How IFS Changes Everything for Therapists

In this solo episode, John Clarke explores how Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy reshapes the way therapists understand their clients, their work, and themselves. He answers live questions from fellow practitioners about numbness, blending, unburdening fallout, and parts that resist the IFS model entirely. With raw honesty and grounded clinical insight, John also shares how grief, meaninglessness, and therapist rescuing energy show up in the room—and how to handle it all with curiosity and compassion.

If you're craving a deeper therapeutic experience—for your clients and yourself—this episode will guide you back to self-energy, presence, and purpose.

3 Key Takeaways:

1. Discover why a client “feeling nothing” may be the perfect place to begin, and how to access parts through thoughts, not just the body.
2. Learn to notice when your own parts are activated and how “doing the U-turn” back to your system can shift the session entirely.
3. What to do when clients’ systems resist change, unburdenings fall flat, or protectors don’t want to be seen as just “parts.”

Resources & Offerings:

➡️ Free IFS Training for Therapists: From Burnout to Balance: https://go.johnclarketherapy.com/ifs-webinar-podcast

➡️ 1-Month Grace Period with Jane – Use code JOHN or visit: https://meet.jane.app/john-clarke-ambassador

➡️ 10% Off at Grounding Well – Use code GWJOHNCLARKE or visit: https://www.groundingwell.com/GWJOHNCLARKE

➡️ 10% Off at Dharma Dr. – Use code JOHN or visit: https://dharmadr.com/JOHN

Connect with me:

https://www.johnclarketherapy.com/
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https://www.tiktok.com/@johnclarketherapy
https://www.youtube.com/@johnclarketherapy

Grab Your Seat for the Free IFS Webinar Here: https://go.johnclarketherapy.com/ifs-webinar-podcast

➡️ Free Training - Learn how to integrate the principles of IFS into your therapy practice: https://go.johnclarketherapy.com/ifs-webinar-podcast

Transcript

[00:00:00] It's not a feeling to be fixed. It's, you know, it's a feeling to be with and to be met and to be moved through and to be metabolized, but it's not anything to be fixed. So we don't come at the work with like this fixing energy, although a lot of therapists do. You gotta be real careful with that, that unintentionally communicates to the client that your grief is wrong, you know, and needs fixing or needs rescuing.

So. Always, all roads lead back to us. You know, when in doubt do the U-turn.

John Clarke: Going Inside is a podcast on a mission to help people heal from trauma and reconnect with their authentic self. Join me trauma therapist John Clarke for guest interviews, real life therapy sessions, and soothing guided meditations. Whether you're navigating your own trauma, helping others heal from trauma, or simply yearning for a deeper understanding of yourself, going inside is your companion on the path to healing and self-discovery.

Download free guided meditations and apply to work with me one-on-one [00:01:00] at johnclarketherapy.com. Thanks for being here. Let's dive in.

Hey everyone. Welcome back. My name is John Clarke. I'm the host of Going Inside. I'm a therapist, I'm a group practice owner. Um, I'm a a teacher for therapists and a consultant. And, uh, I'm happy to be with you all today. So we've been doing this for the past few weeks where I come on and answer questions live.

Um. We're gonna get into our first question here in a second before I do that, really quick reminder that we just launched our new eight week digital detox program. It's basically a somatic IFS therapy group for practitioners where we're gonna intentionally dial back our digital intake, your phone, your social media, your email, things like that for eight weeks as a way to help reset your system.

To help give you the chance to really be with your parts through that and to get to know the parts that are involved in your digital [00:02:00] use.

If you're interested in signing up for that program, johnclarketherapy.com/digital-detox.

If you're interested in a weekly consultation group with me where we explore I-F-S-E-M-D-R, somatic experiencing. How to tend to the therapeutic relationship, how to run your business in private practice, then Pathways to Self is the program for you. You can join Pathways to Self at johnclarketherapy.com/pathways.

Let's get into some questions. Little under the weather, so might be a short episode today. So if you've got questions, make sure to go ahead and ask them in the comments. I'll pull 'em up one by one and keep answering until we get through 'em all.

