Anxiety and Depression - an IFS perspective
“How you define a problem limits its solutions.” — Mike Elkin (with Ann Sinko), seminar on Anxiety and Depression
If we label something “depression” or “anxiety”, we’ve already narrowed the field. It becomes a problem to fix or get rid of, and it gets oversimplified. We’re all different: one person’s anxiety may be nothing like another’s; the same goes for depression. You simply can’t know until you’ve explored it.
Most mental-health difficulties have both psychological and biological components that vary by person. IFS makes it far more workable to view experiences of anxiety and depression as coping strategies of parts—some inherited, some current. Parts may also use biological vulnerabilities as levers to gain influence (Frank Anderson).
Common contributors can include:
Purely biological factors — your particular neurotype, or the result of physical trauma.
Inherited influences — a biological vulnerability and/or a legacy burden.
Exiles signalling — the sadness or fear of younger parts seeking your attention.
Protective parts — anxiously working to keep Exiles out of awareness.
Polarised protectors — pulling you up or down, or protecting you from another protector one layer below.
Mislabelled grief — what looks like depression may actually be grief.
IFS: a simple model
IFS invites you to get curious about how these parts function in your system. With gentle questioning we can tease apart what’s driven by motivated parts and what’s rooted in biology. Assumptions and generalisations are risky; we ask to find out who is doing what to whom, and why.
In essence, IFS has the same answer to every “problem”:
Help the parts that are expressing themselves in burdened ways to connect with Self.
So we turn towards protective parts (and Exiles… and grief), befriend them, and stay with them. Protector parts usually have good intentions. Let’s “sit and have tea” with them—and with the parts that don’t like them. Our rational minds won’t have all the answers; your system will.
How to begin: the 6 F’s
Start with the 6 F’s: Find, Focus, Flesh out, Feel toward, Befriend, and (name the) Fears.
Keep asking: How do I feel towards this part? That question builds a Self-to-part connection.
Ask inside with curiosity and kindness.
Breathe, slow down, and allow space.
Let parts know you’re here; they’re not alone.
Imagine getting everyone round a table with you at the centre.
Meet them one by one, patiently learning hopes and fears.
Protectors are often stuck in polarisations and can’t move. You offer something different: a safe relationship with Self, and a way off their entrenched positions. There’s real hope here.
(I’ve put together a Parts Mapping starter pack you may find helpful. Pick one up at the Drop-In or download/print from my website — £4. It includes the 6 F’s, several round-table maps, a body map, the shame cycle, Fire Drill, etc.)
https://www.stroudtherapy.com/store/p/parts-mapping-workbook
The lynchpin: Self energy & unblending
Self energy and unblending are central to everything anxiety- and depression-related. We’re restoring Self leadership and trust in the responsible adult—the you that isn’t a part. When a competent adult is in the room, everyone calms down.
IFS holds that we all carry the inner resource required to soften, regulate, and heal.
P.S. I love the book by Seth Kopald—if you’d like more on being Self-led, I highly recommend it.
A few things to check for
1) What’s the job here?
Protector, Exile, or biology? Be curious: Does this part work for me in some way?
If it’s a protector, you’ll often hear/sense/see what it’s trying to achieve for you.
If it says “I’m hurting”, you’re likely with an Exile (go gently).
And sometimes it’s biological: neurotype, hormones, sleep, medication effects, illness or pain. Note it without judgement.
2) When there’s no answer
Sometimes you ask inside and nothing comes back. That’s OK.
As Joanne Twombly reminds us: simply turn up and say hello.
Parts often need time to trust you and respond.
Stay consistent: a warm greeting, a breath, and the offer of your company. That’s the work.
When there’s silence or very young parts
It may be a young Exile. Some Exiles are pre-verbal or even in-utero. Sitting with, breathing with, and offering space and patience can help—notice any sensations or flickers.
Recommended documentary: IN UTERO (with Gabor Maté, etc.): https://www.inuterofilm.com/Blocking protectors. Numbing, “nothingness”, doors, fog… these are often protectors. Extend curiosity and simply sit with them. Invite any parts “in the way” to come closer and join you.
Could this be biological?
Brainwaves differ. My own brainwaves run fast (neurofeedback shows I’m far from “average”), which fuels quick thinking and zest—and, historically, significant anxiety. Others have more naturally theta-dominant waves, bringing dreaminess and calm, but with a tendency to low mood.
