In this blog, I will write about Internal Family Systems Therapy(IFS) and its perspective on gender and sexual identity formation. I will start explaining IFS and then present the „Star of Self“ a model created by Victoria Kirby and Magdalena Ségur-Cabanac, with which gender and sexual identity formation processes can be comprehended and supported.

For those familiar with the concepts of IFS, please click here to jump directly to the description of the gender and sexual identity formation process.

Internal Family Systems

Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy is a therapeutic approach that regards the human psyche as a system made of many parts and a Self at its core. This natural multiplicity, that is not pathologized enables a paradigm shift in psychotherapy and far beyond. Many people consider IFS not only as an effective method to work on trauma and other mental issues but as a paradigm for living.
It’s a way to be in the world.

IFS was developed by Dr. Richard Schwartz in the 1980s in the US.
Dr. Schwartz, who was trained as a systemic family therapist, discovered that his patients had various internal parts that communicated with each other and a Self, that had different qualities than the parts.

He realized that parts are like their personalities willfull in character, complete with temperament, desires, feelings, bodily sensations, thoughts, behaviors, and their own way of communicating. Moreover, he discovered that parts have alliances and polarities with each other.

From this perspective, every one of us contains an inner tribe of people. Isn’t that wonderful?

Instead of seeing people as lacking resources, IFS assumes people are constrained from using their innate strengths by polarized relationships, both within and with the people around them. IFS aims to help release the constraints and, in doing so, also release inner resources. The Self, who becomes visible, once the parts step aside is naturally calm, curious, clear, connected, creative, courageous, compassionate, and confident.

Sound crazy to you?
Well, have you ever felt ambivalent about something? Looking through the lens of IFS the debating inner voices are parts of you with different needs, thoughts, and behaviors all wanting to make the right choice for you.

Internal Family Systems is a synthesis of two paradigms: the idea that we all contain many different parts, and systems thinking.
„With the view that intrapsychic processes constitute a system, IFS invites therapists to relate to every level of the human system—the intrapsychic, familial, communal, cultural, and social—with ecologically sensitive concepts and methods that focus on understanding and respecting the network of relationships among members.“ (Schwartz and Sweezy, 2020 p.26).

IFS can be an extremely helpful instrument to understand and relate intrapsychic and social challenges that we face as individuals and as a society. Talking about gender identity development IFS can help understand how the external world and its messages leave trances and scars (burdens) in the internal world of (gender non-conforming) people.

Let’s dive a little deeper into this understanding of human beings-what is this SELF? Does everyone have it?

Self

The good news is, that we all have this inner realm of peace and love. It is our very natural state.

„From birth this Self has all the necessary qualities of good leadership, including compassion, perspective, curiosity, acceptance, and confidence. It does not have to develop through stages. As a result, the Self makes the best inner leader and will engender balance and harmony inside if parts allow it to lead. At the same time, our parts are organized to protect the Self and remove it from danger in the face of trauma at all costs.“(Schwartz and Sweezy, 2020, p.97)

No need to develop it or enhance it, all we need to do is turn inwards and access it. That’s what spiritual traditions promote and practice by meditating. Turning inwards and witnessing what’s going on helps to access that inner realm of mindfulness and compassion. If you start to practice meditation you will most likely realize that parts are distracting you by taking your attention somewhere else.

That’s why it can take a little practice and support (maybe from an IFS therapist) to help separate or unblend from parts and access the Self.

When parts are freed from the idea of who they „need to be“, and step into who they are Self-energy can flow.

Most people have a felt sense of what Self-energy feels like. People often access the peaceful state by walking in a forest, hiking, running or practicing yoga, meditating, listening to classical music, painting, or hugging a tree.
The more trauma a person has experienced, the more likely their parts are controlling the system, making the Self hard to access at the beginning.

Self is characterized by the 8C’s:

• Curiosity,

• Courage,

• Confidence,

• Compassion,

• Calm,

• Clarity,

• Connectedness,

• Creativity.

To me, consciousness is another significant quality of Self. Becoming more and more aware of who I am. This inner realm where I encounter my parts is filled with consciousness and light, which helps me connect to the other qualities of Self.

Self-energy exists on a spectrum, most of the time not all qualities are accessible at the same time. But just like the sun behind clouds, Self is always there, shining and waiting for the clouds to move on.

Self has no agenda, it wants nothing from you but to help you heal, grow and bring peace to the internal and external world.

Sounds too good to be true?
I am so glad we are on this journey together! Our internal world is full of magic and gifts!

