Have you ever said, "Part of me wants to change, but another part keeps holding me back"? That's not just a figure of speech. We all have parts: inner voices and patterns that formed to help us survive, often when we were young and vulnerable.
Understanding Your Parts
Maybe you know some of yours already: the inner critic that pushes you to be perfect, the people-pleaser who keeps the peace at any cost, the part that shuts down or numbs out when things get overwhelming. These parts aren't the problem. Each one took on a job to protect you, and many are still working hard, long after the danger has passed.
Parts Work, based on Internal Family Systems (IFS), approaches these parts with curiosity and compassion rather than trying to fight or get rid of them. As we get to know them, they can begin to set down the burdens they've carried for so long. Beneath them is your core Self: calm, curious, compassionate, and whole.
How Parts Work fits with my other approaches
Parts often show up on their own in the other work I do:
- During EMDR, protective parts may surface as we process a memory. Working with them directly helps the processing move forward safely.
- In Sandtray, parts can take shape as figures in the sand, letting you see and relate to them in a new way.
- With horses, parts often emerge in real time. A horse's honest response can reveal a protective part in action, giving us a chance to explore it as it happens.
Because I work across all of these, we can meet your parts in whatever form they appear, through words, images, the body, or relationship.