Okay, first question is from Arsh. The question is, my client doesn't have an answer to where's the part located in or around your body? How do you help them find the part? [00:03:00] If they keep saying it's in their thoughts or no sensations or noticeable, well then you go with what they're giving you. There's many ways to experience your parts.

People experience and a, and they access their systems in many different ways. There's no right or wrong way. So the question of where's it located in or around your body might not make any sense to them. 'cause they don't experience themselves that way. They don't experience their system that way.

There's also like, there's a condition where if you close your eyes and say, imagine a sandy beach with white sand and blue skies. People literally can't imagine it. They don't have an imaginative. Memory in that way. So everyone's brains are different. Everyone's systems are different. So if they experience their parts through their thoughts, then you go with that.

That's how they experience their parts. There's nothing wrong with that.[00:04:00] 

So when I'm having them get to know their parts, it's what does that part look like or sound like? Do you hear from it like a thought? Do you see it like an image? Does it look like a version of you? Do you notice it in or around your body like a sensation? So I give them really like a menu of options, and by doing that it gives 'em lots of opportunity to explore their system and see how it works for them.

Yeah.

What can happen unintentionally is like, you know, if, if we keep pushing for them to experience their parts in a certain way or to notice the body and they just can't, they don't have access in that way, at least not yet. Then it can also activate parts that fear that if FS isn't for me or it's not gonna work for me.

I'm too broken or whatever. So we really, really just want to, um, we, we just wanna [00:05:00] roll with it. Right? We wanna roll with however they experience their systems.

I wanna thank our sponsor Jane. Jane is a clinic management software in EMR that helps you handle your clinic's daily admin tasks, so you can free up your evenings and weekends. The team understands how precious your time is and recognizes that charting can often be the most time consuming part of your practice.

So to save you from having to chart. From scratch, you can check out Jane's template library, which gives you access to templates that have been generously created and shared by health and wellness practitioners in the community. Once you have a template you like, you can choose to customize it further with charting tools such as range scales, text fields, check boxes, and more.

To see how Jane can help you spend more time doing what you love, head to the link in the show notes to book a personalized demo. Or if you're ready to get started, you can use the code, John, at the time of sign up for a one month grace period applied to your new account. Okay. [00:06:00] I'm ready for your questions, so if you got questions, let me know in the comments

in the meantime. I will answer some other questions that we have stored up This question is, how do you stay oriented to self when a client's system consistently evokes rescuing, parental, or I have to help you, energy in you? Well, if they're evoking that energy in you, then your job is to turn toward your parts and be with those parts and practice being with them and unblending enough to where you can then be in more self energy in the work with the client.

How do you do that? First and foremost, you get to know how, you know you're blended. For a lot of people, it is the body. The body does something. You, you have a tensing in your stomach or your shoulders or whatever, and that's how you know a part is here and you're blended. You may even, might even just ask yourself, do I feel blended?

Or how old do [00:07:00] I feel right now as I'm in my therapist chair and the client is spiraling or the client says, I'm not getting better, or the client says this, IFS stuff isn't working for me. What does that bring up in you? So everything's an option, an opportunity to do a u-turn, turn and face yourself, right?

What is this client bringing up in me? Right? If I'm feeling this rescuing energy or this parental energy, I have to help you, energy, right? That that is more about the therapist system than it is about the clients.

This is why you know for good reason. Most formal IFS training is about working with your own system. 'cause this stuff is sure to come up. Right.

Okay. I. Next question, what do you do when a part begins to unburden? But the [00:08:00] system starts to feel disorganized or less functional afterward, and the client or their manager parts become alarmed by that. Well, you, you know, you, you might have unintentionally bypass some protectors, so you might just go back and see.

Are there any parts that have concerns with the work we did or are doing around unburdening this part? And you might actually get more information. If you really slow down, you really tune in and you invite all parts to share their thoughts, feelings, reactions to, to what's going on here. Yeah.

