Expressive Therapies Summit - Internal Family Systems

October 13, 2017

Internal Family Systems (IFS) and Art Therapy: An Introduction Using Collage & Clay

Peggy Kolodny and Salicia Mazero

The first day of the Expressive Therapies Summit in New York was an all day workshop entitled Internal Family Systems (IFS) and Art Therapy: An Introduction Using Collage & Clay. In this workshop, conference participants attended a lecture portion for the first half of the day followed by a hands on workshop after lunch. Out of all the workshops I had attended over the two days that I had participated in at the conference, I think this workshop was my favorite.

The lecture of the workshop mainly focused on Internal Family Systems or IFS. Internal Family Systems is an integrative approach to psychotherapy developed by Richard Shwartz.

The IFS approach helps explain the multiplicity of the mind by combining concepts of the systems theory with notions of internal subpersonalities in the mind. These internal subpersonalities are called “parts”. These “parts” have an ego personality status in the mind. The way that Kolodny and Mazero described these “parts” was by comparing it to the characters of the Disney movie, “Inside Out”. Each emotion that is portrayed as a character in the movie can be seen as something similar to the “parts” a person can have. Each “part” has their own different perspectives, interests, memories, and viewpoints and make up who we are. There are two types of “parts”: Protectors and exiles. The protectors are the “parts” that another person might meet first before they meet the exiles; they are the “parts” that protect the self from being hurt. The exiles are the “parts” that are younger and wounded characteristics of our personality. Kolodny and Mazero, in terms of speaking about our different “parts”, all contribute to our self. Our self contains crucial qualities such as perspective, confidence, compassion, and acceptance.

In lecture, Kolodny and Mazero connected the theory of our different “parts” with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID). They explained DID by drawing out a line to represent a spectrum. On the right end of the line represented a person who did not experience dissociation while the left end represented Dissociative Identity Disorder. All of us are born with different “parts”. Although they all work together to create the self, they can also fragment. Singular “parts” may show up or decide to withdraw from expression depending on environmental situations. Some “parts” may take over and we may sometimes forget that they do. The example that the speakers used was the notion of driving. Sometimes, when we are driving, we don’t realize that we are driving. When we get to our destination, we may not even remember driving there. That is an example of a part taking over and partial dissociation. The more fragmented we become, the closer we are to DID. We may move up and down the spectrum according to different situations, however those with Dissociative Identity Disorder have parts that have become very fragmented. This was the most intriguing part of the lecture to me, and I found myself going up to Mazero to ask more about this concept.

The hands on workshop introduced the use of collage and sculpture in therapy. The use of collage and sculpture in the case of learning about clients’ Internal Family Systems are tools that help the client and the therapist get to know the clients’ different parts. In using these different kinds of media, Kolodny and Mazero referred to the use of “gadgets”. These gadgets are guides that the therapist will use to get to understand the client’s piece. Some gadgets are as follows:

• Describe the image, write down descriptions of the piece

• Analogize

• Use adverbs and adjectives to describe the piece

• Notice any disjunctions in the piece

• Ask client, that if the piece could speak, what would it say?

When I had participated in creating my collage and sculpture piece, creating the art itself was very cathartic. Going over the pieces as a group, encouraged me to share with a room full of licensed therapists and social workers about my anxieties and helped me learn more about myself. This workshop was a great way to start my weekend at the summit and my experience as an art-therapy student.