Eating disorders are complex mental health issues that aren’t just about disordered eating, behaviors of restriction, bingeing, purging, compensation, or obsessing about weight or food. What is often overlooked are the overwhelming feelings, negative beliefs, and trauma underneath. Shifting the way we understand how eating disorders work and the needs they are trying to fulfill holds the key to true and lasting recovery. Yes really, those obsessive thoughts about food and one’s body and resulting compulsive behaviors to control and compensate really are trying to protect someone from something more challenging on the inside.
Often a person comes to therapy, or their family, and requests that we work together to eliminate these destructive behaviors.
However, we know that focusing solely on the behaviors, however problematic, ignores all the hidden pain underneath. Internal Family Systems (IFS) approaches eating disorders differently and works instead to understand the parts of oneself involved in the eating disorder’s thoughts and behaviors. The IFS approach to eating disorder treatment recognizes the preoccupation and compulsions for what they really are: a protection against the flood of overwhelming feelings that works to shift our focus to food and the body, something that we think we can control.
An IFS view of Eating Disorders
Many times in eating disorder therapy, clients will say that they want to get better but can’t seem to stop. The IFS Model is particularly well-poised to shed light on this disconnect between desire and action by exploring the polarization between the parts of themselves motivated to heal and the parts of themselves that feel stuck or aren’t ready for change.
The cornerstone of the IFS Model is the mind’s natural multiplicity. We are all composed of various parts or subpersonalities, each with its own temperament and desires. When working with clients experiencing eating issues, IFS and eating disorder therapy involves getting to know many parts inside that lead to ambivalence about recovery. This includes parts that want you to get better and show up to therapy, as well as parts that really don’t want to stop.
IFS recognizes that disordered eating behavior is your internal system’s attempt at protection.
This approach identifies that someone who binge eats, for example, has a specific part(s) inside them responsible for the behavior. This perspective offers the view that not 100% of them want to binge eat; there are other parts present with differing ideas about self-preservation. The goal of treatment is to get to know and untangle these polarized parts.
IFS and eating disorders treatment in California helps facilitate healing by first providing an alternative lens from a curious, compassionate place and, second, establishing a connection to one’s Self — one’s true, authentic Self. A trained IFS therapist will support you to access and embody your Self-energy, which is compassionate, curious, and caring towards all parts of you.
Where Does an Eating Disorder Begin?
Eating disorders appear to have multiple causes. Culture, environment, and our external relationships impact all of us in our development. Though not always, many people develop eating disorders after attachment injuries, early negative interpersonal experiences, and trauma. When seen in the context of someone’s lived experience, there is wisdom in the way they coped with food and exercise.
Our External Family
Struggles present within our family of origin can be a factor influencing a disordered relationship with food and the body. There could be ingrained family rules about perfectionism, avoiding emotional expression, or the ‘right’ way to deal with conflict. On the flip side, family dynamics could become unbalanced as the system tries to address a member with an eating disorder.
Family members could become reactive to a client’s eating disorder symptoms, leading to their alignment with specific parts and polarization from others. These ways of relating can become patterned, a complex cycle to break.
For example, a family member shows disgust or fear for the behavior and could present as rejecting or angry towards their struggling family member.
Another scenario we often see is a family member presenting concern about a client’s weight gain in recovery aligning with the eating disorder to control the client’s body. These messages might be said aloud, or there may exist underlying pressure to ‘just stop’ or ‘not gain too much weight,’ which can bring up feelings of shame, guilt, and doubt for the person trying to manage their compulsions. To deal with the shame of letting others down, the person often returns to the old eating disorder behaviors, their survival strategy. This repetitive cycle can frustrate everyone involved.
Our Internal Family
Many people who struggle with eating disorders have recognized a harsh and critical ‘eating disorder voice’ that encourages unhealthy behaviors and can feel extra loud when pitted against positive recovery steps. This voice can be demanding and, at times, become all-consuming to where we might have trouble distinguishing ourselves from that part of ourselves. Without the ability to access our true Self, we think and act in a way that aligns with the eating disorder voice.
We are trying to protect ourselves
The preoccupation with the eating disorder can create a protective buffer for the other parts of our system which do not feel at peace and are usually burdened with painful feelings and negative beliefs about themselves. However, this can also build isolation and disconnection both internally and from others.
In IFS and eating disorders, we become acquainted with all of our parts and curious about the interactions between them, including the actions of eating disorder obsessions and compulsions. As we develop an appreciation of our parts, we can begin to heal what they really are protecting underneath. This unburdening creates the possibility for parts to change the way they are trying to help us.
In IFS and Eating Disorders, How Do We Understand the Behavior?
According to IFS developer Richard Schwartz, there are two types of protectors that contribute to disordered eating behavior. It is both the manager that acts to prevent feelings from reaching awareness and the firefighter who takes over when it does.
Reactive Protectors
Reactive protectors or “firefighters” work to soothe or distract us from challenging feelings when they arise to our conscious awareness. Their role is to protect “exiles,” the younger, more vulnerable parts of us that took on painful feelings and negative beliefs about ourselves and the way the world works. When the proactive protectors, “managers,” have lost control of our internal system, extreme firefighters emerge, protecting exiles even though there can be dangerous consequences to their actions. They act quickly and impulsively to manage overwhelming feelings no matter what. Often the other parts of the system and society are disapproving of these reactive parts.
Firefighters often look for ways to escape the body, to avoid the parts that feel pain, shame, rejection, abandonment, and lack of worth. It’s important to address the legitimate fears that firefighters have about changing.