Self Energy is not only in human beings, it’s interwoven in communities, groups, families, and societies.
You can measure the amount of Self Energy present in any given moment by how open- minded, compassionate, and fair a union of people is, by how easy it is to be yourself around them, especially if aspects of your being are different from theirs.

Parts, burdens

So, there is this natural multiplicity of our inner world, and there is Self.
But what about these parts? Are there different kinds of parts? How do they develop? What do they want? Why do they often cause problems? Can they change or go away?

The parts living in our minds and bodies hold different roles, depending on their story, age, and mission.
Richard Schwartz observed that there are three types of parts. The parts that are vulnerable get locked away, that‘s why they are called „Exiles“. Other parts are managing the person’s life (Managers), while yet third parts called „Firefighters“ distract from the controversy and pain of the exiles.

Some parts carry burdens of shame, worthlessness, fear, loneliness, anxiety, and helplessness that change their original qualities and force them into sometimes extreme roles.
When children are disrespected, get yelled at, shamed, hurt, or neglected, vulnerable parts take on the belief that something must be wrong with them.
Apart from personal burdens, one has taken on over the course of their lives through interactions with meaningful others, there are transgenerational burdens as well (legacy burdens), which can be passed on from generation to generation, and collective burdens like patriarchy, heteronormativity, cisnormativity, mononormativity and capitalism that work on a societal level and are spread through advertisements, books, films, school, media, politics, etc.
Hetero-and cisnormativity create a basis on which people are othered, implied to be dangerous, sexual orientation and gender are sexualized, people’s feelings and choices are described as trends, moral judgments about identities and choices are formed and people’s existence is debated. (Kirby, 2022)
The underlying message is always „If you want to be part of us (family, group, society), you have to bend and twist to conform“.

What I find important to consider is that not only queer people have to deal with this form of oppression. Most people, if not all, have received and swallowed messages that create pressure to conform to social rules and (gender)-expectations.

Let me explain the three kinds of parts to you in more detail. As a reminder, these parts are exiles, managers, and firefighters.

Exiles

Exiles are the parts who have been rejected, exploited, or abandoned in relationships with other people, and additionally received negative judgments from other parts of their inner system. (Schwartz and Sweezy, 2020)

„But exiles, like any oppressed group, grow extreme over time. As they look for opportunities to break out of prison and tell their stories, their desperation and neediness become ever more of a hazard“ (Schwartz and Sweezy, 2020, p.85).

Exiles can find ways to be seen and heard by physical pain, flashbacks, nightmares, anxieties, and shame that cause protectors to panic and overreact.

Managers

Managerial parts are parentified inner children, not equipped to lead, with the mission to prevent vulnerable parts to get activated. Although they believe they must hold this role, they usually don’t like their job to protect by preventing possibly painful situations from happening in various ways.

Managers try their best to keep exiles out of mind, both for their protection and to protect the system from their feelings and thoughts. When exiles overwhelm with their pain they endanger a person’s ability to function. Managers preempt exiled feelings by keeping the person in control and out of unknown or unpredictable situations.

Most commonly, managers want to please other people (especially the ones exiles feel dependent on) or conform to rules and (gender)-expectations. There are managers, who are controlling: highly intellectual and effective at problem-solving, but also obsessed with pushing feelings away. While other managers invest all their energy in career success, wealth, or beauty to gain a position of power, thinking that this helps to avoid difficult feelings. Avoiding interpersonal risk is often a big task for managers, particularly in situations that could arouse anger, sexuality, or fear. (Schwartz and Sweezy, 2020)

Gendered Managers

“Since our culture is patriarchal, many managers appear in gender stereotypical ways. Women are often socialized to rely on a manager who is perfectionistic about appearance and behavior. This manager believes she must be perfect and please everyone or she will be abandoned and hurt. Many women are also socialized to rely heavily on a caretaking manager. Extreme caretaking parts push women to sacrifice their own needs continually for others and will criticize a woman as selfish if she asserts herself. Men, on the other hand, are often socialized to rely on an entitled or competitive manager who encourages them to get whatever they want, no matter who is wronged by their actions.“ (Schwartz and Sweezy, 2020, p.87)

These competitive managers are trying to protect more vulnerable parts. Men are often told not to cry and not to feel and they are under a lot of pressure on how to act. The expectations and assumptions that stem from binary gender roles are collective burdens, that limit our range of authentic self expression.

Firefighters

No matter how hard managers work, life will get the exiles triggered at some point. That’s when firefighters react. Their job is to calm and appease the exile with its surfacing pain that is flooding the system. They will do whatever it takes to stop the pain. When they take over, they tend to be impulsive, irrational, and sometimes extreme and take the person out of control.
Common firefighter activities include drug or alcohol abuse, any kind of distraction like overworking, overexercising, overeating, binge watching, compulsive sexual activity, tantrums, violence, falling into freeze, and running away.
Firefighters often feel like overwhelmed babysitters for the desperate exile. Another widespread strategy is to become a recruiter searching for that special person/ status symbol/ activity to make the exile feel better.

