Addictive processes are a pervasive challenge, touching countless lives across the globe. For therapists, approaching these issues can feel complex and daunting. Yet, an approach rooted in understanding, compassion, and the inherent wisdom of the individual offers a path forward. This perspective comes from the Internal Family Systems (IFS) model, a therapeutic framework gaining significant traction.
Cece Sykes, a Senior Lead Trainer from Chicago, the birthplace of IFS, sheds light on this powerful model. Her extensive experience, dating back to the 1980s when the concept of parts first emerged, provides a deep well of insight. This article takes information from the video at the end of the page and aims to help therapists feel more comfortable, relaxed, and confident using IFS tools, especially when working with firefighter parts that drive addictive behaviours.
The Therapist’s Multiple Perspectives
Therapists do not enter the clinical space as blank slates. When addressing addictive processes, they often carry a combination of perspectives, or “hats.” First, they are clinicians, focused on learning effective interventions to help clients heal. They seek new ways to engage and support those in their care.
Second, many therapists are also thinking of loved ones—family members, partners, children—who have struggled. The concepts discussed in therapy often resonate personally, prompting questions about how these approaches might apply to the people they care about most. This deeply emotional connection underscores the human element of therapeutic work.
Finally, therapists frequently consider their own experiences. Substance use, eating issues, spending habits, gambling, or relationship preoccupations have touched many lives. This personal lens fosters a profound sense of empathy, but it also means that the subject matter can activate a therapist’s own parts. Recognising and welcoming these internal reactions is a crucial step towards effective, grounded therapeutic presence.
Addiction and Trauma
Addictive processes are far-reaching. They manifest beyond extreme compulsive behaviours, affecting people in subtle yet significant ways. From overeating to excessive screen time, these issues are a common thread in human experience.
Research provides a clear link between early life experiences and later addictive tendencies. The Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) study reveals a strong correlation. This study asks about ten types of childhood trauma, including physical, sexual, and emotional abuse, as well as household dysfunction like violence, parental separation, or incarceration.
Recent data shows that over 60% of people have at least one ACE score, and 25% have three or more. These findings are universal, cutting across socioeconomic groups, though low-income, BIPOC, and LGBTQ+ communities often report higher scores. Higher ACE scores are linked to increased risks for heart disease, cancer, and a staggering 700% increase in alcoholism risk. The risk of attempted suicide is high, and individuals are three times more likely to misuse prescription or street drugs.
The statistics paint a stark picture: hundreds of thousands die annually from cigarettes and alcohol-related causes in America. Drug overdoses, including a significant portion from opiates, contribute to thousands more deaths. Obesity-related illnesses, eating disorders, and the massive growth of gaming and pornography industries all point to widespread struggles with compulsive behaviours. Most clients seeking therapy are, to some extent, grappling with distractor or soother behaviours that impact their daily lives. Simply opening a conversation about these struggles can be a powerful first step.
IFS Fundamentals in Addictive Processes
Internal Family Systems offers a distinct framework for understanding these deeply rooted issues. It operates on three core assumptions that reshape how we view and address addictive processes:
The Self: Every individual possesses has a Self, which remains undamaged by past experiences or years of addictive behaviour. It represents an inner knowing, a desire for wholeness, balance, and harmony. Even amidst chaos, the Self can contact the parts and, through this connection, bring healing.
Multiplicity: The human psyche is not monolithic; it consists of numerous sub-personalities, or “parts.” This multiplicity is normal, though it can feel chaotic when addictive behaviours dominate. Understanding these parts and their roles is central to the IFS approach.
The System: The inner world functions as a system where parts interact in specific patterns. In addictive processes, this means managers, firefighters, and exiles work together, often in a highly polarised and entrenched dynamic.
NOTE - I recommend reading my articles that cover the basics of IFS for more in-depth description of parts, managers and firefighters.
Within this system, parts fall into three main categories.
Managers strive for stability, improvement, and control. They handle tasks, meet obligations, and try to keep life on track.
Firefighters aim to soothe, distract, and shift gears from managerial overdrive. They seek rest, relaxation, comfort, pleasure, fun, and novelty. While their extreme manifestations can be destructive, their core intention is always positive—to provide relief or protection.
