The 6 F's in Action | Live IFS Demonstration Commentary
The 6 F's in Action | Live IFS Demonstration Commentary
In this episode, I take you inside an IFS session by revisiting a past demo and offering live commentary on my thought process, choice points, and reflections. You'll see firsthand how the Six F’s of IFS (Find, Focus, Flesh Out, Feel, Fear, Befriend) unfold in real time as I guide a client through working with a protective part that resists emotional closeness. I break down the importance of tracking parts, honoring protectors, and moving at the speed of trust to ensure safety and effectiveness in the IFS process.
The Six F’s of IFS provide a structured yet fluid way to engage with parts, ensuring safety and connection throughout the process.
Protectors often surface early in sessions, signaling fears that must be acknowledged before deeper work can take place.
Tracking your own therapist parts—such as the urge to "make progress"—is crucial for staying self-led and honoring the client’s pace.
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Transcript:
[00:00:00] John: Okay, for today's episode, I'm going to do something a little bit different. I'm going to be re watching an IFS demo that I did, and I'm going to be doing some live commentary over top of it. So you'll see me reacting to the demo talking through different choice points what my thinking was with different choice points, what I might do differently, et cetera.
[00:00:18] John: And I think it should make for a pretty Interesting episode. Let's see where it takes us and get started.
[00:00:28] John: Hey, if you're a therapist or other type of practitioner and you've ever felt stuck with a client, like they keep circling and circling around the same struggles, if you've noticed your own triggers showing up in sessions, if you're looking for a deeper, more effective way To facilitate true lasting change in a way that doesn't burn you out.
[00:00:48] John: Then it's time to bring internal family systems therapy into your practice and into your own healing journey. I'm excited to announce the opening of the doors to my new program. Pathways to [00:01:00] self. This is a monthly membership community where you're going to get access to my IFS basics course, my meditation and demo libraries, a community of like minded practitioners where you can learn and grow.
[00:01:13] John: Access to a weekly Q and a with me and access to one on one sessions with me at a 50 percent discount. This is the first time we've ever opened the doors to this program. And for our community founders circle, we're offering a one time opportunity to get in with our founders pricing. If you're interested in being part of the community, then the doors are open now, but they are closing.
[00:01:40] John: Later today. So this is the last chance to get in before we close the doors and focus on serving and building our community. So if you're interested in joining pathways to self jump in using the link below, and I look forward to seeing you inside, we're going to do an IFS demo here and see where things take us.
[00:01:57] John: And yeah, I just really appreciate your willingness [00:02:00] to to be a participant for this and to help me in this way. Like I mentioned a little bit before the chats or before hitting record this this session is entirely for you. So we'll just see where it goes. And that being said, let me know if you have an idea of where you want to begin.
[00:02:15] Sarah: Okay. And allowing me to have a go at this. Yeah, I think for me something that's been popping up. As popped up over a few months, but recently it's quite present is, um, I have this part of me that seems to be really almost like repulsed or like really actually strongly when I'm.
[00:02:40] Sarah: Either in the presence of, for example, I was at a non violent communication retreat last week, and there was a couple there, and just them, showing that very nice, lovey, caring side towards each other really put me like, oh, I don't want to see this, I really don't like this, and then there was another couple [00:03:00] there, was The next day who I noticed a lady just looking at this at her partner like with this really, love filled eyes.
[00:03:08] Sarah: And again, I had that same reaction and The reason it's bothering me is that it's also acting in such a way that when I am with people like my sons, I have two 17 year old sons and, or even like family members, I cannot somehow bring myself to ask them questions about anything that has to do with kind of it.
[00:03:31] Sarah: They're vulnerable or soft side or their, their experience there was something really simple the other day we were watching TV.
[00:03:39] John: So right off the bat, some interesting stuff happening here. So this is the first time I've ever met with this client. We're calling her Sarah in these demos.
[00:03:49] John: So this is the first time I've ever met with her. I don't know her, I'm not sure where she's going to take the session or what she wants to work on. She's starting right off the bat with what I would [00:04:00] consider a pretty good trail head in IFS terms, in terms of a starting point and something we can work on.
