When 'You' Aren't Really You: Exploring the Parts Behind Your Reactions

I have been doing a lot of reading, around psychological approaches, especially body based work. My knowledge gathering hasn’t been linear. I read, I experience, I talk about it with my therapists (yes, plural. I work with three. Judge away), something shows up on social media, I pick up a word or two, then dig into that. Obviously no particular order. One of the frameworks that is becoming more and more popular is Parts Work, as detailed in the Internal Family Systems approach developed by Richard Swartz.

This is the first in a series of posts on Parts Work. My aim is to explain the concept as I understand it, bring it to life through personal example, draw some helpful generalizations, and offer practical suggestions for your own exploration.

The Internal Family System

Here's how I understand Internal Family Systems — The way your mind works, how you react and respond, is engineered by several distinct parts that exist within you, like members within a household. However, their interactions aren't like a Sunday dinner, but as you will see later in this post, more like a sophisticated booby trap with complex engineering and hidden mechanisms. These parts have unique origin stories and possess varying degrees of maturity and power within your internal system. Some you may recognize instantly, while others operate behind the scenes. Some parts directly influence or control others, while some function independently.

When Parts Surprise Us

Has this ever happened to you? You're in the middle of an argument, and suddenly you—as well as your partner—are thrown off by something you did: a scathing remark, a physical gesture, or an intense facial expression. Typically, you continue the argument to its natural conclusion, but later, in a saner moment, you or your partner wonder, "Where did that come from?"

Maybe you want to actually figure out where it came from. You are curious about the origin. But more to the point, chances are that you did not like that it came at all. And since you weren't in control when it happened, you're now seeking ways to prevent it from happening again.

The Booby Trap Metaphor

Think of it like a booby trap. You open a door and get hit by a wrecking ball. (Forgive the gruesome imagery, blame the movie Novocaine I was watching last night. Good fun. Recommend.) That's what's visible on the surface—you do something (open the door), and something happens to you (get hit). What remains hidden is the complex wiring behind the scenes. When the door opens, a string gets dislodged, activating a lever that releases a ball, which triggers another mechanism, and so on. You get the drift.

Parts work involves understanding this hidden engineering with the objective of determining whether what happened was what you intended, and if not, how to address it. For example, in that argument with your partner, perhaps you threw a glass at them. You might think—Did I really want to throw that glass? Probably not. What part of me felt it had to? The first instinct would also be to say — how do I control the part to to not do that anymore. What we will learn while doing parts work is to reframe that to — How can I work with that part so it no longer feels compelled to react this way?

To accomplish this, we need to examine the mechanics of our internal booby trap—what are the different parts, which ones do the heavy lifting, which are the rusty parts that are clunking along, what parts activate what, and which parts do nothing, but come in the way.

The Work of Parts Integration

Work of this nature requires you to:

a. Identify the parts (what's showing up) 

b. Understand their function (what they're trying to accomplish) 

c. See how they're operating in this moment (are they overreacting or underperforming?) 

d. Assess whether they're helping or hurting (are they serving the situation?) 

e. Tinker with the system (what needs oiling, rewiring, or perhaps a creative hack)

If it all sounds very daunting, trust me it might seem like that, but with practice these will be as easy as breathing. The process will be easy, the work itself will not. Stay with me, and you will get a hang of what I am talking about, through the lens of my personal experience. However, you would be ill-advised to attempt this effort on your own, at least to begin with.

Finding Support for the Journey

Given the complexity of this endeavor, most of us apprentices could benefit from some guidance—from either a senior apprentice or a master of the craft. They can help you get acquainted both with the parts and the process.

However, this is your booby trap, your parts. You own both the triggers and the possibility for change. Think of your guide not as the driver, but as a fellow tinkerer helping you along the way. It's your hands that ultimately do the work.

I did this work myself, partly under guidance, and partly on my own. I connected with one part I came to know as Ms. Freeze. She made a surprise entry, chilled me with her presence (hehe!), and initially annoyed me by her very existence. More on how that transpired in upcoming parts of this series.