Morning spikes. Many (especially trauma survivors) feel more anxious on waking due to a cortisol surge. You might brief your system the night before—“This is biology; it will pass”—and delay coffee for a while after waking.
Overview on cortisol: https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/articles/22187-cortisolUsual access, but sudden silence? If you often connect with parts and now there’s nothing, it may be a biological factor this time. Note it kindly.
Check for polarisations
Ask: If I’m depressed, is there a part that hates the depression? If I’m anxious, is there a part that hates the anxiety?
We can have any combination of polarisations—not just Manager vs Firefighter.
e.g. Manager A wants visibility and recognition, Manager B wants you to hide and fit in.
An Exile’s sadness vs a part that wants to reach out; a Firefighter who wants to shout vs one who wants to run.
These inner tug-of-wars can generate more anxiety and flip-flopping.
More here: https://www.stroudtherapy.com/news/internalpolarisations
Check for layers
Parts often protect other parts (sometimes in tiers).
e.g. A part that drinks to excess may be protecting a suicidal part behind it.
All parts have good intentions—we just haven’t learnt them yet.
In IFS it’s rarely a single part (Ann Sinko, Martha Sweezy, Mike Elkin): it’s usually clusters.
System dynamics to remember
Systems tend towards healing. Like any oppressed group, Exiles want out of their prisons (Osnat Arbel’s “come over the line”). Protectors (proactive and reactive) push back—anxiety rises when “prisoners” try to escape.
Protector paradox. Protectors often create the opposite of what they intend—trying to prevent one feeling can inadvertently amplify it.
Check for the inherited portion (legacy burdens)
Ask inside: Is this energy entirely mine?
When did you take on this burden? If the answer is “always”, it may be inherited.
Do parts know the line it came from?
Genograms help. If your symptoms don’t match your life story—“This level of depression/anxiety doesn’t make sense”—consider legacy burdens and draw a simple genogram.
Background: https://www.stroudtherapy.com/news/workingwithlegacyburdensMichi Rose pie-chart exercise:
Draw a circle. Using your non-dominant hand, shade the slice that’s inherited vs yours. Many discover 50%+ is inherited—how is it to imagine that much isn’t actually yours?
Two more lenses: energetic and shame-related
Energetic “home from home”. Where does your system tend to sit (which also maps to neurotype)? Notice protectors and Exiles energetically—how they rise, sink, or oscillate.
Nervous system frame. See the IFS–Polyvagal overview for how states interweave with parts:
https://www.stroudtherapy.com/news/polyvagalandifs
Please don’t take my word for this—check inside.
Take a moment to tune in (aim for about 2/10 intensity). Let yourself feel a little activation—perhaps imagine being in a busy train station.
SYMPATHETIC
Anxiety is sympathetic activation without a sense of safety: nervousness, worry, dread.
Now imagine you bump into a dear friend—with safety, sympathetic activation becomes excitement.
DORSAL
Blend briefly (again, ~2/10) with a time you felt low: collapsed, sad, hopeless, low energy. Is that how dorsal shows up in your system?
Now shift to regulated dorsal—chosen deep rest and rejuvenation. How does that feel?
VENTRAL VAGAL
If it’s okay, come back up the polyvagal ladder to ventral vagal—calm, compassion, presence, curiosity, flow.
Exiles and protectors—an energetic look
Exiles
Some Exiles carry low, hiding energy—despair, hopelessness, shame; they want to disappear.
Others feel high, anxious energy—fearful, needy, urgently calling for your attention. Does that fit for you?
High-energy protectors
Some anxious protectors keep the system revved. Check inside: what keeps you “up”?
Examples: hypervigilance (“watch for danger”), dire warnings, constant busyness, posting on social media, performing, controlling, courting conflict; uppers, affairs—excitement (or is it anxiety?).
You’ve found one—turn towards it: what’s it trying to do for you? What are its hopes and fears?
Low-energy protectors
Other protectors depress the system. Ask inside: what’s your story?
Depression can function as a coping strategy: anaesthetising life to reduce pain—at the cost of joy and beauty.
A protector may amplify depressive symptoms to keep you home, small, unseen, avoiding risks (and potential criticism and shame), or immobilise the body to hobble an angry or suicidal part. Some Firefighters also push down (e.g., sedatives, cannabis, dissociation).
