Have you ever been in therapy and noticed yourself holding back?  Maybe that shows up as not telling your therapist about significant events in your life, even if you think it might be important.  Or that you and your therapist come up with these great goals and coping skills, only to never attempt them outside of the session.  Maybe you find a part of yourself desperately wanting to feel better, but another part of you doesn’t want to embrace any change.  Or maybe you know exactly what you need to focus on in your therapy, but when you talk about it, you feel really detached and indifferent.

Some might call this self-sabotage or being resistant to the therapy process.  I personally think these labels can feel shameful and lead to people thinking that they just need to “try harder” in therapy, only to feel defeated when they’re unable to do so.  Fortunately, there is a different way of viewing these roadblocks through the lens of Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy.  Whatever roadblock you may be facing, it’s likely the work of a part of yourself whose job it is to protect you.  

This therapy focuses on the idea that we all have multiple parts of self.  Having multiple parts of self is totally normal and actually a good thing!  Our parts of self help us to shift from our different personas and demands with work, parenting, friendships, intimate relationships and so on.  Different parts will come out when there’s conflict, when we feel vulnerable, when things feel overwhelming or even out of control.  These parts try to protect us from repeating uncomfortable or painful experiences from our past.  

When we’re mentally healthy, our many parts are in harmony with one another and serve us well.  When we’re struggling or have a lot of repressed emotions, our parts tend to have more knee-jerk reactions that limit us. This is a sign that there are some parts in our inner system that could use some TLC.  Maybe there’s a protective part that prevents you from sharing about yourself because in the past you were only allowed to inhabit a caregiver role and it worries that you would be a burden to others.  Or the few times you were vulnerable and opened up about how you were truly feeling you were met with invalidation, and the part doesn’t want that to happen again.  Or maybe a protective part doesn’t want you to feel emotions because it’s worried it’ll be all-consuming and trigger debilitating depression.  There are many possible reasons why protectors step into their roles.  

IFS therapists have a unique way of helping people to connect with these parts of self in a non-judgmental, curious, and compassionate way.  It gives you the means to learn about the valiant, yet perhaps misguided, reasons why a part of you offers a certain type of protection. The focus of this therapy is to work with these parts rather than against them.  This approach opens the door to discovering parts of self that have held onto pain and helps them to unburden from it.  Releasing this pain will enable protective parts in your internal system to take on new roles that better serve you. 

So if you’re feeling blocked from making progress in your own therapy, consider the possibility that there may be some unacknowledged and wounded parts of self needing your attention.  Making this discovery can be an invaluable invitation to get to know yourself better, inside and out.  
If you’re interested in learning more about Internal Family Systems or feel that this type of therapy might be a good fit for you, check out https://ifs-institute.com/ for more information.

Erin Sathyamoorthy is a Self Space Seattle therapist who specializes in working with people who feel stuck in negative beliefs about themselves, live with high levels of shame, or have experienced abuse.