"Parts Work" is More than You Think It Is

Internal Family Systems, archetypes, shamanism, and the parts that actually aren't you. Part 1.

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I’m pretty sure that anyone even remotely interested in personal growth and mental health has heard about “parts work”. I could be living in a bubble — but at every training or workshop I’ve attended in the past several years, at least someone, whether a teacher or participant, has brought up this topic. (And if you don’t know what parts work is, you will by the end of this piece!)

This is largely due to the explosion in popularity of Richard Schwartz’s Internal Family Systems theory, or IFS. While we can (I think gratefully) credit Schwartz for bringing this work to the masses…

Working with different parts of ourselves actually goes back thousands of years. 

Working with our parts is shamanic.

And, working with parts in a shamanic context has gotten quite tricky.

Thanks to the growing awareness of IFS and therapeutic parts work — not to mention Jungian archetypal influences — I’ve noticed a tendency for students to want to view all beings they meet within the journey space as manifestations of their own psyches. 

Some are. But not all.

Yes, we have parts. And we have possessions. And we need to maintain the shamanic wisdom to know the difference. 

Over the past decade, I’ve explored the often confusing intersection of our parts, universal archetypes, and actual spirit beings in depth: 

• I worked on Richard Schwartz’s book during my former job at a publishing house. 

• I’ve completed years of advanced shamanic studies, especially in the areas of possession and spirit entanglement (apprenticing under Sandra Ingerman and Betsy Bergstrom, for the curious)

• I’ve been reading Jungian literature since college. 

• I’m three months away from graduating from an amazing coaching certification program, and one that focused on parts work long before IFS ever became popular. 

• And I apprentice with a Taoist shaman that has shown me the origins of where all of this comes together. 

Not to mention, I’ve engaged with parts work, guided journeys, and depossession with dozens of clients over the years.

Over the next few days, I’ll be sharing a series of posts on parts work — different approaches and techniques, shamanic perspectives, and tips if you want to engage in this type of healing yourself. 

Perspectives On Our “Parts”

Many therapists, coaches, and healers embrace parts work to help us understand the different aspects or "parts" of our personalities and psyches — with the intention of promoting self-awareness, healing, and personal growth.

If you’ve ever said to yourself, “Part of me really wants to go to that party and meet this dude my friends swear will be my future husband, but another part of me just wants to sit on the couch and eat an avocado while I pet my cat,” then you have the basic idea.

In this post, we’ll dive into these traditional, therapeutic approaches to parts work — and stick around. After this, we get weird.

Internal Family Systems

Let’s start with the Internal Family Systems (IFS) model. As the predominant approach to parts work, this will offer us a good reference point going forward.

IFS is a therapeutic approach developed by licensed marriage and family therapist, Richard Schwartz. It’s a form of psychotherapy — though as an important note, you don’t have to be a therapist to become a certified IFS practitioner. 

Here are a few key concepts of the IFS model:

1. The mind is not a unified entity but rather a collection of different parts, each with its own unique characteristics, emotions, and motivations.

2. There are two main types of parts — protectors and exiles. Within this framework, protectors are further divided into two subcategories — managers and firefighters. 

These parts are generally developed to prevent us from experiencing emotional or psychological pain, and each uses a different strategy to do this:

• Managers — These are the parts that try to prevent pain by keeping us safe and in control, often setting up rules and strategies that we’re not even consciously aware we’re following.

• Firefighters — These parts react impulsively to relieve pain, often through coping or defense mechanisms like overeating, substance abuse, or self-harm.

• Exiles — Exile parts are usually younger and hold painful emotions, memories, and traumas from our past. These parts are typically pushed into the background of the psyche to protect us from experiencing that pain.

3. The core concept in IFS is the Self — your true, unburdened, and compassionate essence. You could liken the Self to your higher self or true nature in other systems. 

The goal of IFS therapy is to help you access your Self and create harmony and balance among your internal parts. This process involves understanding, befriending, and healing your wounded and protective parts, allowing them to integrate into the Self. 

