Four Common Ways We Hurt Ourselves & Others With Boundary Wounded "Parts"

An IFS-Informed Lens On Healing Wounded Boundaries

What happens if the normal, healthy process of childhood development gets arrested, interrupted, traumatized, and boundary wounded? In this post, we unpacked the stages of childhood development and discussed what happens when those developmental milestones are not met. Understanding developmental trauma helps us make sense and extend compassion to how we then grow up developing strategies to make it through childhood that often hold over into adulthood and create problems with boundaries in our relationships.

When we are hurt by developmental trauma, we experience attachment wounding and struggle to grow up with healthy boundaries that helps us have good, nurturing, safe relationships. When our developmental needs are not met, we develop a variety of coping strategies, or in IFS language, “protector parts.”

What do we mean by “parts?” Most of us grew up with the “mono-mind” paradigm, thinking that we are a unified “self” and that only really mentally ill people, like the characters in movies like the 1976 movie Sybil or 1957’s Three Faces Of Eve have multiple personalities inside us. While people with multiple personality disorder, now called “dissociative identity disorder,” have suffered more horrible traumas than most and their personalities inside are more blown apart than most others, they’re not so different from the rest of us in that we all have voices inside that talk to each other. We call it “thinking,” or if you’ve ever tried meditating, you may have heard it called “the monkey mind.” 

Why monkey mind? Because our thoughts are chattering away inside like little monkeys with endless commentaries about our “to do” lists, a string of worries and problems, a host of plans and fantasies, and voices we often grow to hate, like the inner critic, judge, or perfectionist inside that tears us up when we make mistakes.

If you think you don’t have multiple personalities, just think of the last time you made a New Year’s Resolution, went on a diet, tried to give up a bad habit like smoking, or convinced yourself you were going to finally muster up the discipline to do something hard, like join a 12 step program, run a marathon, attend a silent meditation retreat, go to the gym to build a buff body, write a book, or get a graduate degree. Typically, one disciplined, health-conscious, inner critic part pushes us to make the New Years Resolution or do the good, hard thing, then within a week or two, another free-wheeling, trouble-making rebel part that likes to do the naughty thing comes in to tempt us to break our promises to ourselves. Given how few New Year’s Resolutions actually lead to real change, you’ll understand that these parts tend to go to war with each other inside, creating a kind of angel on one shoulder, devil on the other dynamic. Then when those two duke it out, yet another voice comes in to beat us up and shame us for being weak, lame, and undisciplined. And the cycle of self-hatred continues.

IFS aims to resolve these inner polarizations by befriending and healing all of our parts, without glorifying one part or demonizing another. The goal of IFS practice is to become intimate with all of our parts, gain “Self-leadership” over them, and mediate the differences between our parts the way a good mediator might negotiate between two people with conflict in the outer world. When we approach our parts inside as if there are no bad parts, only hurt parts, then our parts start to soften and may relax their extreme, self-destructive or hurtful behaviors.

Who do you think is making and breaking those promises inside of you? It’s clearly not a unified “you,” because if it was, you’d just do the good thing and never look back. Clearly, things are more complicated inside than our culture has led us to believe.  Although it may sound disturbing to consider that you might have different personalites inside, going to war with one another, like one foot on the gas and one foot on the brakes, both motivating you to self improve but also sabotaging your efforts to do so, it can also be quite a game changer once you realize that the mono-mind myth is false and that all of us- every single one of us- is made up of many personalities inside, which IFS calls “parts.”

And guess what? Boundary injuries that make us act out when it comes to boundaries are all just that- parts of us. But they’re not all of us. They just parts, and they think they’re helping you.

How could they be helping you when they’re wreaking havoc in your relationships and landing you in therapy?  IFS is based on the idea that we are all made up of many uniquely autonomous, inherently valuable, well intended but sometimes misguided parts.  If you saw the brilliant children’s Pixar movie Inside Out, you already have a taste of what IFS is all about. Inside this little girl’s head, you see all the warring “parts” fighting to take over the control panel of the little girl’s behavior. The girl’s family has just moved her away from her childhood home and relocated her to San Francisco, and she is not happy about this. Anger wants to blow a gasket because San Francisco has ruined pizza by putting broccoli on it. Disgust wants to puke because her new school is just not all that. Sadness wants to cry because she’s grieving all her losses. Fear wants to hijack her because change is so scary. And bubbly cheerleader Joy is trying to bully all the other emotions to try to fake a kind of inauthentic positivity. All of these “parts” in the little girl are duking it out for who will control the little girl’s behavior.  Surely, all of us can relate to that kind of inner disharmony in times of great transition.

We All Have A Self

The good news is that we all have within us the medicine we need to heal our developmentally traumatized or boundary wounded parts. In IFS, Self is the part that’s not a part- the mature, adult Divine Self that resides within us all, guides and mediates between the parts. Mark Nepo describes the idea of Self best in Unlearning Our Way Back To God.

“Each person is born with an unencumbered spot, free of expectation and regret, free of ambition and embarrassment, free of fear and worry; an umbilical spot of grace where we were each first touched by God. It is this spot of grace that issues peace. Psychologists call this spot the Psyche, Theologians call it the Soul, Jung calls it the Seat of the Unconscious, Hindu masters call it Atman, Buddhists call it Dharma, Rilke calls it Inwardness, Sufis call it Qalb, and Jesus calls it the Center of our Love.