The biggie: shame at the centre of anxiety and depression
Many (Martha Sweezy, Ann Sinko, Mike Elkin) see shame at the heart of anxiety and depression.
As Sweezy puts it: anxiety is often the fear that our shame will be seen.
When you really get to know your parts, you may find protectors working tirelessly to keep shame hidden. And yet systems move towards healing—those Exiles will keep seeking you. Is that true in your system? Don’t take my word for it—ask inside.
(Martha Sweezy speculates that IFS is effective with a broad swath of psychic suffering because self-compassion, which is the centerpiece of IFS, is mutually exclusive with self-shaming, and shame has a seminal role in a wide variety of symptoms, including depression and anxiety).
I’m going to use Martha’s Shame cycle in 6 acts
ACTS 1&2 If shaming hits a vulnerability in the recipient, especially a child, it stands a good chance of becoming an identity burden, a belief about one's personal worthlessness and unlovability. This state of being produces anxiety all around the recipient's internal system. The exile longs to be loved, its belief its worthless (depressed feelings) and fears being rejected (anxious feelings). They long for redemption.. Does this chime in your system?
ACT 3 Continuous-improvement inner critics are anxious to upgrade shameful qualities. So they relentlessly criticise us internally and try to improve us by shaming. They are anxious that the shamefulness underneath will be seen so they call us names to motivate us. But that makes us feel so low and bad about ourselves… or unbearably anxious … or a combo… what happens to you?
ACT 4 Anticipatory scouts also fear the shamefulness underneath, they don’t want to let us ever feel that shamefulness again, or for our shame to be seen and so they plot to avoid the exile's exposure to more shaming both externally and internally… but of course being perfect, or caretaking others… either makes the person smaller, more of a hologram, often ‘de-press’ us … which likely creates more shameful feelings. Or gets us to be more out there so we’re not shamed for being shy, like we once were for example…
ACT 5 Reactive firefighter parts pinch hit for each other, blaming the other – its not me its you – deflecting the shamefulness underneath – so anxious not for the shame to be seen (particularly if the ‘other’ has shamed them) but of course this often invites others to react back with shaming – depression or anxiety here?
ACT 6 These hardworking firefighters counteract the exile's anxious longings by self-soothing with substances, food, sex, dissociation, TV, meditation of the "spiritual bypass" variety (in which a protective part dissociates), online surfing, extreme exercising, and so on. So the shamefulness isn’t exposed, its squashed down. Some bring us up and others down..
Medication obviously this is a major topic but of particular interest to many so I wanted to pop it in. So Frank Anderson has much to say about this. Synthesising it … if you’re thinking of medication please have a meeting with your parts and hear what they have to say. It may be that one part wants another part to disappear, and that part might be trying to look after you in some way. Having Self there to listen, befriend and consciously make choices is really important. Asking, anyone else inside have any views? I have no agenda here, take or don’t take. protectors may be protecting from another layer of parts, so depression might be actually protecting a suicidal part for example Medication may be really helpful for some people to take the edge off the extremety of anxiety or depression so there’s the possibility of meeting with parts and working with them.
FINALLY
I wanted to say a bit about …Grief .. parts around the issue of grief because they present very, very closely to depression. there's always a constellation of parts when we're talking about grief.
the whole business of therapy is about loss/grief, not having the parents or childhood we needed, how expectations haven’t gone as we hoped. We might not have the community around us we are biologically geared for. We have a climate emergency and that weighs heavily.
If you’re like me and grew up with a lot of shaming and shamefulness, we couldn't talk about loss/grief and we couldn't get support about it, so it needed to be repressed.
So, our exiles end up handling and holding all of our grief around our losses. They get more and more layered.
Managers hold it at bay the parts that might tell you what's making it sad or what it's currently suffering with loss, it's usually not depression.
Please know that grief is a normal, natural process that we need to go through. As we do our work, and find in the present we have a loss and all of a sudden, we're feeling this pileup of losses from our lifetime—things that haven't been fully resolved. This is normal. Golden trailheads…
I highly recommend Ann Sinko’s work around grief.. and her beautiful exploration of Frances Weller’s beautiful insightful book and the five gates of grief we go through. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_T9yNCPZIFQ