Uh, a lot of times you do have to go back, you know, kinda loop back around. It's common. Next question is, how do you work with parts that aren't just reactive, but feel like the client's identity? Like I am the caretaker, I'm the broken one, and resist being seen as parts at all? Well, before I try to [00:09:00] change anything, I just try to bring awareness to that thing.

If the client says, John, I want your help. Uh, I wanna stop biting my nails. Step one is always notice when you're biting your nails. You know, seven minutes later in the session, I go and just notice as you're talking about your mom, you're biting your nails. Just, just notice that, right?

So also you do a little quote psychoeducation, which I, I hate that term for some reason, feels belittling, I guess, to the client, to me. So I never really use it. But, um, you might talk to the client about IFS and about this idea of blendedness, right? I had a client recently where she, I was like, how would you describe yourself?

And she was like, I'm an anxious person. Right? So it's like you really believe at your core, at a soul level that you are an anxious person versus there's a part of me that worries about stuff. There's a part of me that tries to anticipate things [00:10:00] going wrong, tries to mitigate things going wrong, right?

Prevent them. Just by holding the IFS frame, you know we are inherently de-stigmatizing, right? Non-shaming, non pathologizing. It's a part of you that worries and there's a part of you that's really chill. Isn't that interesting? Right? Maybe people would describe you as a really chill person and you also have a part of you that's really anxious.

Both can be true. What's it like to imagine holding both? Can you hold both right now in this moment?

So a lot of times we're working with the both end. I'm inviting them to try to hold the both end.

Basically, can you meet and honor the totality of you? The sooner you meet these parts of yourself and embrace them and honor them and hold them, the sooner they just spontaneously unblended [00:11:00] unburden. Give you space and you can allow that. Yeah, I worry about stuff and I'm a chill dude. That's certainly the case for me in a lot of ways.

 As therapists, we hold space for so many. But who's holding space for us? If you're craving deeper healing and more powerful tools for your clients, I wanna invite you to my free webinar on Internal Family Systems Therapy. IFS changed my life and the way I practice. It helped me move through burnout, reconnect with my authentic self, and show up more fully for my clients and for myself.

In this webinar, I'm gonna walk you through what IFS is and why it works. A simple tool that you can use right away and how to bring this work into your practice, even if you're just beginning. This is for therapists ready to go deeper. Join us now with the link in the description.

All right, next question. How do you know when a client's not feeling anything, quote, not feeling anything is a protector strategy versus a true nervous system limit that needs [00:12:00] resourcing before parts work.

Well, you could first have them get curious about the not feeling anything, right? If you notice, notice what's happening inside, and they say nothing or numb. Okay. How do you feel toward the numbness or the part of you that feels numb and see if you can generate some more self energy that way, you know?

So that's another way into the work. This whole idea of like how much nervous system resourcing do we need before, during, after parts work is a pretty hot button issue it seems. So it's really up to you. Do you need to do some resourcing with a client before you do IFS insight work? Or when they come in and they're activated, you just see that as a trailhead and just go into the trailhead.

I'm more in the latter camp. If I'm working from a pure IFS standpoint, but if they're too dysregulated to do the work at all, [00:13:00] we might do a little co-regulating, slowing down tracking, just being with the sensation, not trying to directly calm it down or do deep breathing or anything too obvious like that.

'cause that can invalidate the parts that can send the message that the parts are being ridiculous. They need to calm down, that this response is too much. So instead I just see, you know, meeting the sensation as a way to meet their parts.

Yeah. Might be an extra short episode today. Um, I'll do another question or two, and if you all have questions live, feel free to drop 'em in the comments. But, um, yeah, just doing as much as I can today.

Okay. This question is, what's your approach when a client's protectors agree with you cognitively, but nothing actually [00:14:00] shifts experientially over time? Well, sometimes parts need to see change in real life, right? Like if you make a contract with a part to like, not blend with me so much when I'm at work and the part says, well, I blend with you 'cause I'm afraid you're gonna screw up.

So the part un blends, but you keep screwing up. Then the part's gonna be like, dude, what the hell? This is why I'm needed, this is why I have to keep blending with you. This is why I have to keep breathing down your neck as your faithful protector. You know, because you don't got it. You said you got it, but now it looks like you don't Got it.

