Internal Family Systems · Parts Work
You are not one thing. And that's not the problem.
IFS therapy starts from a radical premise: every part of you — including the ones you most want to get rid of — makes sense. The work is getting curious about them, not trying to fix or silence them.
Work with Perrin Call (615) 543-8786What IFS actually is
Your mind isn't broken. It's organized.
Internal Family Systems — IFS — is a therapy model developed by psychologist Richard Schwartz. Its central insight is that the mind is naturally multiple. We all have parts: different voices, feelings, impulses, and protective strategies that can seem to conflict with each other. The part that wants to rest and the part that can't stop working. The part that longs for closeness and the part that pulls away when someone gets too near. The part that knows you're capable and the part that says you're not enough.
This isn't pathology. This is how minds work — especially minds that have had to adapt to difficult circumstances. IFS doesn't treat these parts as symptoms to be eliminated. It treats them as the system doing its best — and gets curious about what each one is carrying and why.
Underneath the parts, IFS proposes, there is a Self — a core that is not a part, that cannot be damaged, and that is naturally curious, calm, compassionate, and capable of leading the internal system. The goal of IFS isn't to build a better self from scratch. It's to clear the path back to the one that's already there.
Every part of you — including the one that shuts down, the one that's never satisfied, the one that can't say no — came online for a reason. None of them are the enemy. They're all trying to help, in the only way they learned how.
The landscape of the mind
Three kinds of parts
IFS identifies three roles that parts tend to play in the internal system. Understanding which role a part is playing changes how you relate to it.
Protectors
Managers
Managers run things proactively. They keep the system organized, functional, and safe — often by staying busy, staying in control, staying fine. They're not problems. They're exhausted. They've been holding things together since long before it was their job.
- The inner critic
- The people-pleaser
- The overachiever
- The one who keeps everything fine
Protectors
Firefighters
When something breaks through the managers' control, firefighters activate. Fast. Their job is to stop the feeling by any means necessary. They're not reckless. They're responding to what feels like an emergency — because something in the system still believes it is one.
- The part that goes numb
- The part that picks a fight
- The part that disappears into scrolling
- The part that overworks, overdrinks
The ones being protected
Exiles
Exiles carry the pain — usually younger parts formed around specific experiences of loss, shame, or abandonment. Pushed out of awareness because what they carry felt too big. They're not the wound. They're the part that experienced it — and has been waiting, ever since, to be found.
- The part that feels like a burden
- The part that never felt good enough
- The part that learned love was conditional
- The part still waiting to be left
What to expect
What parts work actually feels like in a session
It starts with noticing
Rather than talking about your experience from a distance, we slow down and get curious about what's happening inside right now. A tightness in the chest. A sudden urge to change the subject. A wave of something that doesn't have a name yet.
We approach, not analyze
Instead of asking why you feel the way you do, we ask what's there — and then we go toward it. Parts respond to presence differently than they respond to understanding.
The parts do the talking
Often something surprising comes up — a memory, an image, a sense of a younger version of yourself. Parts communicate in their own language: feeling-tone, body sensation, sudden knowing. You don't have to have the right words.
You stay in the lead
IFS is not hypnosis. You are present and in control throughout. Nothing happens that you don't choose. The work moves at the pace of the part that needs to be approached — which is usually slower than the thinking mind wants to go.
It's relational, not just internal
The relationship between you and your therapist matters in IFS. Many parts decide it's safe to be seen partly because someone else in the room is also willing to see them without flinching.
Change is gradual and real
IFS produces a deepening — a growing internal landscape where more is available, more is tolerable, and the parts that have been working so hard begin to trust that they don't have to do it alone anymore.
Most people who have tried to think their way through their struggles come to IFS and find that thinking was never the problem — and was never going to be the solution. The parts that carry the most don't respond to logic. They respond to being known.
How IFS connects to your life
The same work, inside different struggles
IFS is not a separate modality for a separate kind of problem. It's a way of understanding what's underneath all of them. Here's how parts work connects to the specific things people come to therapy carrying.
Relationship conflict
The part that shuts down in an argument and the part that can't stop pushing — both are protectors, running strategies they learned long before this relationship existed. IFS helps you see which part is activated, understand what it's protecting, and find enough space to stay in the conversation.
