that are too much too soon, which make them challenging to integrate into our bodies and minds, consequently thwarting our capacity to adapt and thrive. Trauma can also be described as:
Too much for too long
Not enough resources for too long
A loss of personal agency and power
An imbalance of stressors and resources
The disallowment of healing due to relational, environmental or social constraints
Beyond the definitions, we likely know what trauma is because it lives inside us and it is carried by our parts. Our most traumatized parts might feel frozen and hidden from our conscious mind. Conversely, the parts that protect us strive to prevent threatening experiences from happening again, but their intense hypervigilance keeps them (and us) away from peace and balance. And even more on edge, we have the parts of us that work to numb or distract us from the painful past.
Our traumatized parts carry painful memories and the memories carry energies that are stored in our bodies. We may have experienced a single incident, such as a severe illness, physical or sexual assault, a car accident, house fire, or a natural disaster. Additionally, our parts may take on new stories and energies after experiencing complex trauma, or the exposure to multiple traumatic events, often experienced in childhood. Examples include: ongoing emotional, verbal, physical or sexual abuse; witnessing domestic violence; persistent bullying; emotional or physcial neglect; and abandonment. Parts can also carry narratives and beliefs from experiencing historical and institutional trauma, which is the systematic maltreatment of particular identities and groups maintained and perpetuated through institutional ideologies, practices and policies. Slavery, war, and genocide, mass incarceration, housing and employment discrimination, and police brutality are all examples. Lastly, our internal system is impacted by generational trauma, also known as inter-, trans- or multigenerational trauma, which refers to traumatic experiences and beliefs that get passed down through generations. Examples include the cycle of poverty, abuse or low self worth in a family line.
“Trauma victims cannot recover until they become familiar with and befriend the sensations in their bodies. Being frightened means that you live in a body that is always on guard. Angry people live in angry bodies. The bodies of child-abuse victims are tense and defensive until they find a way to relax and feel safe. In order to change, people need to become aware of their sensations and the way that their bodies interact with the world around them. Physical self-awareness is the first step in releasing the tyranny of the past.”
Trauma Lives in the Body
Why is it that distressing experiences are traumatic to some people, but not to all? How come are parts manifest in such unique ways? Trauma is the result of an uncompleted stress response, which shows up differently among individuals and circumstances. For example, a car accident could be traumatizing for one driver if they are unable to escape their wrecked car; while the other driver who immediately opens their door to safety, walks away scathed, but untraumatized.
Our physiology is intricately designed to keep us alive. A simple way to explain our complexity is that when we detect danger, whether real or perceived, our internal alarm bells go off and come up with an escape plan for the body to either run, hide, fight or sometimes freeze. The body also instinctively turns off parts of higher functioning, or the conscious mind, and relies on more primitive parts of the brain to aid in survival. The brain automatically secretes stress hormones that make us strong, vigilant and ready for action. If our ability to escape danger is successful, then our bodies return to their natural balance, meaning that our higher thinking and functioning gets switched back on and our hormones return to normal.
When danger is inescapable — when someone is held down, trapped, or prevented from taking escapable action, for example — the brain and nervous system get stuck in survival mode. Our bodies continue to secrete stress chemicals and signals to escape threat long after the danger has passed. Essentially, when our bodies aren’t restored to equilibrium, they keep on fighting even if there’s nothing to fight. If the danger is persistent, like in the case of domestic violence or emotional neglect, our body may never have an opportunity to restore it’s balance, which can manifest as anxiety, irritability, agitation, fear, hyperarousal, or hypervigilance to name a few
“Being traumatized means continuing to organize your life as if the trauma were still going on — unchanged and immutable — as every new encounter or event is contaminated by the past.”
When We’re Trapped in Trauma
Moreover, when our bodies and our parts get frozen in the past — trapped in the threat state of traumatic experiences, especially ones that are horrific and enduring — our physical and emotional reactions run the risk of resulting in Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Posttraumatic refers to the duration in which we can experience physiological and psychological symptoms after a traumatic event. This could last up to years or even decades after experiencing trauma. Stress indicates that there is a chemical and emotional threat response long after the trauma. This means the body remains revved up for survival and doesn’t have an opportunity for safe rest. Lastly, disorder suggests that the symptoms disrupt regular functioning.
PTSD symptoms are far reaching, though they are typically divided into four categories: re-experiencing describes parts of us that carry recurrent and unwanted memories of the traumatic exposure. This could be in the form of sudden flashbacks, nightmares or severe distress about environmental reminders. Avoidant symptoms encompass our parts’ effort to avoid thoughts, feelings, places, activities or people related to the trauma. Arousal and reactivity refers to the body’s stress response to stimuli. Symptoms include parts of us that are easily startled, “on edge,” have difficulty sleeping, and experience emotional outbursts. Lastly, cognition and mood changes are the ways in which one’s mind changes long after trauma. These include, but are not limited to: parts that have developed a negative self and world view; feelings of guilt, blame and shame; loss of interest in enjoyable activities; and difficulty maintaining close relationships.
IFS Therapy Approach to Trauma
Even in the case of trauma, Internal Family Systems (IFS) Therapy asserts that we are not only one thing. Rather than being traumatized, IFS therapy believes that we have parts of us that carry adverse memories, negative beliefs, emotions, sensations, and energies absorbed through traumatic experiences. Our various and unique parts live in or around the body and IFS therefore centers the body’s innate knowledge and wisdom in it’s healing process.
Instead of solely focusing on emotions, such as anger and fear, we are invited to gently and safely witness and dialogue with our body’s feelings — the physical sensations beneath emotions. Where does anger live and what does it feel like in the body, for example. Perhaps anger is experienced as pressure, heat, tingling, or a hollow feeling in the chest. These sensations are often the residual energies from distressing experiences, which can be used as a blueprint for past experiences and future healing.
IFS therapy is transformative because it invites us to release energies from our body that carry distressing or harmful memories and beliefs. This happens slowly over time and with permission from our protective system so that the release feels safe and stable to our minds and bodies. As Mariel Pastor, IFS Lead Trainer and Telehealth Collective Co-Founder, describes, these parts “may share about themselves through words, images, behavior, sensations, movement, dreams, physical symptoms, or illness. Once their story is fully witnessed, the lessons are learned, and a do-over (aka corrective experience) is offered, the therapist and Self can help the part release burdens it has accumulated from the hurt and trauma.”
And so we ask again: what will you do with all that needs to be healed? If recovering from trauma with IFS Telehealth Collective is what you have been waiting for, contact our Client Care Coordinator or call 503-447-3244 if you live in California, New York, Florida, Massachusetts, Oregon or Michigan to be matched with a trained IFS clinician.
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