IFS Therapy For Intellectualizers

Have you ever felt like an expert at intellectualizing your problems, but notice yourself struggling to connect to your body or deeper emotions? This is a common theme I see come up in therapy, particularly with folks who are high-functioning but feel disconnected from parts of themselves. IFS therapy can help us to get out of our heads and connect to our bodies and emotions that often lie outside of conscious awareness. If you tend to try to “think” or talk through your problems but find this isn’t helping, an IFS somatic approach can help you to gain clarity, confidence, and trust internally, leading to symptom relief and a greater sense of groundedness and calm.

Bringing Awareness to our bodies (find)

We start this process in therapy by increasing awareness of our body and internal parts. I’ll guide you in this somatic approach by finding and noticing how your parts show up in or around your body. For example, you might notice that your anxious part shows up as tension in your chest, or that a depressed part feels numb and heavy in your shoulders.

focus in

We’ll then choose a part to focus on and notice how it feels to put your attention towards it.

Flesh Out

I’ll then guide you in noticing how you see or experience this part. What does it look like? What kind of energy does it have? How old is it?

Feel Toward

Then you’ll notice how you feel towards this part. This allows us to unblend from it and experience being in a present place of Self (what IFS calls “Self-energy”), separate from our parts. We’ll notice if an intellectualizing part (these usually show up in or around our heads) might be trying to find the “right” answer - if so, we’ll gently ask this part to step back.

Befriend

From here, you’ll learn more about the part. What does it want to tell you about why it’s there? What are its good intentions and job? How long has it been around?

Fears

Next we’ll learn about this part’s fears and what it worries might happen if it steps back from its role. This can give us information about younger, deeper parts that need healing in order to shift how this part shows up in your system.

This approach allows us to stop thinking and experience “being” - sitting with and feeling present in the moment with our bodies and emotions. By slowing down and noticing what comes up with openness and curiosity, we are actually able to find relief faster and with more ease, though this may seem counterintuitive to your intellectualizing parts. Please reach out to schedule a phone consultation if you’re interested in learning more about this approach. I look forward to hearing from you.