I spent most of the morning doing a deep dive into Internal Family Systems, also known as IFS. IFS is a type of therapy that asserts we are all made up of a family, an internal system, of multiple parts, and when we experience trauma, certain parts get stuck in protector mode and cause us dysregulation out of a mechanism of adaptive protection. Through developing a non judgmental relationship between your Self and your parts, you can execute healthy Self-leadership overall and thrive as a emotionally regulated person.
It's an interesting modality. One big mental stumbling block I have had to examine is that the developer of IFS, Dr. Richard Schwartz, is very collectivist in his world view. Every so often as I am working my way through his book, No Bad Parts, I am running into diatribe about part of the reason the world is full of so many dysregulated souls is due to the exploitive, meritocratic, growth-focused Capitalist Western ways that have driven the world for the last century and a half or so.
Now, I am not going to spin off into some pros an cons argument about any social or political ideology in this pensive blog post, but something that has been bothering me lately is all the if/then labels being slung around like guns in The Magnificent Seven. It's a bit disconcerting to be honest.
If there are No Bad Parts, why then are some parts of a system that has lifted more people out of poverty than any other system, well, bad? If you drive a Tesla you are "bad" to some people, whereas, if you have blue hair you are an existential horror to others. I have written about my disdain of divisionism before, and I truly do long for an enlightened time where we could both simultaneously like and dislike things about people while also being capable of not judging them on an atomic level, and gasp, perhaps even love them.
Which brings me back to my post title. The world feels like it is on fire emotionally. Every day, when I scan the feed for what's going on it feels a bit like a global episode of West Side Story. Everyone feels like they are ganging up and getting ready to square off, and if your ideology doesn't align exactly with the dominant, supposedly righteous, group you are committing "literal" violence on another group. At the same time, actual violence is happening, but there's a reverberating silence because perhaps acknowledging the violence would mean an examination of our biases and a collaboration towards actual, human-focused solutions that might not tick all our identity-politics boxes.
One thing that all of my therapist-in-training learning has taught me is that on a neuroscience level, almost everyone, at least those who have a smart phone on them, is in a state of agitation most of the time. A subtle fight response, a lingering malaise of developmental threat awareness, and when an entire tribe becomes agitated enough, what then, what's going to happen? You can't engage in advanced problem solving or frontal lobe processing if you are in fight, flight, or freeze, and you can't move out of that state if you are always agitated because of that heathen Elon Musk or demon Bernie Sanders (hello sarcasm!).
Here's the thing, I don't know any of those people, the one's I am supposed to despise. All I have to go by with most people is their actions, but even those can not be a reflection of the actual person due to mitigating developmental and/or traumatic factors or the fact that our media is not known for accurate fact portrayal. One thing that is becoming more apparent to me is that we are in quite a state as a species. I was joking around the other day with a friend and said that Sunday School taught the older generations executive functioning and social skills. My friend stopped and got all pensive looking for a minute before replying, "You're not wrong." Are we dealing with the end result of too much available information without social structure and socialization? I have no idea.
All I do know, is that I love to listen to people. Everyone has a story, and that story cannot be effectively delivered with accuracy in a rage inducing soundbite. Heck, it's hard enough for me to make a point in a few hundred word blog post, and that doesn't even come close to encompassing the magic of an actual sit down conversation between beings who share everything from pheromones to bacteria buddies. We are all interconnected in the sense that we are alive, but we are slowly losing threads in that beautiful tapestry that makes the painting that is humanity unique.
It's all rather infernally perplexing.
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I found Schwatrz a bit off myself, especially with listening to the audiobooks that HE reads... I found I like the books by Earley better. Earley's much more consistent in message and approach and I found them more useful for actual work. Schwarz has too much of a clinical feel to him mixed with a healthy dose of old hippy that comes across wrong to me. Nice thing is his "proteges" don't have to be carbon copies of him so there are other teachers out there that more align with any one person.
Interpersonal, small group environments, one on one, etc, are proper communication settings where everyone can be involved and heard.
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Ooh, I love it when you stroll in with mind fodder for me! I have glanced over Earley, but as of yet not done a deep dive. I find it very interesting that your read of Schwartz aligned so much with mine, I actually snorted my tea when I read the "old hippie," (those words might have been thought when I was reading a particular passage in No Bad Parts) part because I really do find many elements of IFS really resonate with me, there's just some fundamental underlying tones that rub my conscious the wrong way. Of course, I spent some time examining that bristling, and remembered that one of the biggest things about this world is it's more than okay to curate to your makeup when it comes to therapy modalities and practice.