If IFS is fundamentally a relational model, right? It's about restoring trust in the system. Parts need to see that we've got this, right? Yeah. If they don't, you know, they're gonna have doubt if we let them down. [00:15:00] Again, that's rupture and repair has to follow. Right. So some of it is like actions speak louder than words.

Like, show me that you've got this. Yeah.

Okay. Um, we go to about one more question here unless I get more in the comments. Question is, how do you work with parts that carry existential pain around meaninglessness and mortality aloneness, or what's the point when there isn't a clear trauma origin story to unburden? Well. Um, I, even if there's no clear trauma origin story to unburden, these parts are still holding this pain or these beliefs and the, the offer is always that self can handle it for you.

Self can hold it for you. Self is capable of holding all this [00:16:00] for you, right? Maybe there's nothing to do about that feeling of aloneness, you know, other than just be with it. Track it, be with it, honor it. For self to be with the part that feels alone or fears aloneness or fears meaninglessness, right?

What's the scariest thing about experiencing meaninglessness or what do you fear would happen if you experienced meaningless for too long or experienced a big dose of it, et cetera, et cetera? So I'm always wondering what's the fear? And I'm always using downward air technique, which is what if fear would happen if we experienced more hopelessness or more meaninglessness?

And then what? And then what? And then what. And then what would that mean? And then what would that mean? And then what would that mean? And then how would you deal with it? So you peel back those layers of the onion until you get to the very core, and then you really just honor it and kind of have self meat that part.

Yeah. [00:17:00] All right. We've got a live question here from, uh, Logan. Logan says, I appreciate you doing this. Uh, you're welcome. Do you have thoughts or experience of utilizing IFS with other modalities, such as relational psychodynamic lens or other depth, depth work? Yeah, definitely. So my base is psychodynamic.

Here's a, here's a really easy parallel in psychodynamic work. For instance, I had a client when I was a graduate student who, whenever she was a kid and she would cry, her dad would laugh at her. So that created deep wounding working psychodynamically with her. And in an interpersonal process, she and I, I knew that part of my role was to kind of become her surrogate father and allow for that transference.

And over the course of nine months in doing therapy and talking about lots of different stuff. Doing decent work. We got to the point where one day she cried. So the [00:18:00] corrective emotional experience then is as you cry in front of me, what's it like? You know, what's it like to cry here in front of me? And as you look up at my face, what do you see?

Do you see me laughing or making fun of you? No. Seems like you're not judging me. It seems like you really care. Yeah, I do care. Can you take that in? So therapist then, as the surrogate attachment figure has provided, the corrective emotional experience only took nine months. That's a lot. The hope is that she internalizes that in the externalizes that to her life in, out into the world.

Right. And that template is healed. In the same presenting concern approach, you approach that client with IFS in the first session, the first three sessions, and as she gets to know that part that was laughed at. Anytime she cried. And if she has enough self energy, can, can she be the one to go toward that part?

Can you be with her the [00:19:00] way that she needed someone to be at that time?

You know? So. Self is the new attachment figure. The ultimate attachment figure self can go and be there with that part, the way it needed, the way she needed someone to be at that time. Super powerful, way faster, way more honoring of the client's system, the client's autonomy. But also the psychodynamic lens is so helpful for tending to the process of therapy, right?

What is it like to cry in front of me? I am a person in the room, after all, you know, tending to that process versus content. I'm always tending to the therapeutic relationship, working in the here and now, you know? What's it like to cry in front of me? What do you fear you might see when you look up through your tears?

So I know I'm a person in the room. So I'm always, or often using my humanity, trying [00:20:00] to use my realness using the natural transference that's there. Transference is psychoanalytic term, right? So transference is in IFS terms, their parts resonating with our parts. How do we work with transference? Well, we tend to our own, first of all.

Right? Sometimes that resonance can be like empathy. I really get it. Sometimes that imp, that resonance can be like, I'm annoyed. I have parts that are annoyed by the client's parts.

