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The Basics of IFS:

When we’re young and vulnerable, many of us experience trauma or emotional pain which is too difficult to fully process at the time.

So our brain has an adaptive mechanism that dissociates the pain and “locks it away” outside of conscious awareness, so that we can function in everyday life.

However, even though they exist outside of our awareness, these wounded parts still exist - usually in the right hemisphere or in the nervous system.

(Hence Bessel van der Kolk’s title: The Body Keeps the Score.)

In IFS, these parts are called exiles.

The more trauma we have experienced, the more exiles we have.

They carry a tremendous amount of emotional pain from our past, so it can feel almost unbearable when they are “triggered” and rise to the surface.

So our system has developed protective mechanisms to ensure that:

(a.) Exiles don’t get triggered, and;

(b.) If they do, we stop the pain as soon as possible.

In IFS, these are referred to as managers and firefighters.

The role of managers is to prevent us being triggered in the first place (e.g., by making the person excessively busy or by being overly self critical), while the firefighters’ job is to put out the emotional “flames” when our exiles eventually do get triggered.

The more trauma you have experienced, the stronger these protectors usually are.

Ultimately, their primary function is to shield the exiles from pain. The bigger the pain, the bigger the shields required.

And this helps to explain the link between trauma and addiction…

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An IFS Lens on the Addictive Process:

So here is how the addictive process works from an IFS perspective.

It all revolves around “polarisation” between two separate protective parts: managers and firefighters.

Both are devoted to protecting an internal system that feels chronically threatened by past traumas and painful emotions — although they have completely different strategies for achieving this.

Manager parts protect the exiles by keeping the person busy and helping them to “keep on keeping on”, which diverts attention away from the wounded younger parts. Firefighters, on the other hand, become active when exiles do get triggered, often using substances (e.g., alcohol) or self-destructive behaviours to douse the emotional flames of the exiles. Although these distract the person from the pain, they often leave a significant amount of collateral damage in their wake.

Ultimately, none of this actually helps the exiles, whose unmet needs escalate, causing them to feel ever more hopeless.

In her 2023 book, Cece Sykes provides an overview of how the cycle works:

1.) Something happens to trigger the emotional pain of the exiles.

2.) Managers get as busy as possible to avoid the pain, criticise the exiles for being weak, and goad them into improving so that they are more acceptable.

3.) This causes further and more acute pain, causing an “emotional fire” inside. Firefighters now rush to the rescue and use addictive substances or behaviours to “put out” the flames and medicate the pain, causing a lot of collateral damage in the process.

4.) Exiles now feel worse.

5.) Managers come “online” again to get the person back on track, while at the same time criticising the firefighters for the mess they’ve created.

6.) All of this criticism from managers creates an internal toxic environment of shame. This continues until the person feels so bad that they want to start using again - just to ease the pain from all of the internal abuse. So, once again, firefighters mobilise.

7.) Exiles feel further abandoned, unseen, and unwanted, reinforcing their negative beliefs and sense of hopelessness.

And the cycle repeats.

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The Goal of IFS

Another key element of the IFS model is the Self (with a capital S). This is the deepest part of you that is wise, compassionate, and has an innate healing capacity. It comes to the surface when parts are no longer running the show.

A helpful metaphor is to think of the Self like the sun.

Although it’s sometimes obscured by clouds, it’s always there in the background. When the clouds part, its rays can once again fully nourish the planet and its inhabitants.

In IFS addiction treatment, the aim is to help your protective parts relax enough, so that the Self can shine through. When it does, it takes care of your protector parts in the same way that a loving parent takes care of their children.

Gradually, exiles can become healed, the sense of hopelessness and despair begin to fade, and the inner polarisation diminishes, ultimately helping the person to break free from the addictive process.

Book recommendation: https://amzn.to/45bWqqZ

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Get FREE access to the full session (and 36 others like it): https://bit.ly/hrs-twu