Transcending Trauma & Healing Complex PTSD With Internal Family Systems

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Internal Family Systems Art pencil drawing of lady afraid

I have had tremendous success recently transcending trauma and healing complex PTSD with Internal Family Systems and wanted to share a deep unlock that I experienced today.

Below is a poem called ‘dear little part of me’ - it expresses the end point of an internal dialogue that I had with a young protective part of me.

This part is female, and she found herself in the role of protector for me when I was quite young. She kept me safe from abuse, she shielded me from trauma, in the only way she knew how: aggression, self-harm, addiction, and hyper-sexuality.

She chose these strategies because that was all she could do to respond and make sense of the confusion, fear, danger, and mess she found herself in. But like all defence mechanisms, what once was adaptative and needed, now has become less than ideal.

When she feels danger, she takes over and responds in the same way she always has. This has lead to less than ideal interactions, choices, and behaviours on my behalf - and has resulted in me treating others in ways they didn’t deserve.

Also the strength of this part has led me to feel gender confusion. I am a grown adult male, yet a part of me, this part of me, feels like a young female. When she takes over, I face the additional issues of body dysmorphia, eating issues, and don’t feel like ‘I’ belong in my body - this has led to tremendous amounts of confusion, pain, and shame. These negative feelings then exacerbate this part’s fear and thus the cycle perpetuates itself.

The 8 C’s Of The Self

the 8 c's of the self, compassion, curiosity, creativity, clarity, courage, calmness, confidence, connectedness

Internal Family Systems Trauma Healing

All of this has led to significant functionality and relationship difficulty. But thankfully both my psychologist and university course (I am currently studying a Master of Counselling) has recommended Internal Family Systems for trauma healing.

So I have been reading Richard C. Schwartz’s books; An Introduction To Internal Family Systems and No Bad Parts and I am making tremendous progress.

There is lots to the theory, but the simple summary is that you consist of parts, and those parts need to be seen, healed, reintegrated, accepted, and released of their burdens.

I was able to connect with this part of me today. We chatted. I let her know that she can put down the burden. That we are safe. That the bad people are gone, and that I’m strong enough to protect us.

Her coping strategies are less than ideal, but we talked through them, and I invited her to release, to let go, and to play. Because that’s what she wants to do. She doesn’t want to turn to addictions, or self-harm, or hypersexuality to survive. She just wants to play and feel safe.

There is a lot more work to be done here, but this is a good start, and I’m feeling good because of it. I’m feeling more healed, more integrated, more internally connected and more at peace.

dear little part of me

dear little part of me
you are safe and you are free
i know for years i didn’t see
just how much you kept my safety

you acted bravely
you kept watch gravely
forced to wield the sword and the shield
and the armour of a lady

but i need you to know

those times have now long passed
we can breathe and break our fast
we can live and love and laugh

we can finally rest at last
that it’s safe for you to let go
safe to play and safe to be free
it’s safe for you to be you

and me to be me
i know for years I didn’t see
what you did for us
what you did for me

but i do now
so you can release
but i do now
so we can walk together in peace

Parts Work Internal Family Systems

I know that I have a lot more work to do. Parts work and Internal Family Systems in general is something that feels deeply resonant with my internal state - the concept of a self that cannot be blemished by the world (but perhaps obscured or overwhelmed by parts) is deeply comforting to me, and importantly it resonates with my internal experience.

We all consist of parts, and those parts need to be seen, healed, reintegrated, accepted, and released of their burdens.

Writing that poem as well as doing the parts work and other meditations and practices in the books has given me access to my SELF - that is the part of me that is ‘me’, the internal Self, the soul, the Atman within the Braman.

Or, to get less woo woo - peace.