IFS, Collective Trauma, & How it relates to the USA - Part 1 of 2

What if the parts of you that sabotage, overachieve, numb out, or shut down… were just trying to help?

In this 2 part series, I sit down with trauma therapist and IFS expert Kathy Kinghorn to explore how Internal Family Systems (IFS) gives us a radical, compassionate map of the human psyche. You'll learn how the different “parts” of you—yes, even the ones that seem chaotic or contradictory—are showing up for a reason. 

✨ Topics We Cover:

• What IFS actually is (& how it mirrors your external family)
• Why they're ALL trying to help you
• The neuroscience of parts
• What happens when we speak, lead, or parent from unintegrated parts

🔗  Know an immigrant who needs a mental health eval with Kathy's team? Click here. Kathy's website: here.
💫 Become trauma-informed? Click here.
🌄 Somatic retreat this fall: Mythic Zions
🤍 Work w/ me privately: Mentorship for Coaches + Creatives

✨ Tik-Tok-er who insipired this interview: here.

Overview:

01:17 Understanding Internal Family Systems (IFS)

04:55 Exploring Parts and Self-Energy

14:23 Real-Life Examples and Applications of IFS

29:00 Conclusion & Teaser for Part Two, w/ how this all relates to the current state of the US

Lindsay’s current program offerings:

• Looking for a new career as a Certified Trauma-Informed Coach? It’s time to Become a Trauma-Informed Coach. Learn more about Lindsay's life coach certification here. Next round starts September, 2025!
• Are you already a Certified Coach looking to deepen your skillset by Becoming Trauma-Informed, with a spiritual twist? Click here to see if Lindsay's Advanced Intuitive Trauma Certification for Coaches is a fit for you. Our next round will begin September, 2025.
• Want a certification above + PRIVATE MENTORSHIP from yours truly? I have limited spaced available. Apply here.

Check out her website here: Website.
Find me on Instagram : @lindsaypoelmancoaching

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Your host, certified life coach Lindsay Poelman started her journey of intentional healing started when she learned that her husband had been lying to her about pornography use for a greater part of their marriage. After processing and accepting her circumstance more fully, she found coaching—which propelled her into a forward focused state of ...

Transcript

Hey everyone. I just finished recording an incredible episode with the one and only Kathy Kinghorn. She's a trauma therapist with tons and tons of experience. One of her main modalities that she uses among others is Internal Family Systems. So I wanted to bring her into this podcast episode and you'll soon find out why. It was such a good conversation. It was really long, so we did have to edit out bits and pieces. But you're going to hear some funny tangents here and there because we wanted it to feel like you were just a part of this conversation. So, enjoy listening to this episode and, yeah, we had to break this episode up. But we hope you enjoy listening to both parts when they come.

Hello everyone. I am so excited about today's episode. I had this idea, thanks to a TikTok that I watched a week or two ago, I thought about how great it could be to talk about what we're about to talk about with our expert trauma therapist, IFS colleague Kathy Kinghorn. So Kathy's here today. Do you want to say hi?

Hey everyone. Glad to be here with Lindsay and talking to you folks out there.

Um, anyway, yeah, we are so excited to dive into this topic. What we wanted to talk about today is what happens when we look at our nation through an internal family systems slash parts based lens. So not just individually, but collectively. I want to give a shout out to the TikTok-er who gave me this idea. For our listeners, it could be good to look at it within this lens. So first of all, Kathy, do you want to tell us a little bit about who you are? Give us a little background before we dive in today.

Sure. I am a therapist in Utah. I own Therapy Utah Clinic, a trauma-informed clinic. And just to make sense of that, all our clinicians have a knowledge base in trauma. The modalities we use recognize the impact of trauma on our lives. Internal Family Systems, it's an evidence-based model. It recognizes the impact of trauma on individuals lives. So it's a great model. I love it. I was drawn to it almost immediately when I heard about it because it's so affirming of what our life experience really is. Hmm.

