IFS vs Traditional Talk Therapy: Why Parts Work Goes Deeper
Tired of talk therapy that helps you understand your patterns—but not change them? In this post, Bethany Russell, MA, LPC, breaks down how Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy goes beyond coping strategies to heal the parts of you that traditional therapy often overlooks. Learn why your anxious, people-pleasing, or shutdown responses aren’t flaws—they’re protectors. And discover why working with your internal system creates lasting transformation.

There are two versions of you. There's the you that knows you're safe, worthy, and capable of healthy relationships—calm, grounded, and wise. Then there's the you that panics when your partner doesn't text back, abandons yourself to keep others happy, or shuts down the moment conflict arises. Traditional therapy treats both versions like they're the same person. IFS knows better. Your trauma responses aren't character flaws—they're protective parts trying to keep you safe. Here's why parts work changes everything for trauma survivors...

I'm going to tell you something that might sting a little.

If you're someone who says yes when you mean no, who agrees to keep the peace, who shape-shifts depending on who you're with—people can sense it. And on some level, they don't trust you.

Not because you're a bad person. But because they can feel that you're not being real with them.

Your fawn response might be keeping you safe, but it's also keeping people at arm's length.

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I'm tired of the bullshit.

You sit in therapy talking about your anxiety, your relationship patterns, your work stress. But you can't mention that you felt your grandmother's presence after she died. You can't talk about the dream that felt like a message. You definitely can't say that you just "know" things sometimes.

Because you've learned that therapists either look at you like you're having a psychotic break or they change the subject real quick.

So you split yourself in half. Psychology over here, spirituality over there. Never the two shall meet.

I've been thinking about this pattern I keep seeing with my clients.

They've built incredible things. Successful businesses, impressive careers, the kind of life that looks amazing from the outside. And they come to me saying some version of the same thing:

"I should be happy. I have everything I thought I wanted. But I feel... empty."

The part that gets me is how guilty they feel about it. Like they're ungrateful or broken for not feeling fulfilled by their success.

But here's what I've learned: achievement doesn't automatically heal your inner world.

Self-sovereignty gets hijacked in six core ways: blended parts, survival-mode nervous systems, attachment wounds, ancestral trauma, emotional outsourcing, and soul-level patterns. This guide explores how these hijackers show up—and how to reclaim your power through IFS, somatic healing, and spiritual integration.

Self-sovereign: The lived capacity to lead from your authentic Self, even when trauma, emotional triggers, inherited burdens, or relational patterns arise. To be self-sovereign is to sit in the driver’s seat of your inner world—where your choices, boundaries, and responses are directed not by wounded parts or fear, but by clarity, compassion, and conscious intent. By Bethany Russell, LPC.