So it also offers the opportunity for the therapist to turn toward their parts

and approach that work with humility. So that's a little parallel to that. Work parts work is not new. Dick Schwartz isn't the only one to. Come up with a parts work model, right? This one has just exploded for I think, many reasons. It's really well packaged. The timing is right, [00:21:00] but it's also been around for decades, and there's also a million other parts, you know, models, inner child work models.

So get fluent with IFS first, and then integrate with other models. That's my recommendation. I integrate it with EMDR. I integrate with SE ec, experiencing psychodynamically, et cetera. You can integrate with CBT, you know, you are doing CBT on a manager. What do you, what do you fear would happen if you know, what's the likelihood of that happening, et cetera.

What would you do if that happened? So, but I like to just kind of focus on getting fluent in one model at a time and then integrate it, if that makes sense, or the concepts might make a lot of sense and you're able to just kind of use it in a more integrated fashion and use multiple models at the same time.

It, it really depends on your experience, how long you've been a therapist. After seven or eight years, you have some degree of mastery, quote unquote, and you can seamlessly integrate three or four models at once without thinking about it.[00:22:00] 

Okay. Very last question. I promise to use the existential question earlier. What's the rationale that self is capable of handling? Say the meaninglessness is self not dependent on experience-based growth and hence conditional. No. Self is basically soul. So of course self is capable of holding it all, and this is where you get into some of the spiritual dimensions of IFS If you want to go there, which it looks like Dick Schwartz is ready to go there.

Now, if you watch their emails and what the institute is doing, if self is basically your soul, you know your soul isn't a conditional thing. Your soul doesn't get scared. Your soul doesn't get hungry or tired or drunk, you know, but your soul or your spirit, right, your heart. It all depends on how you see self or self energy.

But again, that that's the idea, is that self can handle it all. Self can hold it all, [00:23:00] and that there isn't necessarily any fixing. It needs to be done with meaninglessness or hopelessness or aloneness. That's a pretty normal feeling as a human. Look at Ervin yams, you know, givens of existence, freedom, responsibility, autonomy, meaninglessness.

I think I might be making some of those up, but that can be pretty handy stuff. So you could pair existential psychotherapy, you know, with IFS pretty well too. It's like grief, you know? It's like grief isn't something to be fixed. It's not a feeling to be fixed. It's. You know, it's a feeling to be with and to be met and to be moved through and to be metabolized, but it's not anything to be fixed.

So we don't come at the work with like this fixing energy, although a lot of therapists do. You gotta be real careful with that, that unintentionally communicates to the client that your grief is wrong, you know, and needs fixing or needs rescuing. So. [00:24:00] Always all roads lead back to us. You know, when in doubt do the U-turn.

Notice what parts of your own are coming up and how they're muddying the work. Yeah. Okay. We had some good questions today after all. I really appreciate that. Like I mentioned, we just launched our new program. It's a somatic IFS group for practitioners is basically a therapy group for practitioners. For you to both receive somatic IFS while also doing a digital detox of your own for eight weeks.

Whether it's reducing your social media use or cutting it out altogether, reducing your phone use so you can be more present with your partner, your kids, your friends, your hobbies, nature, your faith, whatever it is. Um, reducing email, you know, taking email off your phone, whatever it is. We're just gonna do a digital detox for those eight weeks.

You can figure out how you want to kind of detox yourself digitally and with the support of the group and the support of, you know, a sematic IFS framework. So that group is actually [00:25:00] filling up fast. We just had someone else join today. We've already had a bunch of people join and, uh, grab that early bird pricing.

So if this is something you wanna do, jump in the group. It's gonna be starting really soon. And spots are limited. John Clarkeeeee therapy.com/digital detox. And I look forward to seeing you there, and I look forward to seeing you again in a week. So thanks for being here.

Thanks for listening to another episode of Going Inside. If you enjoyed this episode, please like and subscribe wherever you're listening or watching, and share your favorite episode with a friend. You can follow me on Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok at johnclarketherapy and apply to work with me one-on-one at johnclarketherapy.com.

See you next time.