IFS: The Power Of A Non-Pathologizing Approach
A Non-Pathologizing Way to Understand Mental Health
Internal Family Systems theory offers an alternative way to understand mental health, psychological illness, and our psyches, in general. When we view the individual through the lens of self and parts, we are forced to consider the underlying factors that have resulted in the distressing behaviours and to differentiate these from who we are as people. We are not our illnesses, disorders, or addictions - they are part of us. We are not our emotions - our sadness, our anxiety, our fears, they too, are part of us, but they are not fully representative of ourselves.
IFS separates these parts and strives to understand the role that they are taking and their motivations with an acknowledgment that these parts are trying to protect us. Anxiety, for example, can be understood as a physical reaction that is attempting to protect us from being exposed to potential harm. This part may be working in tandem with our inner critic, who desperately doesn’t want us to experience humiliation. At the heart of this is a painful experience in which our protective parts rapidly mobilized, working with or against each other, to protect the exile or the self from the pain. Protective parts take on new roles because of the exile's pain, which unbalance the system and can consume an enormous amount of internal energy.
We can view intense feelings of anxiety as a natural consequence of some previous experience and feel compassion for ourselves and begin the process of self-led healing, rather than a perspective that our brain chemistry is faulty or that we’re simply an anxious person and there’s nothing to be done about it.
What Do We Mean By “Pathologizing” Mental Health?
One challenge traditional Western medicine has with psychology is that it relies heavily on a strictly scientific approach. Of course, the scientific method is highly valuable, but it struggles to measure the intangible. That is, we can only analyze what we can observe. When an observation strays from what is considered broadly typical, it is labelled pathological, maladaptive, malfunctioning, and rooted in disease. The result of this is to diagnose any atypicality as a disease or disorder. This perspective fails to consider social, cultural, and environmental factors that result in symptoms consistent with many common disorders. In fact, it often uses these same factors to discredit a person’s experience. A good example of this is denying to acknowledge depression in an individual who is in active addiction. Their addiction is seen to be the cause of the depression, rather than an effective coping mechanism for depression.
Understanding an individual's experience only through the perspective of pathology can have several unintended consequences at both a personal and social level including:
________________
Diagnosis of illness without exploration of root causes can result in feelings of helplessness for the sufferer. They often think that they are ‘doomed’ to permanently feel and behave in a certain way because of their medical condition. This feeling itself can exacerbate existing symptoms in a self-perpetuating cycle.
Symptom reduction or management is favoured over eliminating the source of the issue. This can result in symptoms/disorders that never really fully resolve
Some psychological/emotional disorders are becoming so overdiagnosed that the illness becomes viewed as part of the regular human experience, versus something much less typical. In fact, 50% of Canadians report an episode of mental illness in their lifetimes. While many mental illnesses can be considered common it is unlikely that all of these diagnoses, based on the sheer quantity and commonality, can be attributed solely to a biological cause.
Furthermore, failing to acknowledge these causes, often social, environmental, or the result of trauma, results in us failing to appropriately address the factors that are contributing to such widespread disorder.
To be clear, some mental illnesses and disorders are affected by genetics and neurobiology. In these instances, therapy can absolutely be helpful but is often necessary to use this in tandem with other medical interventions.
How Does Internal Family Systems Therapy Differ From A Pathological Perspective?
In addition to providing an alternative understanding of diagnosis or disorders, Internal Family Systems teaches empowering skills that promote permanent healing. By learning to honour the Self and promoting compassion for yourself and others, we access self-confidence and learn long-term strategies we can rely on to self-heal and become more actualized versions of ourselves. While a specialized therapist trained in Internal Family Systems serves as an indispensable guide, helping the individual or family navigate the layers and complexities of their experiences, the work itself is being done by the individual within their own psyches. It is a profoundly moving experience to witness someone unburden themselves of painful emotions and develop compassion for the experiences. The confidence it instills is visceral. While the process can be challenging, the long-term benefits are absolutely worth it. If you’re curious about how Internal Family Systems therapy can help you individually or as a couple, I invite you to reach out to learn more.