To know this spot of Inwardness is to know who we are, not by surface markers of identity, not by where we work or what we wear or how we like to be addressed, but by feeling our place in relation to the Infinite and by inhabiting it. This is a hard lifelong task, for the nature of becoming is a constant filming over of where we begin, while the nature of being is a constant erosion of what is not essential. Each of us lives in the midst of this ongoing tension, growing tarnished or covered over, only to be worn back to that incorruptible spot of grace at our core.

When the film is worn through, we have moments of enlightenment, moments of wholeness, moments of Satori as the Zen sages term it, moments of clear living when inner meets outer, moments of full integrity of being, moments of complete Oneness. And whether the film is a veil of culture, of memory, of mental or religious training, of trauma or sophistication, the removal of that film and the restoration of that timeless spot of grace is the goal of all therapy and education.

Regardless of subject matter, this is the only thing worth teaching: how to uncover that original center and how to live there once it is restored. We call the filming over a deadening of heart, and the process of return, whether brought about through suffering or love, is how we unlearn our way back to God.”

Because all boundary wounded parts are the result of trauma, all parts are lovable, they all think they’re protecting us, they all just want to be loved, accepted, and integrated into the wholeness of a Self-led internal family system, and they can all be held in the arms of the higher Self inside of us. Such is the promise of healing wounded boundaries with IFS.

We’re All A Busload Of Inner Children

Think of it like your “internal family” of parts is populated with a whole busload of inner children, and if you’re reasonably healthy, what IFS calls your “Self” is driving the bus, keeping the lovely, sometimes naughty, often boundary wounded, controlling, manipulative, submissive, unruly, scared, overprotective, and sometimes even reckless, addicted, dissociative, sociopathic, or even suicidal or violent parts from grabbing the wheel and hijacking the bus, making you do something you might later regret.

While the psychiatry books might think of having a lot of sub-personalities or parts inside as pathology, labelling such fragmentation as “Dissociative Identify Disorder,” that’s only because with extreme trauma that causes massive inner fragmentation, the parts just take turns hijacking the wheel, with no wise, reasonable, grown up bus driver at the helm.  If the parts don’t know each other and they don’t know YOU (the part that’s not a part, which IFS calls “Self,”) then all those parts can create a lot of confusion, disorientation, and damage inside.  But when Self is in charge- and we all have a Self, even those with Dissociative Identity Disorder- then parts can be “Self-led,” as if the wise, mature bus driver can listen to all the unruly children in the back of the bus without letting any of them grab the wheel and steer the bus off the road. 

To use another metaphor, you can think of your own internal family system as a family of parts sitting around a conference table, with Self acting as a sort of calm, collected, collaborative mediator, trying to negotiate between all the inner voices to come to some consensus about the choices you’ll make, the way you’ll handle problems, how you choose to behave, and how you’ll deal with the parts that might polarize against each other, like the part that wants a “take the edge off” glass of wine (or two) after a tough day and the part that thinks you’d be better off abstaining. 

Just a good parent, you don’t just give in to one part and ignore the other. You talk to both of them- and whoever else inside your internal family system might have an opinion about having a glass of wine, like the part that wants you to lose weight or the part that sounds like your mother, who thought alcohol was the work of the devil and would get you sent to hell. You can listen generously to all the parts and why they feel the way they do. You can ask them how they think they’re protecting you and what they’re afraid would happen if they didn’t do what they do and say what they say. You can remind all parts that you love them and care for them, even the ones that sometimes do naughty things or get you in trouble.

Sometimes your higher Self will have to intervene and apologize to the parts that get beat up by other parts, like you might do if you have two sibling children duking it out. Other times, you might need to lovingly discipline a part and set limits, like you would with children that want to eat the whole cookie jar of Oreos. Just because a part wants to do something, doesn’t mean Self automatically indulges that part, but it also doesn’t mean that you exile that part or ignore it’s desires and needs or let critical parts bully, judge, pathologize, or shame it. 

Then after consulting with all relevant parts without judging, bullying, demonizing, or shaming any of them, the mediator at the head of the table, your Self, makes a decision about how you’re going to handle wine that night, just like the head of the family might help an external family system decide where everyone wants to go for a holiday.

If you check in with your parts every morning- and do so consistently, your parts will grow to trust your Self. They’ll realize that when all parts cooperate together with Self in charge, things go more smoothly, there’s less drama, there’s more inner harmony, your relationships improve, your body feels better, and decision making is more clear.

This is what can happen when there’s enough Self leading your system. Then, even boundary wounded parts that might wreak havoc on your relationships have a chance to heal. Typically, boundary wounded protectors are frightened of letting anyone too close- since closeness may have been intrusive, controlling, or abusive in the past. They’re also frightened of being abandoned, so they’ll push others away rather than risk being abandoned. All of these behaviors wind up passing along the boundary wounding we inherited. We wound others as we’ve been wounded. Breaking the cycle by healing our boundary wounded parts can help heal generational trauma. You could be the one who breaks the chain…

Now that you’re armed with a compassionate IFS-informed lens, let’s dissect out the four common parts that show up when your boundaries were wounded with developmental trauma. First, we’ll explore four common parts that can cause us to harm ourselves and others, even though they think they’re protecting us. Then in the next post, we’ll explore what it takes to heal those parts so we can shore up our boundaries so we’re less vulnerable to abuse. We’ll also discuss how to protect the boundaries of others with more containment.