Exiles embody vulnerability. When unburdened, they are sensitive, trusting, and open-hearted. However, they also carry the memories of pain, abandonment, and shame from past traumas. All individuals carry exiles, and it is their pain that protectors strive to contain.
Defining Addiction Through an IFS Lens
The term “addict” often carries heavy connotations of judgment. IFS moves beyond this label, preferring to view it as an “addictive process.” This term highlights the dynamic, ongoing nature of the struggle, which typically begins subtly and escalates over time, often following traumatic or attachment wounding experiences.
From an IFS perspective, addiction is a chronic, entrenched, and often harmful polarisation between two sets of extreme parts:
Critical, Controlling Managers: These parts attack, criticise, and try to enforce strict control, often reflecting societal judgments.
Avoidance-Soothing Firefighters: These parts resist, rebel, and persist in behaviours despite negative consequences, seeking comfort or escape.
Both manager and firefighter parts, in their extreme forms, protect deeper, buried emotional pain—the exiles. The more intense the polarity between “use” and “don’t use,” or “hate myself for using,” the less access there is to this underlying emotional pain, which then continues to fester and grow.
IFS also adopts definitions from other pioneers in the field. Gabor Maté, for example, views addiction as “pain medication coping with complex trauma.” Daniel Sumrock offers the insightful definition: “Addiction shouldn’t be called addiction. It should be called ritualised compulsive comfort seeking.” This reframing highlights the underlying need for comfort that drives these behaviours. Furthermore, addiction can be seen as “dependence on, or commitment to, a practice, a habit, or a substance to the extent that cessation causes trauma.” This underscores the intense internal struggle involved in letting go of these protective strategies.
Another powerful, albeit lighthearted, definition suggests an “addictive process is anything we lie about.” This points to the shame and secrecy that often accompany these behaviours, even in their simplest forms. The discomfort of hiding something, the internal shame—this is the same underlying process, simply intensified and entrenched for clients with heavy using patterns. Recognising this common humanity helps normalise the healing process for everyone involved.
Paradigm Shifts with IFS in Addiction Therapy
Internal Family Systems introduces several paradigm shifts that profoundly alter the therapeutic approach to addictive processes:
Systemic Approach: IFS views addiction not merely as an individual problem but as a systemic issue. The client’s internal system of parts is nested within external systems: their partnership, family of origin, workplace, and wider societal structures (schools, churches, criminal justice). These external systems can trigger parts, impose hurdles, and deepen burdens, especially for marginalised communities. IFS holds space for understanding these intricate interconnections.
Self-to-Part Connection: The goal is to establish a strong Self-to-part connection. This connection creates stability, acting as a “three-legged stool” between the Self and all parts of the inner triangle (managers, firefighters, exiles). Healing stems from the Self’s ability to relate to and lead these parts, treating the whole person rather than just a symptom.
Collaborative Therapy: The therapist’s role is not to dictate sobriety or enforce a “change plan.” Instead, it is a collaborative process. The therapist supports the client’s vision for change and helps them build a relationship with their parts. Change emerges naturally from this internal relationship, rather than being imposed externally. The therapist says, “It isn’t my goal to take it away from you; it’s my goal for you to learn to build a relationship with it so that you, from Self, and with your system, can understand what to do about this.”
Positive Intentions: IFS assumes a positive intention behind even the most destructive behaviours. Firefighters, though acting out, aim to protect or soothe. Managers, in their extreme criticism or perfectionism, also have protective intentions. Understanding these underlying positive intentions for all parts is key to building trust and fostering internal harmony.
Cultural Managers: Society’s judgmental, perfectionistic, and controlling views on addiction are often internalised, manifesting as critical manager parts within individuals. These “cultural managers” perpetuate shame and fuel the polarisation, making it harder for clients to connect with their Self and find compassion for their struggling parts.
Recovery as a Process: Recovery is not a single event but a developmental journey. It unfolds over time, with each client progressing at their own pace. This perspective encourages patience and perseverance for both client and therapist, setting realistic expectations and celebrating incremental progress.