Yeah, I love that. Like affirming and self-correcting and empowering and validating for sure.

Yeah, because we already all speak in parts anyway. There might be some listeners right now that are saying this is really interesting, but a part of me should be doing X or a part of me can hear some weird noise. What is going on? So those are different parts that are showing up.

Isn't that how Richard Schwartz came up with this, through therapy? He realized people were doing that a lot. Is that right?

Mm-hmm. Yes. Yes. He started to pay attention to language and Lindsay, you know, how powerful language is. And he started to hear a lot of, well, one of my parts wants to do what you suggest, but another one's just saying screw you, basically. And so, kind of organically, he said something along the lines of, well, which part are you more curious about right now? And all of a sudden they were having a discussion with that part that the individual was more curious about. So it had a very natural, organic foundation to it.

I love that. Yeah. And for everyone listening too, Kathy is located in Utah. So if you've listened to this podcast episode and you're curious about finding support through her trauma-informed therapists, we'll make sure her information is in the show notes. Should we talk about, well, just briefly before we get into our discussion, your little passion project that you're doing? Do you want to talk about that just in case anyone can help them?

With all of the worldwide events happening now and the craziness and the lack of compassion in some individuals and leaders, we decided, as a clinic, to get educated in immigration evaluations. If you're trying to seek asylum, you need a mental health evaluation for certain visas. So we've been trained by the experts in that. And to me, it truly is a passion project to help individuals get through the many hurdles to reach safety and now with all the other hurdles that have been put in place to make it even more challenging. So yeah, we're very excited to offer that.

Yeah, I love that. And when Kathy was telling me about that, she said that you don't have to be in the state of Utah to get that mental health evaluation. Is that correct?

Correct.

Ah, so cool. All the more reason for everybody to get to know Kathy. So let's jump into what we're talking about today. We're talking about looking at our nation through an internal family systems lens. Now, for some people if I say internal family systems and they don't know what that is, how can you explain that in a way that's easy for people to understand?

I think the easiest way is to think about your external family first. You may have a mom and dad that are together and they're happy go lucky and you know, real approachable and fun loving and all those things. And you have somebody in your family that's struggling with an addiction. You have somebody else in your family that's a high achiever and misses a lot of family events because they've got to do X, you know, they've got to be doing something. So if you think about those different personalities in your external family, internal family systems is saying, well check inside. Do you have any of those parts of you that are inside? Do you have a part of you that goes and hangs out with your friends for the weekend and you do absolutely nothing and you have zero shame over it? You kick back, you laugh a lot, you joke a lot. Maybe you're sitting by the pool, not a care in the world, and your whole system is just able to lean into that. And it's beautiful because that's kind of what would be called self-energy. I am truly who I want to be. I'm in a relaxed state, I'm in a curious state, I'm in a very content state of being. And then as it's time to get ready to go, you might have a part that goes, oh geez, I've got to get organized and get that load of wash in. And that part just kicks in and all of a sudden it's managing that. It's just going to manage the exit basically.

And so your parts, different parts show up with different people. You might have a part that shows up with your mom that's different than the part that shows up with your sister, dad or neighbor. A lot of times you'll notice that when you're driving away from a conversation you think, why did I say that? Where did that come from? Why did I pretend this or that? Or why did I withhold information? You are wondering why you didn't fully show up as you know who you are. And that's just a part that thought, hey, something's off here. I need to protect the system. That's why it's called the system internal family system. There's the part that are protectors. Just want to protect us in ways that they believe they really are protecting us. So sometimes our protectors, we can be really shamed by their behavior. Like maybe we have a protector that's extremely shy and we live in a very extroverted world in America. Americans are very extroverted. We're kind of loud too compared to other, well, you just were in France. What would you say about the difference?

