Memory reconsolidation is how Internal Family Systems leads to transformation

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Internal Family Systems is amazing at creating transformational change through a brain process called memory reconsolidation.

In autumn 2023, I published an article in the Counselling Australia journal about Internal Family Systems and how it leads to transformational change through memory reconsolidation. I researched this last year inspired by the transformational change that I experience through my own IFS therapy. It feels like IFS, throughout the course of my therapy, is leading to permanent changes. For example, while I used to have people pleasing parts that used to be terribly scared of saying no and speaking up, these parts have considerably relaxed now, and I’m quite assertive and good with setting boundaries. It’s a miracle! Those parts feel safer because the younger exiles they were protecting by doing people pleasing have been unburdened and healed.

So, what is memory reconsolidation? In a nutshell, it is the brain’s method for fully revising previously learned information encoded in long-term memory, leading to a permanent change in a person’s subjective experience. Memory in this context is understood not simply as the remembering of facts and events. It’s more a kind of schematic knowledge that formed implicitly and nonverbally based on emotionally significant life experiences. In other words, memory is a learned construct based on how a person has made sense of and feels about an experience. It is this type of “knowing” gained in the past which drives behaviors, thoughts and emotions that generate a wide range of symptoms in the present, and which we bring to therapy.

Memory reconsolidation happens when three conditions are fulfilled. The first condition is the reactivation of the specific memory. Secondly, that memory must be disconfirmed by inducing a concurrent juxtaposition, or mismatch, experience, which leads to its destabilisation. Thirdly, repetitions of the juxtaposition of these two experiences are required to prompt the full unlearning and re-writing of the destabilised memory. When memory reconsolidation occurs, memories of facts or events remain unaffected, but the associated emotional charge and meaning are transformed. These three conditions must be met within a five-hour window while the learning is destabilised. IFS is an excellent form of therapy to bring about this memory reconsolidation.

Let me first explain what IFS is. It’s an evidence-based psychotherapy modality developed by family therapist Schwartz in the 1980s. Based on systems theory, IFS holds that the mind in its natural and healthy state is a multiple entity composed of many parts, or subpersonalities, that operate as an inner family system. These part possess a full range of emotions, thoughts, sensations and beliefs and under ideal circumstances grow into complementary roles as a person develops. Like many spiritual traditions, IFS also says that everyone has a central core, the Self, which is not a part. It’s more like a wise and centred entity, a Higher Self.

When we have experienced challenges in life, our parts often take on extreme protective roles. In other forms of therapy, we might call this defence mechanisms. Such protective strategies can lead to unwanted outcomes, which IFS conceptualises as well-meaning attempts at restoring internal balance rather than pathology. Parts are categorised as exiles and protectors. Exiles are young parts that have experienced trauma and hurt and carry overwhelming feelings, thoughts, beliefs, and sensations called burdens. Protectors banish these young parts out of awareness to protect the system from unbearable emotional pain. Protectors embody either the role of managers or firefighters. Managers are proactive and help the client to function in daily life through roles such as working hard, pleasing people, perfectionism, and inner criticism. Firefighters are reactive and focus on immediately suppressing any emotional pain of exiles through extreme strategies such as addictions, rage, self-harm, or suicide. The goal of IFS therapy is to heal and integrate protective and exiled parts to enable Self-leadership of the internal system. Rather than eliminating parts, IFS seeks to relieve them of their extreme roles so that their original talents and strengths can unfold in the system.

So, why is IFS so great for memory reconsolidation that leads to transformational change? Because the IFS process helps for the three conditions that need to be present for memory reconsolidation to occur. First, IFS therapy begins with eliciting the client’s symptoms and learning about the parts involved. Using the 6Fs, the therapist invites the client to find and focus on a target part and fleshing out more details. Befriending occurs through compassionate dialogue with parts. Asking the client how they feel toward parts helps the client to unblend, or differentiate, from their parts and gain a compassionate stance, or Self-energy, while learning about their fears about letting go of protective strategies. In this process of the client’s Self and the therapist’s Self getting to know the parts, the client’s parts begin to experience that they are met with compassion and curiosity. This brings about the old experience of being scared, and not being understood, heard, seen and valued, while also experiencing the trust, compassion and curiosity of the therapist and client’s Self. So we have two contrasting experiences at once, a juxtaposition.

Once a client’s protector part feels understood and trusts the client’s Self, the therapist seeks permission to work with the exile, or the core wound that gave rise to the protector’s strategy. Gradually, the client’s Self builds a connection with the exile, and engages in witnessing the past burdening experiences. Again, the therapist and client are engaged in at once remembering what it was like for the exile, the young part of the client, while also bringing a lot of compassion, openness and understanding, allowing the exile to be held safely, which allows the juxtaposition of the old and the new. Then, the therapist guides the process of the do-over, where the Self of the client offers the exile a corrective experience. This enables the exile to re-direct the old memory or scene and get whatever it didn’t get back then. The Self of the client gives the exile anything it wanted and needed. Anything is allowed! It’s an internal rewriting of the script. This is again an experience of the old and challenging past simultaneously with having a new nurturing and healing experience.

Next, the therapist guides the retrieval of the exile to the present, where the exile gets to choose a safe place in the present to be with the client’s Self and leave the past. This is followed by an invitation to release its burdens and replace them with desired qualities. The final protector check-in explores if protectors are ready to pivot their roles.

It’s amazing what I have experienced in this process. My Self has accompanied my exiles on countless journeys to witnessing scenes in the past where my exile was critised, ignored, and not protected from harm. And we’ve totally changed that around. Upon the request of my little ones in different scenes, my Self has provided magic wands, my Self has shouted at mean grown-ups and put them straight, we have shot people with a purple water pistol, tore down entire houses, and even accompanied my granddad who needed help when he was a prisoner of war during World War 2. I have many memories from when I was an infant and being terrified and alone, seeking attention and getting none. It has since been confirmed that I had a medical trauma at 10 months old and was isolated in hospital for 2 weeks without any parental contact. That was the policy of hospitals back then! Many things have happened in my internal world, and as a result, when I remember events from the past, I still remember them as they were, but I feel light and mature about them because I have been there with my little ones, we have changed the scenes, and now we remember the new endings that we’ve co-created and the new qualities that we’ve taken after releasing those old burdens. That’s how IFS heals!

You can find the full article under this reference:

Kredler, Vanessa (2023) How does Internal Family Systems therapy lead to transformational change through memory reconsolidation? in Counselling Australia, Autumn Volume 24 (2) (26-36).

This article has also been published on the Foundation for Self-Leadership's Parts & Self page. 

Categories: : Food Addiction, Healing, Internal Family Systems, Memory Reconsolidation, Trauma