Transforming Trauma and Earning Secure Attachment with IFS
We all experience trauma to some degree in our lives— whether it's "Big T" trauma from major events like abuse, violence, accidents, or loss, or "little t" traumas that seem smaller but still activate an overwhelming response in the body. The effects of trauma exist in how our minds, bodies, spirits, and communities perceive and respond to events, not necessarily in the objective circumstances themselves. One person may be deeply impacted by an experience like a car accident or harsh criticism, while someone else goes through the same event but is able to process it without lasting dysregulation. When we feel overwhelmed and our inner resources are taxed beyond capacity at that moment, it's traumatic.
Survival Strategies and Protective Parts
This is where the IFS model can shed light on what's happening inside us during trauma. IFS recognizes that we all have an inborn, core essence of spiritual intelligence, perspective, confidence and compassion—our Self energy. However, we also have parts that unconsciously take on different protective roles and survival strategies in response to life experiences, particularly traumatic ones. These parts may cover up our Self energy.
Our protectors are often the parts of us that emerge during trauma, acting as survival experts trying their best to prevent vulnerability or distress based on their model of the world. Some parts in protective roles respond through people-pleasing, appeasing, or fawning behaviors to avoid conflict or create safety in relationships. Others take on a rebellious, defiant, or closed-off role in an attempt to gain control or put up emotional walls. Parts may also disassociate, disconnect, or numb out from difficult emotions as a way to escape.
While well-intentioned in the moment, these protective coping strategies can become burdens themselves over time. The rebellious parts may act out aggressively or develop an "I don't need anyone" belief system that sabotages intimacy. The parts that rely on people-pleasing behaviors lose their sense of self as they twist into knots to keep others happy. The numbing, dissociative parts create distance from emotions, body awareness and meaningful connection.
Wounded Parts and Firefighters
These protector parts work so hard because they are trying to soothe and prevent re-wounding of the hurt, shame, fear or other difficult emotions that originally got trapped in "exile" parts during trauma. It's as if those wounded child-like parts were too painful to process fully at the time, so they got sequestered away with their raw, unmetabolized feelings, memories and beliefs.
Meanwhile, another category of parts, stuck in the role of the "firefighter" work to distract or numb any emotional distress that slips through the protectors' defenses. These parts unconsciously rely on impulsive behaviors, addictions, self-harm, excessive work or other means of blocking out inner pain and turmoil. Their goal is understandable—to prevent any more vulnerability—but it creates its own cycles of struggle and inner discord.
Complex Trauma Responses
The more extreme, chronic or complex someone's trauma history is, the more disorganized, fragmented and constrained their inner system of parts is likely to become, and the less able Self energy is to lead. Different protectors may rapidly cycle between different roles in an attempt to cope, while other parts furiously work to put out "fires" of emotion constantly re-surfacing. Some parts get stuck in rigid patterns or beliefs. There can even be parts that hold beliefs or emotions that are completely split off from other parts' awareness.
In cases of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, the inner system operates on constant high alert and hypervigilance, with protectors intensely focused on scanning for any hint of threat or need to re-activate emergency trauma responses like fight, flight or freeze. In more extreme cases of dissociative disorders like Dissociative Identity Disorder, there are parts that have absolutely no awareness of one another, nor do they trust Self to lead.
This inner turmoil and lack of internal cohesion can manifest outwardly in many trauma symptoms—nightmares, flashbacks, anxiety, depression, substance abuse, self-destructive patterns, dysfunctional relationships, dissociation, emotional dysregulation, physical symptoms without clear medical cause, and more. From the outside, these may look like separate "issues," but IFS sees them as stemming from the same root - an insecure, disharmonious inner system born from unprocessed trauma.
The Path of Self-Leadership
However, IFS reminds us that all of these trauma symptoms, adaptive patterns, extreme roles and protective beliefs arose from the original circumstances of trauma as attempts to cope and survive. Each part, no matter how harmful its current role may be, has positive intentions at its core, even if its perspectives, emotions and tactics have increasingly negative consequences over time. For instance, a part may carry the belief "I am unlovable" not because it aims to induce shame, but as an attempt to protect against further abandonment or rejection.