Yeah, I mean, I think western culture generally, and I would say America is like another level, right? But we are taught, like extroverted behavior is accolade and glorified, right? And if you go over to Asia, it's like a lot of times introverted behavior is glorified. There's like a whole book on it that my introverted husband read, and he was like, I feel so validated because he identifies more as an introvert and has pushed himself to be more extroverted. So yeah. Anyway, keep going.

Yeah. I remember seeing a picture right after an earthquake in Japan. People were lined up to get water. Just a polite line of people that went for probably, it may have gone for a mile, I don't know. But they were patiently waiting their turn. If we had a natural disaster here, I think a lot of times, and we've seen it, a mob happens. It's like I'm first, me first. So those protector parts show up in lots of different ways. We really appreciate those protectors. Other parts of us go. Yeah. I'm glad that in your face part showed up. I did want to tell that person off, you know, but that could be really shaming too for another part of you. So if I haven't confused everybody enough, kind of, you could just in this moment go inside and close your eyes and go, what part of me is really listening to this and what is that part hearing? And as you notice that, just welcome all your parts. Imagine that you're going to have this big meeting with all your parts that would like to come to this podcast. Some might like to be a little bit farther away from it. Maybe they don't know Lindsay or I very well, or they're just cautious about the topic. Like, where is this topic going to go? Is it going to trigger my trauma? So just let your parts show up wherever they'd like to, whatever time or location they'd like to. Some of your parts might want to show up in your third grade classroom. That's okay. Interestingly enough, Lindsay, our parts just don't seem to be attached to time or location.

Mm-hmm. So what could some examples be of the types of parts that are here listening for people where it's their first time?

You might have some really lovely self-energy that's really curious about the podcast. If you feel calm and curious, that's your self-energy showing up. If you have a part that's anxious that you didn't understand what I just said, and maybe that was the most important thing, that anxious part might be showing up. The bored part might be showing up. A part that goes, why did I tune in? I'm so bored. What is going on right now?

It's like that disgust from Inside Out, the dis, it's like, ugh.

Yeah, yeah. In fact, that show was informed by Richard Schwartz, IFS, that he was heavily involved in Inside Out.

I love that.

Yeah. There might be a part of you that's thinking, oh, I wish so and so was hearing this. You know, I wish my partner was hearing this. I wonder how I can get my partner to listen to this podcast. So, a part that's really a caretaker part, right? I want to take care of somebody else. Personally, I realized a part of me was showing up that was thinking, Kathy, why are you jumping in so deep right away? Slow it down a little bit. I just noticed that and acknowledged it, and it's like, oh, okay. Hey, thank you for pointing that out.

I love that. And so for people who are listening and kind of just getting clearer on that, how could people make sense of the purpose of all these parts? What are their goals? And how does that play into their human behavior? And then we'll take it from there and expand that a little bit.

What a great question, Lindsay. All of our parts are trying to help. That part that is pushing away from somebody that you care about, that you know, cares about you, but you're just pushing away from them. That part is trying to help. Now, that part might be protecting you because it holds the memory of betrayal. It holds the memory of getting close to somebody and then that person betrayed you. And so it's protecting you. The way that it learned helped. If I move back, then somebody can't hurt me. And that way of protecting you may have worked and actually been helpful as a child or as a teen or as an adult. And so when I say they're all trying to help, they're trying to help in a way that makes sense for when they first came to be. So a protector part. I work a lot with behavioral addictions and addictions are, the part that holds the addiction. That part is trying to help. I know that sounds counterintuitive, but think about this for a minute, Lindsay. Let's say you're a preteen boy and you run across pornography and you don't quite fit in and you believe the feedback you're getting from other boys that you're not tall enough or big enough or whatever enough, and then all of a sudden you find something that numbs you out. Behavioral addiction, like pornography, will numb the system out pretty heavily. That part may truly have saved your life. There may be a part that said, Hey, I can't take the bullying anymore. I can't take the emotional abuse. I can't figure out what's going on. I'm out. A lot of times when I'm working with somebody in addiction come to find out that part is like, Hey, if I wasn't around, I don't know that you would've been around. So that's where we get to know why the part is here and then we just get to know the part. It's kind of like after this podcast, if you were just wanting to get to know your parts, imagine that you haven't seen an old friend, like Lindsay and I haven't talked for a couple of years. Has it been a couple years? That's kind of crazy.

