Internal Family Systems: the mental health model that “stumbled” across God

A new therapeutic approach to trauma is taking the mental health community by storm, including Catholic practitioners who say it aligns with their faith’s understanding of the human person in relation to God. 

Named the “Internal Family Systems” model by its US founder Dr Richard Schwartz, the popular form of psychotherapy has grabbed the attention of clinicians, people seeking psychological healing or mental wellbeing—and even the writers of Disney Pixar’s Inside Out movies. 

Schwartz developed the model in the late 1980s after observing that his clients referred to multiple “parts” of their personalities, which were sometimes conflicted. He found these parts could be worked with individually and together in talk therapy, to promote healing. 

A person with alcohol addiction, for example, may be encouraged to acknowledge and show compassion towards the “part” of themselves that drinks to escape feelings of suffering from a previous trauma, before attempting to heal the part of themselves that was “wounded” originally. 

Schwartz taught that there is no “bad” part and that trauma responses result from parts becoming “burdened” with an outdated role, or “blended” with the person’s real core self, a self he said has the potential to emerge from every person as deeply loving and resourceful. 

Disney Pixar’s Inside Out movies draw on Schwartz’s model to show how the films’ protagonist, a girl named Riley, has a personality composed of different “parts”—joy, sadness, fear, anger and the like. Each has a positive role to play in making sense of her life.   

Parts therapy like IFS seek to help a person understand, “unburden” and reorient problematic but fundamentally “good” parts to serve them in healthier ways. Its effectiveness in treating disorders such as addictive disorders and post-traumatic stress disorder is well-documented. 

Waiting lists for official training are long in the US and in Australia, but some practitioners employ IFS concepts, including US Catholic psychologist Dr Greg Bottaro.  

Dr Bottaro is visiting Australia in September to promote his own model of Catholic-integrated mental health care to Australian dioceses, organisations and education offices. 

The model of mentorship and accompaniment aims at facilitating faith-based healing and wellbeing, by bringing together Catholic spirituality with secular psychology.  

It adapts elements of IFS parts work, along with other secular resources and traditional spiritual practices of Ignatian discernment and abandonment to divine providence. 

Bottaro’s CathPsych Institute recently signed a partnership with Campion College to offer the model called Integrated Daily Dialogical Mentorship (IDDM), to staff, students, alumni and their families at a discounted rate. 

Bottaro told The Catholic Weekly IFS has “a lot of overlap” with Catholic anthropology. 

He drew from IFS in fleshing out a way to integrate the philosophy of St Pope John Paul II who wrote a Theology of the Body “with a full understanding of ourselves psychologically.” 

He said that as opposed to secular psychology, which developed from observations of people who endured harsh environments last century, John Paul II’s “blueprint” for human freedom consisted in being able to choose to move towards God, “the good, true and beautiful,” and in being truly self-giving.  

But first, a person needed to grow in self-knowledge, including becoming more aware of things held within the unconscious. 

“I see John Paul II as the most important psychologist of the 20th century,” Dr Bottaro said. 

“What I find really fascinating is John Paul II did not talk about parts at all, but there are ways to understand the purpose that he wrote out for us in terms of human flourishing as being facilitated and supported by the parts perspective of IFS. 

“Unfortunately Schwartz is new-agey, secularist and a relativist in some ways but more important is his disregard for anything or anyone outside of the ‘self’ for happiness or whatever his conception of salvation is. 

“However, his observation about parts and protectors, the reactions to difficulties we experience, and process we have interiorly of developing these multi-faceted aspects of our personalities are incredibly insightful and powerful observations about what’s happening in us interiorly.” 

Used correctly, these observations can help people make progress in experiencing deeper psychological freedom, which then will enable them to co-operate better with God’s grace, Bottaro explained. 

“So then we are doing our part in opening ourselves to greater freedom, trusting and relying fully on him as the real agent of change and source of our salvation and freedom.” 

But some may remain concerned about the association of IFS with new age and occult concepts and practices—even demonic possession. 

Last year veteran IFS practitioner Robert Falconer published a book called The Others Within Us: Internal Family Systems, porous mind and spirit possession in which he detailed cases where he used IFS therapy to remove malevolent “unattached burdens” from people and help them welcome benevolent “guides.” 

These he described as “things, beings and energies we find inside us that are not part of our personal life histories” to be found in every culture, including in Christian accounts of demonic possession, he wrote. 

In the foreword, Schwartz wrote that some of his clients also had “spiritual encounters” during therapy which he could not explain, which were not ‘parts’ of the person but beings that “only want to do harm or create havoc.” 

Bottaro said Falconer’s book conflates real spiritual warfare with a “sort of new-age fascination with the spiritual that is not discerning and doesn’t have an objective morality around good and evil.” 

“The understanding of parts is really helpful and necessary for our church in understanding the role of spiritual warfare and demonic activity,” he said. 

“Sometimes the manifestation of a person’s wounded psyche can be interpreted as demonic activity, and if we’re trying to cast out parts of us that are doing the ‘bad’ things we end up putting a band-aid on the problem and it doesn’t actually solve it. 

“The whole purpose of the parts approach is to say underneath every bad behaviour is a good part, and that there are no bad parts.  

“That’s very Catholic because we believe we are made in the image of God and are all good at our core. We don’t lose that identity in the Fall, although we have an inclination to sin.  

“Having said that, the IFS world has no real Catholic understanding or context of what is demonic activity and what is not.  

“So when it comes to people who are practicing IFS and entering spiritual realms without this structure or framework they are absolutely playing with very dark forces and it’s very dangerous. 

“It’s like putting nuclear power in the hands of children who have no idea what they’re doing with it.” 

Shawn van der Linden is the international programs consultant for the CatholicPsych Institute and is on the leadership team of Australia’s Raphael Network, a new association of Catholic mental health professionals. 

Of Bottaro’s own approach he said: “I can honestly say that in all my years of counselling I’ve never seen such healing and transformation as I have delivering this particular model.” 

He also encouraged Catholics who might stumble across “weird places online” to approach IFS “with a discernment that respects the reality of spiritual warfare, recognising the difference between psychological parts and external spiritual forces. 

“In this context, healing involves both the unburdening of parts within the IFS framework and spiritual practices such as prayer, sacraments, and seeking spiritual direction to address any potential problematic spiritual influence,” he said. 

“The goal is to integrate both psychological and spiritual healing, acknowledging the complexity of the human person as both a psychological and spiritual being.”  

Van der Linden said the IFS paradigm is “incredibly helpful for navigating deeply significant issues around identity, mental health, addictions and other problems.” 

“[Schwartz’s] idea of true self lines up perfectly with the dignity we have as created in the image and likeness of God, or our ‘inmost being’ as St Paul refers to it.”