Therapy for relationship conflict →Self-worth and the inner critic
The inner critic is one of the most common managers — and one of the most misunderstood. It's not trying to destroy you. It's trying to protect a younger part that has been carrying beliefs about not being enough for a very long time. When the critic is approached with curiosity instead of combat, everything changes.
Therapy for self-worth →Boundaries and people-pleasing
The part that can't say no is almost always a manager protecting something — the fear of losing love, the belief that your needs are a burden, the exile that learned early that making yourself easy was the price of belonging. IFS reaches that part directly.
Therapy for boundaries and guilt →Overthinking and anxiety
Overthinking is a manager running a protection protocol — scanning for danger, anticipating every outcome, trying to think its way to safety. IFS doesn't try to silence it. It gets curious about what it's afraid would happen if it stopped — and reaches the exile underneath that fear.
Therapy for overthinking →Relationship anxiety and trust
The part that checks your phone, the part that pulls away before they can leave, the part that reads neutrality as rejection — these are protectors organized around an exile that formed an attachment wound early. Parts work reaches that exile in a way that insight alone never quite does.
Therapy for relationship anxiety →Feeling stuck or disconnected
Numbness and disconnection are often firefighters — parts that muted the system when feeling became too costly. The exiles they're protecting carry the most authentic life: longing, grief, desire, anger. IFS approaches them carefully enough that the firefighters don't have to keep the doors closed.
Therapy for feeling stuck →Common questions
What people ask before starting
Do I have to believe in IFS for it to work?
No. You don't have to accept the framework — you just have to be willing to notice what's happening inside and get curious about it. Most people find the language useful once they see how well it describes something they've already been experiencing. The parts aren't a theory. They're things you've already felt.
Is IFS the same as EMDR or somatic therapy?
They're related but different. All three work with what's underneath cognitive understanding, and they're often used together. IFS is specifically organized around the idea of parts and Self — it has a particular relational quality, asking you to turn toward the parts of yourself rather than process them from the outside. Many people find IFS more accessible than other trauma modalities because it meets them where they already are.
What if I can't visualize things or don't have clear memories?
You don't need to. IFS works through body sensation, emotion, and felt sense just as readily as imagery. Parts communicate in whatever way they communicate — a tightness, a sudden shift in mood, a thought that keeps returning. There's no right way to experience this. The work adjusts to how your system shows up.
Is IFS a good fit if I've tried therapy before and it didn't help?
Often yes — especially if previous therapy felt like talking about things without anything actually shifting. IFS goes toward the parts of the system that have been most defended, most protected, most out of reach — and builds a relationship with them. That's different from understanding them. Many people who felt stuck in previous therapy find something different here.
How long does IFS therapy take?
It depends entirely on what the system is carrying and how long it's been carrying it. Some people experience meaningful shifts within a few months. Others are doing longer work as different layers become available. What IFS tends not to do is produce a fast insight that doesn't hold. The changes tend to be slower and more durable than that.
Do you practice IFS exclusively?
My practice is IFS-informed and attachment-aware — meaning IFS is the primary lens, and attachment theory runs alongside it. I don't practice IFS as a rigid protocol. I use it as a way of understanding what's happening inside and relating to it with curiosity. Some sessions are more explicitly parts-focused; others are more relational and spacious. The work follows what the client's system needs, not a fixed sequence.
Perrin Holloway
T-MAFT · Therapist
- IFS-informed therapy
- Attachment-based approach
- Trauma-aware practice
- Nashville, TN · Telehealth
I came to IFS because it was the first model that made sense of what I was actually seeing in the room — not diagnoses, not patterns to be corrected, but people with internal systems that had organized themselves around real experiences, doing the best they could with what they had.
What I practice is IFS-informed, which means the framework shapes how I understand what's happening — but the work itself is relational and responsive. I'm not running a protocol. I'm in the room with you, paying attention to what your system is showing us, and following it carefully.
I work with people in Nashville, TN and via telehealth across Tennessee. If you're curious whether this kind of work might be a fit, the best next step is a consultation.
The parts that have been working hardest deserve to rest.
In-person sessions in Nashville. Telehealth available across Tennessee.
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