Q I'm scared to try couples therapy again. My husband and I have been to couples therapy with 3 different therapists and it never worked out well. In one case, I did not feel heard; with another one, the therapist told me to just get a divorce; and in the third, the therapist let us argue in front of him but didn’t give us any tools. I don’t know what to do next.
A Wow, you have had some very bad experiences and I’m truly sorry on behalf of my profession. There’s something else available, though, and I would recommend you look into it. It’s called Internal Family Systems (IFS) and it was developed in the 90’s so it has been around a little while. There is a key idea in IFS that interestingly applies to both the therapist and the clients, and that key is the notion that conversations go far more smoothly and effectively when each person in the room is in what IFS calls Self Energy.
Self Energy is the quality each and every one of us has when we do not become defensive or aggressive. What does that look like? We can begin with the “8 C’s” as a great start. They include curiosity, compassion, calm, confidence, courage, creativity, connection, and clarity.
There are more characteristics of Self Energy, such as wisdom, perspective, open-heartedness, and honesty, for example. You can see how all these qualities would make conversation between troubled partners in a therapy room go well. And in fact, one of the main goals of IFS is to bring these qualities out in the people we are working with so that they can have excellent conversations with each other.
Unfortunately, probably every human being alive -- including therapists -- will, indeed, become triggered at times and their defenses will take over. So how can therapists lead the way into Self Energy for their clients when they themselves might not have it?
The answer is simple: Every single training that therapists take in IFS has the therapists looking inside themselves to see if they got triggered and if “parts” of them came up, pushing away their Self Energy. This means that therapists not only have thoroughly examined themselves but when they do slip - they are human after all - they immediately recognize it and bring it up to their clients, acknowledging their errors.
As far as I know, there is no other therapy methodology that has a concept of Self Energy like this. The value of such a concept is that it is an anchor to our foundation. And it does so without any blame whatsoever for behaviors that are not part of Self Energy.
That is a second - and major - feature of IFS. Yes, we do have behaviors that are not so pretty as those that make up Self Energy. We can be obnoxious, angry, victim thinkers, manipulative, and more. But those are “parts” of us that came into our lives because we needed them when we were innocent kids who didn’t have the tools to handle a challenging world. They are not the totality of who we are. They’re only parts of us. Who we are is much bigger than that, and our Self Energy is the most important building block of who we are.
That means that when someone in the therapy room exhibits unwanted behavior, there is no place for blaming them as that behavior is coming from parts that are trying to protect them.
Instead, the goal is to learn why that behavior was originally needed so that the Self can reassure the “part” that it is ok to let go of that type of behavior now. While Self Energy is makes up our true Self, it has no power of its own. It is a state of being but does not direct. Like a loving parent, it guides the way for children but respects their individuality, too.
Parts, on the other hand, can be very pushy, very agenda-driven. And they have good reason. Their agendas are based on what the person with those parts experienced as a child. Although their agendas may not make sense today, they always make sense when you look at the person’s past and how those parts were needed.
For example, a person who is aggressive may have learned that that is the only way to be heard in his family. A person who feels like a victim may have, indeed, been a victim and learned that that is how to comfort herself for her suffering. Many examples can be given for all the different types of roles that parts take on.
Therefore, it would not be therapeutic for the therapist to try to encourage a person to give up behaviors that have a mighty strong reason for coming into existence. Instead, the therapist becomes the listener, attempting to understand how these challenging behaviors came to be. You can see how blame wouldn’t be helpful.
An IFS therapist has lots of respect for the parts of a person who came into being to protect that person. And certainly the IFS therapist respects the Self of the person as well. In fact, it is foundational in IFS that the Self was never damaged! The Self of a person is beautiful and has always been so; it just may have been hidden by well-meaning parts.
In therapy, this process of uncovering Self Energy while discovering the roles that parts have taken on happens slowly over time, and the more trauma and/or abuse a person suffered as a child, the more “parts” will have formed to help that child deal with challenges -- and the more stubbornly these parts will cling to their role as protectors, too.
These parts did not grow up while the adult sitting in front of us grew, so the best approach for therapists is to handle them gently as if we were dealing with children. Therapists would want to call on all their 8 C’s and other aspects of Self Energy for these challenging and rewarding moments dealing with a client’s difficult parts.
When couples come in for marriage counseling, things get really interesting. Even when each person is capable of being in Self Energy with every other human on the planet, it all goes away when they face each other. That is because each one knows their own vulnerabilities that could be taken advantage of, so up go their defensive parts!
The therapist’s job is to help each one feel safe in the presence of the other while very slowly allowing a tiny bit of emotion into the mix and continuing to check how each person is doing. This is tricky and takes special training beyond IFS. It’s called IFIO, Intimacy From The Inside Out.
So, to answer your question, please give IFS a try. In fact, look for a trained IFIO therapist. You might be pleasantly surprised to learn that your partner does, indeed, have beautiful Self Energy underneath all those frustrating parts.
Comments (0)
Add Comment
Login to join the discussion