You can read articles about firefighters and manager on this blog by clicking on this link.

What is gender identity? What is the difference between gender identity and sexual orientation?

Landyn Pan, Anna Moore et al(2015) created Trans Student Education Resources. They did a great job in designing the gender unicorn, that helps to define and differentiate gender identity, gender expression, sex assigned at birth, and physical and emotional attraction.

Gender identity is defined by one’s internal sense of being male, female, neither, both, or another gender(s). Everyone has a gender identity. For transgender people, their sex assigned at birth and their own internal sense of gender identity are not the same.

Gender expression/presentation describes the physical manifestation of one’s gender identity through clothing, hairstyle, voice, body shape, etc. Many transgender people seek to make their gender expression (how they look) match their gender identity (who they are), rather than their sex assigned at birth.

Sex Assigned at Birth: The assignment and classification of people as male, female, intersex, or another sex based on a combination of anatomy, hormones, and chromosomes.
To which gender(s) a person feels physically attracted to defines their sexual orientation. It is important to note that sexual and romantic/emotional attraction can be from a variety of factors including but not limited to gender identity, gender expression/presentation, and sex assigned at birth.

The romantic/emotional orientation is defined by which gender(s) they feel emotionally attracted to.There are other types of attraction related to gender such as aesthetical or platonic. These are simply two common forms of attraction. (Pan and Moore, 2015).

Now we know about the different identities and orientations, but how do they get formed?

Other identity models

Erikson (1959), a psychoanalyst, who together with his wife created a psychosocial development model, states that the identity formation process is a lifelong project, proceeding from birth to death through eight psychosocial stages, that merge into each other. This process is located both in the core of the individual and in the core of the communal culture. (Sorell et al, 2010)

Other identity formation models like the one created by Cass in 1979 are as well organized in stages. Cass(1979) focuses on sexual and gender identity development and concludes that a certain degree of incongruence between individual and environment leads to inner psychic processes that initiate the movement from one stage to another. The 6 postulated stages are identity confusion, identity comparison, identity tolerance, identity acceptance, identity pride, and finally identity synthesis.

Stage models in general fail to acknowledge the fluid nature of gender and sexual identity development. The cultural and societal contexts within which we explore and interpret our gender and sexuality change over time and depend on our physical location on this planet. These changing and evolving constructs demand a more fluid and reflexive understanding and model of identity development, which we attempt to deliver with our „Star of Self“ model.

Gender and sexual identity development - Star of Self

The following model was developed by Victoria Kirby and Magdalena Ségur-Cabanac in 2022.

With our model, we want to acknowledge the fluid nature of identities and further consider intersectional aspects of a person’s identity.

This is not a stage model!

Instead of seeing the lifelong process of identity formation determined by feelings of incongruence and obstacles we want to point out that the process of identity development is Self-led. It is a process of becoming more and more oneself in a rather hostile world and we, therefore, want to celebrate the strength, courage, and beauty of every non-conforming person discovering, owning, and expressing their diversity and individuality throughout the process.

Identity formation is both an internal and external process. Through attachment theory, we know how strongly contact circles of babies and young children with parents and meaningful others imprint on their system. As babies and children, we need to adapt to our family’s rules and patterns to receive love, attunement, and be safe. That’s the reason why norms and (gender)-expectations are swallowed/taken on and by that burdens are placed on our parts. The feedback we get from the world (families, community, and society) strongly influences the way we think of ourselves. These cycles between the internal and external can be both positive and negative.

I can get reassurance from outside and heal or calm parts that carry feelings of worthlessness or I can be ashamed and feel a part that carries the burden of feeling worthless.

With our model, we want to make it visible and understandable, that we humans are constantly growing as individuals and collectively. Homophobia, transphobia, racism, and sexism are instruments to maintain the current power distribution. They are like controlling managers trying to suppress exiles, that want to be heard, and seen and their experienced pain acknowledged. One’s personal journey is deeply embedded in the collective growth process. That is why it is so important to bring awareness to people, connect with each other respectfully and create and hold Self-lead spaces, so that more collective and individual Self- energy can flow.

Ground Zero

In his newest book (2021) „No Bad Parts“ Richard Schwartz names four major collective burdens: patriarchy, capitalism, racism, and individualism. Heteronormative, cisnormative, mononormative, allonormative attitudes are a result of patriarchy and they create the ground we are all walking on. We call this Ground Zero.

