A Beginner’s Guide to Parts Work

Nov 11

As finding an affordable therapist becomes increasingly difficult, learning how to heal ourselves with solo work and by leaning on our people becomes even more important.

While therapists through the ages have talked about the human psyche being composed of multiple parts, the Internal Family Systems model offers a modern tool to understand what the heck this means. Parts work, as it is also known, has become one of my favorite tools for decoding my own triggers. I have also found parts work to be user-friendly and adaptable, making it well suited for a self-directed healing journey.

In this post, I will give you a brief introduction to Internal Family Systems and a beginner’s guide for how to do parts work on your own. At the end, I will point you to additional online resources in case you need them, including where to find an IFS-trained therapist.

Full disclosure: I am not an IFS-trained therapist, nor do I have any experience leading anyone else through parts work. As someone who long ago got frustrated with traditional (Western) therapy, I have built a treasure trove of coping strategies that work for me. This is me sharing one of my own tools.

A Brief Overview of Parts Work

The Internal Family Systems (IFS) approach believes that each of us is made up of interior roles that are led by an all-encompassing Self. While these roles may be protective, destructive, or wounded, the Self holds all of these together and ultimately knows how to heal them.

For a full understanding of IFS, please visit their website.

Specifically, IFS breaks these parts down into three categories: Managers, Firefighters, and Exiles.

The Exile is the part of you that experienced such intense pain your psyche decided the best way to cope was to hide that pain from your rational mind entirely so that you could continue to live life. This intense pain can be something traumatic, but not necessarily. Most people have more than one Exile, and many of them are not from what we typically consider traumatic events. Your psyche might create an Exile to cope with an offhand critical comment from a second-grade teacher, for example. The point is, unless you grew up in a Hallmark commercial, you have at least one Exile.

In order to cloak your pain so you can keep going, your psyche creates additional parts whose job it is to keep the Exile hidden from your conscious mind. These parts fall into two categories: Managers and Firefighters.

Managers are the parts that help you keep your life going by being good (by cultural standards, anyway) all the time. Managers are the ones who keep you talking to people you don’t feel safe with, who keep you tied to your to-do list when your eyelids droop, and who keep you drinking green smoothies when you are starving for a burrito.

Firefighters (which my husband thinks should be called arsonists) hide the Exile from consciousness through activities that are intense, distracting, and often not good for you. Think retail therapy on steroids, affairs, and a bottle of wine every night.

While the Manager parts often try to whip the Firefighters into line with a good dose of self-hatred, eventually the Manager cannot keep up the perfectionistic pace, and the Firefighter takes over. You can see, perhaps, how this can become a painful cycle that goes on for years. So much so that it is often these Manager and Firefighter behaviors that send people into therapy to stop drinking, shopping, cheating, and so on.

According to IFS, the best way to get the Managers and Firefighters to back off is to take away their job. Once you convince them that you and the Exile they are protecting are friends, they dissolve.

Now, for how I did this myself

I started by rethinking the attributes of Manager, Firefighter, and Exile. I prefer to think of the Manager and Firefighter parts not as bad guys, but as the authors of a mystery. The Exile is the solved case. If you listen closely to the Manager and Firefighter, they will give you clues as to where the Exile is and what you can do to find it.

Remember, while it probably doesn’t feel that way, the Managers and Firefighters have your best interests at heart. They believe they are trying to keep you from finding the Exile so that your life doesn’t fall apart.

Like any good mystery writer, ultimately, they want you to find the Exile when you are ready. They want to be out of a job. Thinking of yourself as all on the same team will make this go easier.

The Steps

Step 1: Identify and Practice 3 Calming Techniques That Work Well for You

I like a quiet box breath (inhale for 2, hold for 2, exhale for 2, hold for 2), dancing to Taylor Swift’s Shake It Off, and reminding myself of the love that I have in my life with specific pictures or objects.

Step 2: What’s the Behavior That’s Getting in Your Way?

For me last week, it was specifically that I could not get myself to start revising my memoir in the morning. I would do literally anything else, even when I had cleared my schedule and had my coffee. It felt like I would reach out to start typing and I would be slammed into the floor. Some part of me very much did not want to start writing. It felt yucky, heavy, like I was trying to walk through bubble gum. I could not bring myself to do it.

Step 3: Set Aside 20 Minutes and Bring a Journal and Pen

Use any of your favorite calming techniques if you start to feel anxious or weird. When I first started this, it felt very odd to be writing to myself in the third person. (Keep reading.)

Step 4: Ask Your Parts If You Can Have a Moment

Also, ask that whatever is revealed to you is not too much for you to handle.