What I love about IFS is that it’s non-pathologizing. It gives us a really clear understanding of both why these parts develop and how they interact with each other. Through this lens, we realize that our self-sabotaging tendencies are normal — archetypal even — and that our true Self is always there, whole and holding us with love. 

The Shadow Side of IFS

IFS has brought so much goodness to healing. And, as with anything that explodes in popularity, we’re also starting to see some of its shadows — and there are two I think are worth mentioning here. 

First is the tendency to continually focus on the “parts” and forget to bring in the Self. Of course, we don’t want to rush the healing process. The psyche needs the time it needs to be with each part, and integration takes time. If we try to skip over tending our parts, they can act up and make it even more challenging to connect with the Self.

Yet I’ve seen too many people start to learn about “parts'' and then define their entire lives through the lenses of these parts, separated from the ultimate intention to align with the Self. Even some of the IFS therapists I’ve worked with (as my clients), would get caught up in their parts — almost as if these parts were becoming possessions that prevented connection with Self (which is why I love shamanic approaches here…stay tuned for more on the concept of self-possession later in this series). 

Second is the need to remember that not all self-sabotaging behaviors are from parts of ourselves — possession or influence by foreign energies and entities is very real. I haven’t formally trained in IFS so I could be off here, but from what I understand IFS actually does address this in more advanced trainings. Unfortunately, awareness of this doesn’t seem to be the norm in popular IFS conversations. 

I really believe that, like anything I suppose, the practitioner makes all the difference when it comes to IFS parts work. If you’re interested in learning from one of the best, please check out my dear friend Danielle Carron’s podcast, Embody Your Power. Danielle is a psychotherapist and coach, has mentored directly with Richard Schwartz, and also happens to be a gifted shamanic practitioner — I love her perspectives on this work.

The Archetypal Origins of Our Parts

In many ways, our parts are archetypal — we see the same patterns and types appearing in completely different people again and again. I think it’s pretty safe to say that the origin of “parts” in the Western world can be traced back to Carl Jung and his emphasis on archetypes.

Archetypes are universal symbols, themes, and patterns that represent fundamental human experiences, emotions, and traits. Jung believed that archetypes were part of our collective unconscious and that they had a profound impact on our psyches. 

While Jung identified numerous archetypes, some of the primary archetypes in his theory include:

The Self — The Self represents the complete and unified psyche. It is often depicted as a circle or mandala and symbolizes wholeness, integration, and the realization of one's true potential. And, this sounds familiar, right? The Self is essential in IFS, as well.

The Shadow — The Shadow archetype embodies the aspects of the self that are hidden or repressed. These may include dark and undesirable traits, thoughts, or feelings, and  integrating the Shadow is a crucial growth and self-awareness. You can probably see how the Shadow in general can be understood through the IFS personas. 

The Hero — The Hero archetype is associated with courage, strength, and the journey of self-discovery. It often involves overcoming challenges, facing adversity, and achieving personal transformation. I feel like this is where we can really see where archetypes and IFS diverge: the Hero is a “part” that has both positive and negative traits. It’s a universal energy that we can tune into, rather than a part developed in response to trauma.

The Child, Trickster, Anima/Animus, Mother and Father, Wise Old Man or Woman are just a few of the other Jungian archetypes you’ll like come across if you head down this road.

Though always popular in certain academic circles, archetypes enjoyed revived mainstream interest in the early 2000s thanks to Caroline Myss, who taught her own system of archetypal work.

Caroline shared that we all have a set of predetermined archetypes within us — each with both a light and shadow side. And, there were four core archetypes she felt all of us have:

1. Survivor: This archetype represents the part of us that adapts to challenging circumstances and strives to overcome obstacles. It embodies resilience, determination, and the ability to endure difficulties.

2. Victim: The Victim archetype represents the part of us that may feel powerless, oppressed, or taken advantage of in various situations. It can manifest as self-pity or a sense of helplessness.

3. Saboteur: The Saboteur archetype embodies self-destructive tendencies and behaviors that hinder personal growth and success. It can manifest as self-sabotage, self-criticism, or a tendency to undermine one's own efforts.