Engaging with Firefighters through Relationship, Not Control
Traditional addiction therapy often focuses on controlling firefighter parts—setting strict agreements, contracts, and consequences for relapse. In contrast, IFS champions a different approach: relationship, not control. Therapists do not “kick out” clients for using; instead, they deepen their understanding of the using parts.
There is profound wisdom within every part, even those engaged in self-destructive behaviours. The therapist’s role is to help the client listen to their firefighter’s story. What has this part been trying to tell them that has gone unheard?
This stance of acceptance is foundational. Change occurs not through forceful suppression but through Self-to-part connection, where the client’s Self accepts their parts exactly as they are in the present moment. Any internal “wish for change” from a client is often a part with an agenda. The Self, however, listens without agenda, fostering an environment where parts feel heard and understood. This listening without agenda is crucial when encountering powerful acting-out parts.
Firefighters, despite appearing chaotic or destructive, are often far more complex than they seem. As Gabor Maté suggests, “Not ‘why the addiction,’ but ‘why the pain?’” In IFS, we shift from “Why are you hurting yourself?” to “How is that part trying to help you?” or “What are you afraid will happen if you are more aware?” This is not about excusing harmful behaviour but about understanding its underlying purpose. Understanding is not excusing; it is becoming open and curious, recognising that there is always a reason, and that reason can be learned. This offers immense hope to clients, suggesting that the chaos they experience holds meaning waiting to be uncovered.
Mapping Polarities: The Inner Battlefield
Addiction, in the IFS model, is essentially one large, entrenched polarity. This dynamic involves two sets of parts protecting the system with conflicting approaches, typically a manager team and a firefighter team. The destructive intensity of the firefighters is often matched by the intense inner control from managers.
Consider the common cycle: a systemic process of working hard, caretaking others, or self-sacrificing leads to feelings of loneliness and unappreciation (manager-exile dynamic). Firefighters then step in, offering soothing through behaviours like eating, drinking, or engaging in other compulsive activities. This classic pattern of “work too hard, reward ourselves, then feel bad” is common, and helping clients track these patterns can bring awareness to their managers’ overdrive (criticising, judging, perfectionism) alongside their firefighters’ medicating and escapism. This highlights the inherent, albeit extreme, balance within the system.
Clients are often blended with both sides of this internal “battlefield.” They might hear parts saying, “You’re out of control, something’s wrong with you,” while other parts respond, “I deserve this, you don’t understand.” Underlying this debate are exiles carrying feelings of hopelessness, shame, and despair.
Common polarities observed in clients include:
Never Use vs. Must Use: The internal struggle between rigid control and an intense craving.
Control vs. Out of Control: Managers striving for order against parts creating chaos and unpredictability.
Work Hard vs. Indulge: The drive for productivity conflicting with the need for reward and escape.
Do For Other vs. Do For Me: Self-sacrifice clashing with the desperate need for personal care.
Approval Seeking vs. Rebelling: Parts seeking acceptance and compliance versus those expressing outrage and autonomy.
Tell the Truth vs. Hide the Truth: The dilemma of transparency versus preserving the ability to continue a behaviour.
Compliance vs. Autonomy: The human urge to do things their own way against the need to conform for belonging.
Organised vs. Chaos: The desire for structure versus the unpredictable nature of acting-out parts.
Working with these polarities involves recognising the “big picture intentions” of these teams. Managers generally aim for order and adherence to rules, while firefighters seek relief, pleasure, and personal agency. By setting up these two broad teams, the therapeutic process can simplify the internal landscape, reducing chaos and allowing for clearer engagement from the Self. Healing arises as the Self connects with and builds relationships with both sides of these deeply entrenched polarities.
Conclusion
Internal Family Systems offers a truly hopeful and compassionate framework for healing addictive processes. By shifting from a paradigm of control and judgment to one of relationship and understanding, therapists can guide clients towards profound inner harmony. Recognising the inherent Self, the positive intentions of all parts—even the most destructive—and the systemic nature of addiction empowers clients to build internal connections that foster lasting change. IFS encourages patience, collaboration, and a deep appreciation for the unique journey of each individual, paving the way for sustainable healing and wholeness. The original video is available on YouTube and can be accessed below.