Proactive Protectors
The proactive parts work to prevent feelings from overrunning the system and seek to establish regulation and control. This may involve a part that institutes rules about restriction, for instance. Our protectors often develop the “master plan” that aligns with internalized norms of the thin ideal embraced by our problematic diet culture that moralizes some bodies as good bodies and other bodies as bad bodies. This part notices the relief you feel after daily restriction or exercise and works to make it a part of your continued habit.
Working alongside these identified protectors are many parts that choose to minimize the behavior.
Many clients come into treatment for eating disorders to please someone else. Managers can seek to downplay the problem despite evidence of emotional or physical damage. The third type of manager that may be present is the internal representation of someone in the family. People may go into treatment to prevent feeling guilt or shame by loved ones and seek to appease these voices and the one that echoes within. This protective pro-recovery manager may also recognize the harm done, and attempts to work with the system with the desire to stop problematic behavior and will be motivated for treatment.
Polarized Parts
As you can imagine, each part contains its own ideas on what would be best, and they typically disagree. On the inside, someone struggles to reconcile these differing beliefs on how to exist in the world and protect vulnerable parts. People with eating disorders will also notice an internal struggle between control over the body and the desire for less restriction. This tug of war becomes distracting and confusing and can lead to increased self-doubt and anxiety.
Biological Processes
Finally, parts remain connected to our primary need for self-preservation. When a part engages in starvation from dieting, other parts will respond for the good of the system. The cycle begins as one part binges to prevent death from lack of food, then another part may respond with compensatory behaviors to save the system from the guilt of eating. Thus, the cyclical pattern between the parts’ roles and their relationships with one another contributes to the eating disorder’s deadly grip.
The Goal of IFS and Eating Disorders
When working with clients with eating issues and body shame from a non-pathologizing IFS lens, we honor the protective system, as we help clients access their authentic Selves. When someone has access to their Self-energy they are able to relate to parts of themselves from a place of compassionate curiosity to more fully understand how they are trying to help them. Unlike other models. With IFS and eating disorders, we therapists believe when we have access to our true Selves, we can be our own healing agent to bring about harmony within.
Unburdening is possible when a person accesses their capital “S” Self. We function most effectively when our selves assume the role of guiding our inner world.
As we experience pain throughout our lives, other parts take on more extreme roles. When we separate and unblended from these protective parts, we can reestablish access to our true authentic Selves. When you are Self-lead, it is easier to regulate and manage impulses because you are in a relationship with these parts.
The Self restores harmony within, as it can befriend protectors and heals the exiles’ hurts. Distinct from a part, the Self does not carry any wounds of its own and sustains compassion and curiosity for everything inside. It understands the well-meaning intention of firefighters and managers, despite their actions. For exiles, trust is born when they engage with Self-energy and feel welcomed into the internal family, as they previously believed themselves abandoned.
When clients access Self-energy, they can begin to release their eating disorder parts from the burden of extreme roles.
Once underlying pain and belief are healed harmful behaviors no longer need to do their job and return to their original, valuable role or transform into a new role.
Clients then have less need to engage in eating disorder behavior to protect themselves. Your IFS therapist, who specializes in IFS and eating disorders will guide you on how to listen deeply to create internal relationships. Clients can also engage in parts work in between sessions to continue healing outside of eating disorder treatment in California.
Befriending Our Firefighters
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In IFS therapy, we work collaboratively with openness and curiosity
Remember that parts are doing their job because they are trying to protect the system. We need their permission and cooperation to make changes, which happens after we befriend them. Through Self-energy, we can appreciate the wisdom of coping strategies that may no longer be working for them.
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Firefighters respond well to authentic and regular doses of Self-energy and can trust the Self to guide them.
They will be on alert for the slightest threats and will want to re-engage in their protective strategy. We need to fully respect and understand the concerns about giving up the behavior and know the part will begin to shift when it feels fully appreciated and we can begin to heal what it’s protecting. They benefit from reminders that the Self is capable.
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Get to know who’s in charge
It is often an intellectual manager in charge, and this part is not so willing to allow access to other parts deemed too dangerous (firefighters) or too vulnerable (exiles). Gaining the trust of this protective system will restore the Self to the navigational helm. As trust and permission are given, then the system can move towards more in-depth experiences.
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Recognition
Here we address the firefighter’s existence, and the invitation for it to speak, is both a profound and a beautiful moment. It is also the first step in befriending that part.
Connecting to Self-Compassion
Through IFS therapy, we are working to foster a compassionate relationship between the parts and the Self. Through this compassionate relationship, a person can feel authentically connected both in their inner world and in external relationships.
An experienced IFS therapist can help you un-blend from parts that may want to judge, criticize, shame, threaten, collude with fear, caretake, or become polarized in any other way with firefighters. IFS offers a transformative way to befriend our parts, understand their motivation, and heal the burdens underneath to live your life with more harmony inside and out.
Begin Working with IFS and Eating Disorders in California with a Skilled Online Therapist
Reach out today if you would like to learn more about Kindful Body’s online eating disorder therapy or nutrition counseling services in California or about how Internal Family Systems therapy can help provide healing from the inside out. You will work with a skilled and compassionate eating disorder and IFS therapists who understand what you’re struggling with.
Kindful Body Counseling can support you with eating disorder treatment and more.
IFS and eating disorders can work hand in hand. You do not have to struggle with disordered eating and body image issues alone. There is hope — full recovery is possible. If you’re looking for additional support in online therapy practice in California, we offer other services. This includes eating disorder treatment for students and adolescents, emotional eating recovery, brain spotting for eating disorders, trauma therapy, anxiety treatment and stress therapy, therapy for binge eating, low self-esteem issues, and relationship therapy. When you’re ready, we are here to see you for eating disorder treatment in Sacramento, San Jose, Oakland/Berkley, Walnut Creek, San Mateo, Orange County, CA, and statewide through online therapy in California.