Please note: If this exercise feels overwhelming to you, it may be that your Exile needs additional support, and you should honor that. If you know (or your intuition tells you) that you have lived through extensive or repeated physical or sexual abuse, please seek a therapist or other support.

Assuming you get a yes response, continue.

Step 5: Consider Your Manager Part

What part of you is perfectionistic, controlling, and wants you to get to your goals already? Where is it located in your body? What does it feel like?

Ask the question: How are you trying to help me?
Ask the question: What are you afraid will happen if you stop doing what you do?
Write down whatever response you sense. Don’t think about it too much, just write what comes to mind.

Thank the Manager part for talking with you and calm yourself down if necessary.

Step 6: Consider the Firefighter

Where is the part of you that doesn't want to follow the Manager’s rules? What does it look like, feel like, and where is it in your body? Try not to judge. Listen.

Ask the question: How are you trying to help me?
Ask the question: What are you afraid will happen if you stop doing what you do?
Write down whatever response you sense. Don’t think about it too much, just write what comes to mind.

Thank the Firefighter part for talking with you and calm yourself down if necessary.

Step 7: Ask the Manager and Firefighter About the Exile They Are Protecting

Start by reassuring them that they don’t have to stop protecting, you are simply looking for information. Request again that they not flood you with more information or emotion than you can handle.

Write down what comes up. Keep in mind that it might not arise in language. You may get images, colors, heat or cold, even smells. If so, just write a description of whatever you sense.

Step 8: The Exile

At this point, the Exile might feel ready to give you more information directly. At any time, you can say no thank you and end the conversation. Or you can give control back to the Manager or Firefighter. Or you can use any of your calming techniques. This is not a race. If you are not ready now, don’t push it.

Step 9: Solving the Mystery

This is where the real magic comes in because it is the place where you start to rewrite your story. Usually, the Exile is stuck. Stuck at the moment the trauma occurred, reliving the event over and over again. It has no idea that you have grown up, literally. Your job, once you have its attention, is to explain that gently.

Talk about your present. Who is with you that you love, where you live, what the good parts of your life are, what has changed. The power you have now to make choices, set boundaries, and befriend who you want. People who can help.

Calm down.
Say thank you.
Ask: Is there anything I can do to help you feel safe?
Do what they ask and follow through.

Take It a Step Further

I have done this exercise multiple times, which I understand is quite common. This makes sense to me, as each of us likely has several parts, each of which may have a couple of Managers or Firefighters, so it takes time to meet everyone, so to speak. This last time I did this exercise, something interesting happened. Something different.

I was introduced to a part that was capable of more dialogue, interested in it, even. She asked me questions over several days. Things like, How do you know you are safe? Isn’t life inherently out of anyone’s control? Don’t bad things happen all the time? She was a sassy little thing, sometimes leaving me to wonder if rather than solving the mystery, I had simply unearthed a bigger one.

Answering her, which took a few conversations in my journal over a few days, made me think. How do I know I am safe? Am I safe? How does anyone ever know they are safe? What she forced me to do was explain it to her in plain language. The key is to explain it in a way that is different from what your part lived through.

For example, this was one of our dialogues:

How do you know that no one will ever lie to you again, she asked?

Well, I don’t. I cannot control that. What I can tell you is what is different from when I was your age (around age 13 for this part). At 13, you didn’t have a lot of control over who was in your life. Your family, your church community, your school; none of those people were chosen by you. What is different now is that you are an adult. You can choose who is in your life, and if someone does lie to you repeatedly and intentionally, you have the power to manage what role they play in your life.

Parts often are looking for reassurance that is blanket and complete. The trick is to get them to understand nuance. That control is different from choice. You cannot control the world around you, but as an adult, you have choices that you did not have when you became an Exile.

Just like you, as an adult, have the choice to do the solo work so you can heal.

Looking for more resources?

I adapted this exercise from Martha Beck’s Beyond Anxiety (this link is an affiliate link to my Bookshop storefront, but it should be available at your local library)

Again, for a deeper understanding of IFS, loads of video, or to find an IFS trained therapist near you, please visit: https://ifs-institute.com/

YouTube videos to try:

If you are a visual person and prefer to draw rather than write: https://youtu.be/hEYZbuV5FNU?si=X2qW5V8qBYE1OTSu

If you have trouble getting started talking to your parts: https://youtu.be/PNBnH4DzFPQ?si=s-b5MOyu4RHNkHul

If your protectors or firefighters don’t want you to meet the exile: https://youtu.be/sdAe8-4jnN4?si=FEjaqQnxLyxVaB1I

Melissa Macomber