Since we our birth, we breathe air filled with judgments, assumptions, expectations, stigma, and oppression around gender, sexual and relationship norms.
Young people are indoctrinated with gender and sexuality norms before even understanding the concept of having their own gender and sexuality. This means many people internalize these ‘norms’ before having had the chance to consider their own feelings.

Living in ground zero

Experiencing a disconnection between one’s core sense of who they are, and the norms they have internalized, is disorientating, and frightening for many. To keep exiles burdened with shame and or fear out of conscious awareness protector parts can block non-conforming feelings. These vulnerable parts get exiled with heavy burdens of shame, worthlessness, loneliness, isolation, and of feeling ‘wrong‘, or ‚too much‘.

Cornerstone: awareness and questioning of non-conforming feelings

Becoming aware of non-conforming feelings and acknowledging them is a Self-led process. It requires courage, curiosity, and self-compassion (e.g., Self-energy).
There might be parts in conflict with each other: some might acknowledge the feelings while others might block them. Some people go through a period of questioning, changing their mind, and wondering what their truth is.

Cornerstone: accepting non-conforming feelings

A person’s different parts come to a consensus that one’s sexual or gender non-conforming feelings are real. Protector parts who might have been denying feelings are stepping back and giving space. Again, the qualities that lead to that insight are Self-energy: clarity, courage, and compassion.

Denying parts might come (back) online later as a result of specific life events or changing circumstances. This model is not organized in stages. Parts can get stuck at a certain cornerstone and freeze, while others move on and evolve. Depending on the part of the world a person lives in, how much acceptance (and Self-energy) their family, community, and society has towards diversity and how much the person feels able to acknowledge their truth, this cornerstone might take weeks, months, years, decades or, if oppression is significant, might never be reached. Seeing queer people positively or neutrally represented in books, movies, media, and in powerful positions has a particularly supportive effect on this and other phases of identity development.

If inner acceptance is reached by most parts, other parts might backlash against it if they have been indoctrinated and therefore feel scared or vulnerable.
Usually, parts go back and forth, in and out of acceptance for a while before the majority of the parts feel ready to share their truth with somebody else.

Cornerstone: sharing non-conforming feelings with others

People can share their truth by coming out to others or by letting certain people in. There is no need to plan or force yourself to a large-scale coming out, that might cause stress and anxiety. For some people it feels best to tell people they feel safe with and let them in- to let them truly know who they are. This may involve letting others see one’s whole self or expressing oneself fully.
For some people, it feels important not to hide their truth, while others might not feel safe enough to share their gender or sexual identity with others.
This model shall not create a narrative of how to come out. We want to acknowledge that every system has its own logic, and every life has its individual challenges, depending on other intersecting identities.
Sharing non-conforming feelings with others is not a one-time decision nor is it a one-off process. If a person chooses to share their gender or sexual identity with others, new situations are evaluated, and choices are made every day. This costs a lot of energy and is a result of hetero-and cisnormativity since most of society assumes that everyone is heterosexual and cis.
It is important to emphasize that outing oneself is not owed to others. It’s a very personal choice that should feel right internally. To share your non-conforming identities with others takes courage, confidence, connectedness, persistence, patience, and perspective.

Cornerstone: existing within community

We, as humans, are hardwired for connection and thrive with a sense of belonging. This is essential for everyone but especially for those existing within a minority. Many queer people pay to live their truth with a lack of family connection and support, sometimes even loss of contact or banishment. Finding a community or family of choice to find safety, belonging, affiliation, allies, peers, a sense of connection and to feel seen and understood is essential. All qualities of Self can be experiences and reinforced by connecting with like-minded people. Knowing that a (big) group of people shares your truth and has your back, increases one’s own sense of worthiness and creates the needed resilience to navigate this world. Unfortunately, the access of some communities is limited to certain groups and people with multiple marginalized identities having difficulties finding connection.

Choice and accessibility of communities are determined by many intersectional identities and factors:

• Social class, education levels and wealth

• Physical disabilities and cognitive disabilities

• Culture, faith, race

• Age and existing community

• Geographical location, ability to travel

• Language barriers

• Confidence to socialize, social anxiety

Cornerstone: processing anger and grief

A person who is hindered to express themselves and live their life freely misses out on a range of satisfying life experiences. Parts may feel grief for what they have missed out on and anger for what they have had to go through. These are valid feelings as a response to real experiences and ongoing oppression.

Parts holding grief and anger due to oppression can emerge at any point and may do so as a result of increased inner acceptance, e.g., clarity over one’s identity and one’s right to have this identity creates space for feelings of anger and grief.
It’s important to let painful feelings go outwards rather than inwards and find a productive outlet.

