Working with Extreme Protectors in IFS Therapy

The Internal Family Systems (IFS) model views extreme firefighter parts as strong protectors willing to do anything to help soothe, distract or escape from underlying emotional pain. However, this isn’t their only role.

In a stable system, firefighters find relaxing or energizing practices to help us smoothly shift gears from the hard-working, striving routines pursued by managers. However, in some client systems vulnerable exiles have become extremely burdened by traumatic experiences and attachment wounds. The firefighters escalate to meet the increased need for pain relief. As they pursue higher risk, more extreme behaviors, serious consequences accrue and so does the client’s isolation and shame. In turn, managers work frantically to get the system back to ‘normal.’

The two teams of protectors are entrenched and polarized, the system is unbalanced and chaotic and the needs of vulnerable exiles remain unmet. In this workshop we offer IFS strategies for creating new connections with firefighter parts. We’ll discuss how to work systemically with polarizations and discuss how effective, safe relationships with extreme firefighter builds trust and changes behaviors.

With the world at our fingertips, the exposure to the worst of human behavior can be accessible at any moment. Quite often, this exposure can leave our clients attempting to cope in ways that yield harsh consequences for their inner experiences. As IFS practitioners, its essential that we are able to help our clients navigate these extreme times by bringing greater Self leadership to their most extreme protectors.

Through an exploration on how the external world influences our inner experience, this workshop highlights the importance of understanding our clients in context and naming the sociocultural factors that shape the strategies that protectors use to take care of our clients. With an emphasis on despairing parts, suicidal parts, and inner critics, attendees will gain clarity on their own parts that polarize or align with these extreme protectors in their clients, and learn tips to shift the dynamic toward the healing that’s desired. This workshop will combine didactic, experiential and small group process to deepen your learning and sharpen your skills when faced with extreme protectors.

In this workshop participants will:

• Learn how to assess the impact of the client’s context on extreme protector strategies used.
• Discover key motivations for parts that criticize, despair or consider suicide.
• Learn how to use direct access to build relationship with extreme protectors.
• Discover how our external context – sociocultural, political, communal factors – determine the strategies our parts use.
  
• Learn how to recognize and unblend from therapist parts that block compassion for extreme protectors.

TBA

TBA

“All parts are welcome,” the reassuring IFS refrain goes, yet parts are often asked to unblend and step back–especially protectors. A fundamental goal of IFS therapy is to further health and healing by unburdening parts and releasing more Self energy. However, once the exiles have been unburdened and feel less vulnerable, what happens to their protectors who may feel unmoored? When and why would we want protectors to step back in?

Protectors are so much more than their jobs, and they never work in isolation–though some work obscurely in the shadows of the psyche. Through the lens of the Unburdened Internal System mandala, created by Mariel Pastor, protectors are recognized on a continuum from burdened and stressed to liberated and Self-led. This workshop offers a 3-dimensional and systemic view of protectors–emphasizing the multidimensionality of these parts and the dynamic ways they organize within the mind, and express through the body. With teachings and meditations based on the vision of liberation illustrated in the Unburdened Internal System mandala, the transformation protector parts yearn for comes into clearer focus. In small groups, therapists will practice Self-led negotiation of protector fears to minimize backlash and support deeper IFS work and trust in Self leadership.

In this workshop participants will:

• Gain proficiency in recognizing protectors along a health continuum from burdened to unburdened.
• Describe the systemic concept of holons as it relates to unburdened parts and Self.
• Utilize the Unburdened Internal System framework to support the therapeutic process and build trust with protectors.
• Identify relationships between protectors as they occur internally and behaviorally over time.
• Practice Self-led negotiation of protector fears in small groups.

The therapeutic alliance is crucial for healing to occur, and is often threatened by the therapist’s own protector reactions–especially when working with fiercely protected clients. By turning inward, therapists can grow from these disruptions in Self energy by discovering what’s driving their protectors and how this may contain helpful information for or about the client. Building on the vision within the Unburdened Internal System mandala, this workshop focuses on calling forward the gifts of therapist protectors and developing a more Self-led collaborative relationship when feeling challenged in therapy.

From a psycho-spiritual perspective, Internal Family Systems therapy recognizes that healing can extend beyond unburdening exiles within an individual–it is ultimately a generous act. Through a group experiential exercise, participants are invited to deepen their connection to the spiritual wisdom of protectors as it connects to the outer world– a process that reinforces confidence that there are no bad parts and that Big Self energy exists on other levels. With a demonstration emphasizing the steps of the IFS model post-unburdening–Invitation and Integration–the transformation and contributions of unburdened protectors in daily life is strengthened. Participants will have an opportunity to integrate learning from other workshops in this series through a final Q&A session.

In this workshop participants will:

• Identify three protectors commonly activated within IFS practitioners that disrupt the therapeutic alliance or constrain the flow of the model.
• Develop a more trusting relationship with their own protectors through a group experiential exercise and the self of the part.
• Learn through live demonstration how to deepen the steps of the model post-unburdening to support the transformation of protectors.
• Describe the gifts of unburdened protectors in daily life.
• Integrate learning from this workshop with the rest of the series through Q&A.