Therapy Using Parts Work and IFS (Internal Family Systems)
Parts work and IFS therapy…
What this is…
Most of us have had the experience of being at war with ourselves like when we know something intellectually and feel the opposite emotionally. We tend to pathologize this inner conflict, treating it as weakness or irrationality. But what if it makes perfect sense?
Parts work is a way of understanding the mind as a system of distinct inner voices, states, and ways of being — each with its own history, its own logic, and its own legitimate reason for existing. The part of you that shuts down in conflict, the part that overachieves to feel worthy, the part that reaches for something numbing at the end of a hard day — these aren't character flaws to be eliminated. They're responses, often developed early, to circumstances that required them. Understanding them changes everything.
Internal Family Systems, or IFS, is one contemporary framework for this kind of work. But the underlying insight — that the psyche is composed of multiple internal structures shaped by early relational experience — is one with deep roots in object relations theory, one of the foundational schools of psychoanalytic thinking. Object relations work has been mapping the inner world of self-states, internalized relationships, and split-off parts of experience for nearly a century. In many ways, IFS brought that understanding to a wider audience with a new vocabulary. I work at the intersection of both.
Who this is for…
You might be in the right place if:
You feel chronically divided against yourself — like different parts of you want incompatible things and none of them ever wins
You have a harsh, relentless inner critic that you've tried to argue with, ignore, or silence, and none of it has worked
You shut down emotionally in situations that matter, and another part of you is angry about it
You find yourself in the same internal loops — shame, self-sabotage, withdrawal, over-functioning — and can see the pattern clearly but can't seem to step outside it
You've been told you're self-aware, and you are, and the self-awareness alone hasn't been enough
You protect yourself in ways that cost you — keeping people at distance, pre-empting rejection, managing everything so nothing can go wrong
Some part of you carries old pain that the rest of you has been trying to outrun
What we work on…
Using an object relations framework informed by IFS, we work to understand the internal landscape you're living in — the parts that protect, the parts that carry old wounds, the internalized relationships that still shape how you see yourself and others. We pay particular attention to where these parts came from: the early relational experiences that required them, the moments when splitting off a piece of experience was the most intelligent thing a young psyche could do.
Unlike purely behavioral approaches that focus on managing or modifying these patterns from the outside, this work goes to the source. We build a relationship with the parts of you that have been exiled or overworked or running the show unchecked — not to eliminate them, but to understand what they've been carrying and what they need. That shift — from fighting your inner world to getting curious about it — is often where the most durable change begins.
The therapeutic relationship itself matters here. Object relations theory teaches us that we internalize our early relationships and carry them as templates for how we expect to be treated, seen, and known. Part of what happens in therapy is the slow revision of those templates — through a relationship that operates differently than the ones that built them.
How to get started…
Working together starts with a complimentary consultation call that lasts about fifteen minutes. It helps me to hear briefly what’s bringing you into therapy at this time. I can then answer any questions you may have and share more about how I work. From there you might decide to schedule a session. The best way to tell if we are a fit is to have a session or few. My wish is for you to find the best therapist for your needs, whether that’s me or someone else and we can discover that together by beginning the process and seeing what unfolds.