Self-led coping responses might include:
• taking back a sense of control, making a positive difference (i.e., political engagement, supporting others, creating or holding space for community groups, etc).
• support from and belonging with others i.e., connecting to people who relate.
• Self-support – therapy, self-compassion.

Frank G. Anderson, a well-known psychiatrist and IFS therapist living in the US said in a recent interview that being a gay person in this world is traumatic itself. (Anderson, 2021) It’s only natural that there are lots of parts organized around the traumatic topic trying their best to deal with the ongoing oppression. Non-conforming people often face disadvantages, microaggressions, or other forms of violence that bring up new situations to process anger and grief throughout life.
Experiencing these dark moments, it is important to (re)connect with people you love, people that see and validate you, practice self-compassion, yoga, sports, or whatever helps you access your inner real of Self.

You are perfect the way you are! It’s the world that needs to learn to embrace our natural diversity.

Cornerstone: self-expression

This is about the outward expression of one’s sexual or gender identity. With qualities like courage, creativity, playfulness, calm, confidence, presence etc it’s Self-led:
<This is who I am>.
Forms of self-expression are wide-ranging, from a bumper sticker on a car to a new haircut to purchasing a piece of art to writing and performing a theatre production. Someone’s queerness may, or not may not, feel like a defining aspect of their identity throughout different points in their life.

Self-expression can be used to:
• name, display and explore aspects of one’s identities • make a statement and reject norms
• raise awareness, share political ideas
• demonstrate belonging within a social/peer group.

Cornerstone: healing from shame

Growing up in this world burdened with patriarchy, it’s impossible to not take on burdens of shame.
That is the reason why healing shame burdens is a lifelong process for most, if not all of us. Shame burdens are bigger for marginalized groups since they are used to suppress them. Hetero- and cisnormativity explicitly or implicitly spreads the notion that non-conforming people are wrong at their core. Even if a person has done healing work already, parts that have not been updated can still hold burdens of shame long after a person has internally reached full acceptance. Every time one’s true self is seen and validated a layer of shame burden can heal or be let go.

To emphasize the power of love I want to use Frank Anderson’s words:
„Trauma blocks love, love heals trauma:”
Letting go of shame allows a person to shift their narrative from ‘it would be easier if I were different to ‘it would be easier if society were different.’

Star of Self

As you can see from the graphic, there are no stages during this process building up on one another but cornerstones creating this star, which is made of Self-energy. Self-Energy is fuel to the lifelong identity formation process. Parts can get stuck in certain phases and as in any growth process, there is a natural back and forth movement. Sometimes cornerstones are lived through in another order or swopped. Challenges like processing anger&grief and healing shame usually come up again and again during different phases of life.

Conclusion

Internal Family Systems therapy is a wonderful method to work with gender and sexual identity issues on a personal level as well as on a social level. The understanding of burdened parts, their influence on our individual lives as well as our social system, and their central role in the act of oppression of minority groups have the potential for social change. As therapists, we self-evidently support our clients on an individual level during therapy sessions to deal with the conflict between their truth and this word. The big changes that need to happen at this point for more freedom to express oneself authentically are on a social level.
It‘s about time to grow as humanity by raising our awareness, start reflecting on our own biases, and releasing our burdens. We can stay connected with each other and embrace our differences! The natural diversity of this planet is what makes it so beautiful and unique. There is so much we can learn from each other!

About the author

References

Anderson, F., (2021). Trans- Authentic: IFS and Gender Identity.[online]. Available at https://youtu.be/UbW1A4--QgY [Accessed 24 August 2022].

Erikson, E.,(1959). Identity and the Life Cycle. New York: International Universities Press

Schwartz, R.C. and Sweezy, M. (2020). Internal Family Systems Therapy, Second Edition. New York: The Guilford Press.

Schwartz, R.C. (2021). No bad parts : Healing Trauma and Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model. Boulder, Colorado: Sounds True.

Sorell,G. and Montgomery, M. (2001).Feminist Perspectives on Erikson's Theory: Their Relevance for Contemporary Identity Development Research, Identity: An International Journal of Theory and Research, 1:2, 97-128,

Cass, V. (1979). Homosexual identity formation : a theoretical model. Journal of

Homosexuality, 4(3),219-235.

Kirby, V.(2022).‘Working with Sex and Sexuality Using an Internal Family Systems Framework‘

[PowerPoint presentation].

Pan, L., Moore, A. et al. (2015). Gender Unicorn. [online] Available at:

http://www.transstudent.org/gender. [Accessed 24 Aug. 2022].