A key principle of IFS is developing a compassionate understanding of each part's role, the traumatic experiences that shaped it, and the positive intention behind even its most extreme-seeming patterns. From this stance of appreciating each part instead of attacking, rejecting or trying to get rid of it, new possibilities for internal transformation can emerge.
A skilled IFS therapist will guide clients in developing a trusted internal relationship with their core Self—the essence of confidence, calmness, perspective and compassionate leadership that gets obscured amidst all the trauma responses. As clients gain greater access to Self energy they can then extend this accepting, curious presence towards other parts as well.
IFS is transformative because it invites us to release energies from our body that carry distressing or painful memories and beliefs. This happens slowly over time and with permission from our protective system so that the release is well-integrated throughout our minds and bodies. 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.
Attachment Wounds and the Internal Family System
Many of our earliest emotional wounds stem from disruptions or difficulties in the attachment bonds between child and caregiver. These formative experiences powerfully shape our inner worlds and the protective roles different parts take on.
Some parts may carry the hurt of neglect, abandonment or inconsistent parenting, crystallizing beliefs like "I'm not worthy of love." Other parts form anxious or preoccupied attachment styles, desperately seeking approval and reassurance. Parts with an avoidant attachment style learn to dismiss needs for closeness as a way to anticipate, and avoid, rejection.
Our early interactions wire our brains for intimacy, trust, and the safety to experience and express emotions. Secure attachment helps develop the flexible, coherent sense of Self that can lead the internal family. Poor attachment can leave parts polarized—some clingy or preoccupied with gaining love, others angrily pushing it away.
Healing attachment wounds involves identifying these extreme roles, revealing the legitimate needs underneath, and helping parts update working models that no longer serve the person's current relationships and life. With IFS, the compassionate Self can provide the nurturing experiences parts may have missed in childhood. Corrective new experiences allow parts to feel seen, accepted and held.
With patience and Self-leadership, fragmented attachment styles can evolve into self-acceptance and the capacity for earned secure attachment.
Unburdening and Harmonizing Parts
Questions can help reveal a part's story: What burdens, emotional hints, memories or beliefs is this part carrying? What important needs is it trying to meet, even in an unhealthy way? Slowly, with patience and an attitude of making space for each part's experience, we can release parts from their protective burdens, with Self energy leading the way.
The firefighters are reassured they no longer need to desperately try and numb or distract from emotions. The wounded exiles are held, heard and comforted by the Self's compassion. Protectors update their beliefs and relax rigid coping strategies as they gain trust in the Self's leadership capability. Parts that felt chronically dismissed or repressed can emerge and be re-integrated.
Harmonizing these polarized parts and helping them re-discover their positive "jobs" that don't require extreme roles is the essence of IFS trauma healing. It's a journey of restoring parts’ natural gifts and transforming protective burdens into sources of wisdom and clarity.
A Roadmap for Many Types of Trauma
No matter the type of trauma - interpersonal violations, medical procedures, oppression and racism, generational wounds passed down, work-related injuries or losses, accidents or natural disasters— the IFS framework can help illuminate the protective roots of trauma symptoms and other signs of psychological injury. From the deep self-understanding and compassion this model provides, we can let go of our parts’ outdated roles and support their transformation into collaborative partnership with the Self.
Trauma recovery is certainly not a linear process. But trauma can be addressed and tended to. It involves commitment to authentic inner work, and willingness to befriend parts of ourselves. IFS offers a roadmap for this journey. By learning to re-harmonize our inner worlds, we open up new possibilities for wholeness, embodiment and meaningful connection.
Do you want to work through trauma and change your attachment style? A therapist at IFS Telehealth Collective can help you find and connect with the parts that need to be seen, heard, and ultimately healed. If you live in California, Florida, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, or Oregon, please contact our Client Care Coordinator or call 503-447-3244.
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