Internal Family Systems

Self-Therapy ~ Exploring Your Own System ~ Parts Work

Lesson: Identifying the Parts at a Trailhead

Let’s suppose you have an issue you would like to work on. How do you know what parts to explore? In this lesson, you will learn how to determine which parts are involved with an issue. In IFS, issues are sometimes referred to as Trailheads. A trailhead is an experience or difficulty in your life that will lead to interesting parts if you follow it. It can be a situation or person you react to, an emotional experience or physical sensation, a pattern of behavior and/or negative thinking, a dream, a flashback or memory, or anything else that would indicate their might be parts to explore. We call it a trailhead because it is the beginning of a trail that can lead to healing. It usually involves both a life situation and your response to that situation.

A trailhead indicates the presence of one or more parts in extreme roles, where your behavior or emotional reaction is dysfunctional or problematic. 

• A part might be perceiving the situation negatively or incorrectly. For example, your boss might be somewhat critical of your performance, and a part sees them as judging you, because they remind you of your overly critical and judgmental mother and/or father.
• A part might overreact emotionally. For example, your boss might be somewhat critical, but the part becomes extremely upset. It might say something like, “I am not appreciated or respected, I should just quit this job.”
• A part might take action that is extreme or inappropriate. For example, the part quits your job, or becomes angry or rebellious with your boss because it perceives him as being critical and judgmental, and these actions/behaviors have consequences, or cause you more problems.

One of my trailheads involves me feeling anxious, awkward, or shy in large groups of people I don’t know very well. I tend to be (introverted – in the popular conception of the trait) withdrawn and not very expressive or open. Here are some more examples from other parts work participants:

• A person I don’t get along with at work
• A situation I felt powerless in, in which I was afraid that whatever action I took, someone was not going to get there way or be happy, and they would feel hurt. I ended up feeling paralyzed because I felt like I had to choose between two people.
• Fear of flying in an airplane.
• Difficult work projects. When some piece of a project is more complex and taking longer than I thought, I focus on it for hours, trying to get it done, while ignoring my body’s needs, any awareness of myself, and any other tasks that need my attention. I watch myself getting sucked in but I can’t pull away.
• Controlling people. When I feel like someone is trying to control me, I withdraw and get away as soon as I can.
• Thoughts about rejection. Sometimes when I feel rejected by someone, I will obsess about it, trying to figure out what I did wrong, and what I should have done or said instead.

When you arrive at a trailhead, at least one part is activated and often there is more than one part activated. For example, when I am in a large group of strangers, I have at least four parts activated – one that is scared of being hurt, another part afraid of looking foolish, another that wants to hide in a corner, and another that wants to reach out and socialize with others, despite the other parts’ fears. 

Parts are their own entities. They have beliefs, assumptions, expectations, perceptions, desires, thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. By examining your experience and behavior, you can make an initial identification of the parts that are involved in any trailhead you want to explore. There will be parts corresponding to feelings and body reactions triggered by that situation and thoughts and desires you have about it. There will also be parts that determine the way you behave in that situation.

Let’s look at each of these in turn:

Feelings

You are likely to have at least one emotional reaction to the trailhead situation, perhaps more than one. You may feel angry, sad, or afraid, for example. In addition, you may notice certain attitudes you have in that situation; you may feel judgmental, thoughtless, stingy, careful, zany, doubtful, or mischievous. Each feeling, emotion, or attitude indicates the presence of a part, except for those attitudes that come from the Self, such as being kind or centered. Furthermore, if you feel cut off from your feelings, that is probably caused by a part. For example, if you feel dead, closed, or cold in a trailhead situation, there probably is a part causing this.

Body Sensations

Most body sensations that come up in response to a trailhead are related to parts. The exceptions are purely physiological sensations (like a stomachache because of something you ate) and the bodily experiences of Self, such as feeling peaceful, open, or energetic. Parts can cause muscle tension, such as tightness in your shoulders or back. They can produce heat in your arms or cold in your belly. There are many possible body sensations—hardness, heaviness, nausea, emptiness, or holding, for example. You might experience them in certain places in your body or in your body as a whole. In addition, if there is a deadness or lack of feeling in your body (or a part of your body), that is also caused by a part that doesn’t want you to feel.

Thoughts

Many thoughts that arise in response to a trailhead situation come from parts. This includes thoughts about people in the situation, “She is certainly intrusive,” or about yourself, “That was a stupid thing to say.” Many patterns of thinking also indicate parts—for example, obsessing about a difficult conversation with your boss or having frequent judgmental thoughts about people. Even the absence of thought sometimes indicates a part. For example, if your mind suddenly goes blank, there is usually a part causing this, perhaps because it doesn’t want you to continue with a train of thought that it considers dangerous.

Behavior

An action or pattern of behavior can indicate a part—for example, withdrawing or becoming pushy. The avoidance of behavior also indicates a part. For example, if you find yourself avoiding a phone call or a project you need to work on, that comes from a procrastinating part.

Desires

Certain types of desires come from a part. One part may want closeness or success. Another might want to be seen and appreciated. A third might want to be left alone. A lack of desire could also come from a part that doesn’t think it is safe to want things.

Let’s look at a trailhead in more detail. Suppose you visited a friend’s house, and you felt like they were being verbally abusive to their child, and you were considering talking to your friend about this but you kept hesitating. In order to explore this, let us imagine you are bringing it up with them. These are some possible parts you could gain access to:

• One part wants to avoid talking to your friend about this. This might be felt as a strangling feeling in your throat that was intended to stop you from speaking because you might otherwise make a mistake and cause their child pain.
• A loving part cares about your friend and their child.
• A part is sad and regretful because you haven’t communicated well before.
• A part feels disappointed and embarrassed about how they treat their child.
• A part is angry at your friend and protective of their child. It wants to say “How dare you?!” and take the child away.
• A part is afraid of the angry/protective part, and that is reflected in your stomach feeling very disturbed. This part is afraid of being overwhelmed by the angry part and making hurtful statements to them. This disturbed part keeps you from being aware of the angry part for a while.

You can see from this scenario that many parts may be activated by a single trailhead, and they interact with each other in attempts to influence your feelings, thoughts, decisions, behavior, and actions. This brings up the question of how you tell one part from another. If two feelings seem very different or if they are opposed to each other, they are clearly different parts.

For example, your love for your friend and your anger at them are so opposite that they clearly come from different parts. If one part seems to be blocking or protecting against another, it means they are different parts. For example, your disturbed-stomach part blocked your awareness of the angry/protective part for a while.

However, what if two parts seem similar? For example, the strangling feeling and the disturbed-stomach seem to have roughly the same attitude, so they might be coming from the same part or from two different parts. This can’t be determined intellectually. You will only find out when you
begin exploring them in more depth.

This section is a review of the activity and is available as a worksheet. To start, you will want to choose a trailhead that you are interested in exploring. Using the approach described above, make a list of each of the parts involved with that trailhead.

For each part, investigate it through the following channels and write the answers if you can:

• [Name] Does the part have a name. What does it want to be called?
• [Feeling] What does it feel emotionally?
• [Image] What does it look like?
• [Sensation] What does it feel like in your body and where is it?
• [Thought] What does it say to you?
• [Behavior] How does it make you act?
• [Desire] What does it need, or want?

You haven’t fully explored these parts, so don’t be concerned if you don’t know much about them. Just fill in what you do know. Add information to your description later as you get to know the part better. In order to allow you to more easily write out the answers to this exercise and all the other Self Therapy exercises on this website, here is a Companion Workbook that you can download for free.

Trailhead Activity

Trailhead Worksheet

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