That's the goal and just reading that made my face happy lol!
Thanks for the info😊
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It's interesting to me that I have "found" the exact right thing to help me when I needed it or before I would need it. Stoicism hit me in force in Sept 19 and it carried me through the psychosis of the world without losing it. I found IFS as I was falling into a dopamine-less well last year and it resonated very highly with me and kept my psyche buoyed enough to go to therapy then to find the modafanil which has not fixed but moderated the dopamine issue. I found I don't need the IFS therapy sessions but I use the techniques pretty regularly. The melding of the stoic and IFS learnings have been the actual outcome of the whole process which I'd bet your finding yourself.
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I think you just hit on the most important part of all therapy in my opinion, that what works is what is customized to your own unique need and appeal at the time of whatever it is you are working through. Librarians curate materials to our patrons, I would like to think that an awesome therapist curates modalities to our clients. Or something like that, you'll have to forgive my lack of clarity in conveyance, I am still a post flu/covid/broken thyroid/iron-depleted heathen lol lol!
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I'm also super beyond happy for you that you found what you needed to help you navigate and find you😊
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Schwartz is hardly unique in that regard. For some odd reason, fields concerning human behaviour, from mental health to sociology, are dominated by collectivist ideologues. Rather than focusing on internal factors, they focus on external factors, and have been peddling this idea that people are so unhappy because they are "alienated" from their natural state by "the system," thus using their entire practice as a smokescreen for political activism. This is because their political position is their own "theory of everything," and this phenomenon isn't limited to politics. For example, Gabor Maté has this strange idea that everything can be explained by trauma, and for that reason, holds to that hilariously outdated idea that bullies suffer from an internal sense of inadequacy. He's gone from doing excellent work treating addiction to talking absolute bollocks and becoming a massive lolcow on Substack.
Ahh yes, I knew this survey of my qualms with IFS and introspective ramble would draw you out! I have missed your insights and characteristic spark and snark, even though I do keep up with your excellent offerings over on the other realm😊
I've noticed that the realm that is the social sciences is very focused on Systems Theory and collectivist ideology at every turn. Anything contrary to that is lucky to get a mention or if they do it is like how some disrespectful soul talks about their doddering elderly grandmother. I get amused by the supposedly erudite world's constant obsession and promotion of what's in vogue, right now DBT is getting kicked off its pedestal in the mental health world, as is all things trauma, (It's in the beginning phase of falling out of fashion) and I find myself wondering if the pushback on a lot of that is due to the political winds shifting or if the world is just traversing from one trend to the other. Sometimes it's hard to tell.
The funny thing is, I am in a trauma class right now that is covering everything from Van Der Kolk to Schwartz to Mate, and while I find the concept of developmental trauma fascinating, the way its adherents ascribe it to absolutely everything kind of reminds me of medicine's past adherence to everything being completely pathological and symptoms-based. It makes me wonder about so many things.
But, I am rambling, which is to be expected as I had to lead DBT skills training today, craft some reports, and draft a case study. It's been a day. Hopefully yours has been rather splendid!
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!BBH
Speaking of the other realm, I finally resumed my fiction writing, and I decided to start with a clean slate, as it were. I haven't started over, I've just gone back to the beginning and started sharing the deeper lore. In case you didn't get the message in the subscriber chat, here is where you can find it:
Feels like the world is constantly in a state of tension and everyone’s quick to pick sides. IFS looks like a cool way to understand ourselves better. Definitely something to think about... Thanks for this
The rapid fire side picking is such a thing! Thanks for the excellent insight and I hope you are having a most lovely day!
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!BBH
absolutely it's a chill day for me so I'm well relaxed
Thank you @ewkaw adn @qurator 😊
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Thanks to JT, I listen to the occasional "Art of Manliness" podcast. Most recently, the topic was aloneness vs. loneliness. The guest on the show talked about our inner circle of family, and "the tribe", which might include people we only know over the internet but with whom we have shared interests, be it a football team or a hobby. In the middle is "the village", and that's where he says we are forgetting how to interact. Our neighbors, or the people in our town, are no longer people we regularly chat with over tea or dinner, so we don't really know them. Instead, neighbors end up making spiteful comments about each other on social media, jumping to conclusions without knowing the full story. I've seen that happen on NextDoor. It was a very interesting discussion.
The latest Art of Manliness podcast covered some related topics on social media turning everything into tribalism, and how it has changed what should be the village/neighborhood sphere of interaction locally into a tribalist conflict. We've been unconsciously trained to be agitated and argumentative.
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