4. Prostitute: The Prostitute archetype represents the part of us that compromises our values, integrity, or authenticity for external gain or approval. It can manifest as selling out one's principles or making choices that go against one's true self.

Again, you can probably see even more direct relationships to IFS here, as I would say that all of these archetypes are completely normal yet can also prevent us from integrating with our full, true Self. 

As an aside, Caroline (I also worked on many of her projects at my former company) once joked that though we think only two people get married, it’s more like 24 — each person bringing an array of archetypal characters into the relationship. So one person’s Warrior, Teacher, and Nature Child will need to learn how to relate with the other’s Mystic, Advocate, and Martyr. 

Regardless of the systems you draw from, working with archetypes and archetypal energies is an essential piece of cultivating self-awareness. 

By turning towards the archetypes that appear within our own psyches, even those we might not like, we can identify our self-sabotaging patterns, excavate our hidden gifts, and come into greater wholeness. 

Because these archetypes are so universal, working with them helps us both to feel less alone and to better understand others — their motivations, tendencies, and patterns. And this cultivates compassion.

Which brings me to why I personally love to incorporate archetypes into my work — they illuminate collective influences on our psyches, provide shared imagery for exploring key insights, and offer a foundational map for recognizing the patterns, themes, and cycles of life that we all move through.

A “Non-Denominational” Approach to Parts Work

For the past several months, I’ve been part of the latest cohort for Joanna Lindenbaum’s Sacred Depths Coaching Certification Program. It’s fantastic — and I feel like it’s providing an essential balance to my years of shamanic trainings (many of which were lacking in basic client care skills and ethics…a topic I’ll be writing much more on in the future).

Joanna’s coaching training demonstrates what I jokingly call a “non-denominational” approach to parts work, lol. Similar to IFS, these coaching practices are based on the idea that we all have different parts of ourselves, and our work is to turn towards each part — to listen, comfort, and integrate even those parts of ourselves that we see as wreaking havoc on our lives. And similar to IFS, we also can contact parts of ourselves that have access to our highest wisdom. 

I call this approach “non-denominational" because our parts aren’t put into specific categories as they are with IFS or even with traditional Jungian archetypes. Parts that are resilient, parts that are hurt, parts that are loving, parts that are wise — there’s room for everyone at the table here. 

This approach to working with different parts of yourself can be a bit more accessible for people who are new to parts work — you don’t have to identify a particular archetype or know that something is an Exile in order to hear what that part has to say. But I do think having at least some awareness of the universality of IFS parts and Jungian archetypes can be very helpful.

Joanna isn’t the only person out there using a non-denominational approach to parts work, and I think there is one more worth mentioning — simply because of its massive popularity and impact among millennial women: the work of Lacy and the team at To Be Magnetic. 

To Be Magnetic, or TBM, is a platform designed to support your ability to manifest — and the key to manifestation? Self worth. And the key to self worth? Healing the parts of yourself that are holding onto painful experiences from the past so that you can integrate and then liberate your true self and all the worthiness naturally found within. 

Sound familiar? Everything plays on a similar theme here — work with your parts, especially those younger parts that have been hurt and adopted coping responses, and then let your true Self shine. 

I actually tried TBM myself for a while…and you know what I learned? Their approach to transformation happens through guided meditations that are sooo similar to the shamanic journeys I’ve already been doing for decades but a bit more safe and mainstream that the crazy sh*t I get into. (I guess I need to have a chat with the part of me that always thinks someone else must be doing it better!)

This is why I actually love working with women in the TBM community. Many of my clients have been part of this program and then have used our sessions to go deeper. I’m familiar with the material, so I can help when you get stuck. And by bringing in shamanism with traditional coaching practices, we can often break through more than just the subconscious blocks to your manifestation, freeing up more powerful energy than you ever thought possible.

Which brings us to the shamanic approaches to parts work. Stay tuned ;)

I’d love for you to join in this conversation as we go! What resonates? What questions do you have? Let me know in the comments.