Yeah, it's been probably at least a year for sure.

And so before we recorded, we just caught up with each other, like old friends. Hey, what are you doing? Where are you? Yada yada. Imagine that you're going to consider a part of you that gets anxious and go, oh, I haven't talked to you in so long. And sometimes it's helpful to close your eyes and just go inside. That part might show up symbolically as a little person, a child. It might show up. Our parts will show up in a way that they need to and just have a conversation with that part and get to know it. Then you'll see the beauty of who you are and who your parts are. A lot of times with anxious parts, Lindsay, I've noticed this pattern and I, you know, just my small population that I've studied over time, but when, when you ask an anxious part, Hey, what would you like to do? If you didn't have to be on guard all the time, what would you like to do? Almost always the part will say, I really want to create something. And it's so beautiful and magical. That part wants to create, it wants to use that energy to create. Believes it has to do this job of watching for danger. So you can't be creative and watch for danger at the same time. So our parts aren't locked into a role, but they, they tend to be locked into a role if we're not going to get to know them. Once we get to know our parts, they have a lot more flexibility about their role.

And I think it can be helpful to acknowledge for people too, if you were to sit and do this little practice, Richard Schwartz's workbook can be really helpful for people who want to do this, you know, like on paper and see it and have a guide or a workbook. But you know, you, you may have parts who are like so excited that you're listening. They're like, oh good. Like someone's here listening. Yeah. Like, I'll, let me tell you everything. Right? And then you actually might have parts that are like maybe mad or annoyed or upset, or maybe they don't fully trust you yet. And so I like to think of this approach to understanding your internal family system as one where you're getting to know all of these different parts. Some might be thrilled and some might actually be standoffish and all of it is normal.

Yeah, really good point, Lindsay. The trust has to be built. You don't want to break that trust. You don't want to say, hey, everyone's welcome. I just want to get to know everybody. And then a part says you get this sense, the part's scared, and then your message to the part, there's no reason to be scared here. It's like, well, there's a reason that part's scared. So you've got to be true to your word. If you're just curious state, curious. If a part is scared, let it know. It doesn't have to share. You don't have an agenda, you're just to know it.

Yeah. And if you do relational therapy or relational coaching, I love the idea of like, love is a series of actions, not words. And so even with these parts, just that consistency of like, you don't need to change who you are. I'm here, I'm listening when you're ready. So just really developing trust where a part may or may not need it. And so with, with all of this said, if we think about all these parts working together in one internal family system, they all have the goal of survival. Not necessarily thriving and living your best life, but that nervous system, survival base. What would you say to that? How would you speak to that? I think they probably all want to thrive, but they can get frozen in time and space based on past traumas. Some of them are cool with homeostasis as is, as long as we're alive, even if things are painful or uncomfortable. But tell me more. How would you word that from your perspective?

Yeah, what a question, Lindsay. I think that there's some parts that we have been taught are more socially accepted than others. And so those parts, when they show up, they might, the whole system may calm just because it's like, we're doing the right thing here. Hey, everybody. I don't love social situations personally. And so when I go into a social, kind of, depending on where my day has been or my week, I'll invite my parts that have anxiety over the social situation. Hey, can you just step back a little bit? Just I'm going to really try to engage in a true way, not the way I've learned to engage, which is to pretend I'm present, to pretend that I'm listening, but genuinely to engage.

Mm-hmm.

So, I think it's a great question. If they're all in survival, they believe there's only one way to survive. And they do their very best to survive. I guess I would just add, Lindsay and I have mentioned protector parts, but self energy. We don't need to be protected by our parts if we're in self-energy because we know who