[00:04:06] John: So she's been thinking about this thing that she wants to work on, which is a part of her that feels repulsed by mushy. Stuff people being mushy and talking about their feelings and I may have heard of course I would need to check this out with her another part that sees That repulsed part getting in the way of her being able to be mushy With her kids and show up in that way as a mother.
[00:04:35] John: So we're already seeing the tension. We're already seeing kind of a potential polarization here, and I'm just listening and tracking and thinking of her in parts. And that in itself, even if we weren't going to go and do insight work. Here shortly that's still IFS, just listening and tracking and thinking of your client in parts.
[00:04:57] John: And so I'm just waiting to see where she [00:05:00] takes it here and really, I'm waiting for a pause or an invitation. I'm waiting for a moment where she naturally turns to me like, okay, I'm ready for you to help me with this thing. Or not, maybe that invitation doesn't come, right? Maybe she wants to spend the time today just talking about the thing.
[00:05:17] John: And again, I can still practice IFS by being in my self energy as much as I can, by thinking of her in parts and conceptualizing that way, by naming parts and seeing if she goes for that language. And I can just track her system. The most important thing that I can do, and I'm trying to do in this moment, is notice any parts that I have that may have an agenda, right?
[00:05:43] John: Parts have agendas, self has no agenda. And so what i'm also trying to notice is parts of my own that are active and slowly starting to get activated Around wanting to help wanting this session to go wanting this to be a useful ifs demo for the [00:06:00] podcast for my channel all those things Right those self like parts that we talk about So i'm aware of them and in my own system of asking them To unblend, I'm asking them to soften back so I can just be with this client, Sarah, and see where this goes and make this a true therapy session and make this a session that is truly for her, regardless of where it goes.
[00:06:21] John: Something I told her and I tell all the demo participants before we hit record is We don't have to use this, there's no pressure on my end for this to be a a big session or have some big aha moments or some great unburdening in these epic, sessions or demos. And so the more I've done these demos, the more I found that it's important to set that stage and for their parts to know you don't have to do anything special because this is a demo and it's being recorded.
[00:06:47] John: And after we hit. Pause or hit stop on the recording and I send it to the participant. If they decide they don't want to use it completely fine. And we honor that. I think some of that helps set the stage for this and also [00:07:00] paradoxically then allows for parts to come forward. More, more comfortably and willingly.
[00:07:05] John: Let's see where this goes here.
[00:07:06] Sarah: And, my son like saw like somebody who was screaming in a pillow and he asked me, have you ever done this? And then a part of me wanted to ask him and the other part could not bring myself to ask this. So it's impacting my relationship because I can't really connect to people in that area in that way.
[00:07:28] Sarah: Does that make sense?
[00:07:30] John: Okay, so I'm going to pause again and we might even, we might only get through ten minutes of this. Demo, but this is giving me a lot of jumping off points and talking points, which is helpful for me in creating content for the show. She's telling me also right off the bat why this is a problem, right?
[00:07:49] John: Manager parts are generally the ones that bring things to therapy and that bring people to therapy, right? Manager parts are the ones that say, Hey, this thing is no longer working, right? [00:08:00] This part that is repulsed by mushiness. Closeness. And vulnerability. And another part that's Hey, that's not good, because it gets in the way of our ability to be a good mom and have closeness with our kids, right?
[00:08:12] John: And so she's bringing this to therapy and saying this is what I wanna work on. This is why it's a problem. And then she's asking me. Is this something we can work on? So there's that contracting piece that's happening in the moment. There's multiple levels of contracting. There's the initial level of doing a session.
[00:08:32] John: And in this case, having a demo participant sign up for a session and saying, I'm going to give you a free IFS session in exchange for your time and your willingness to have it published, which is a big deal. The second contracting is we're doing this session. And we're talking about this thing.
[00:08:50] John: Is it okay to talk about this thing? And in my case, is it okay for me to help you with this thing? And she's giving me, some form of that invitation [00:09:00] here. Now the contracting and recontracting can and should happen throughout the therapy process. It should happen throughout a single therapy session, right?
[00:09:09] John: So anything I offer should be done with invitational language. Would you like to explore this more? Would you like to name these parts? Or would it be okay if I tried to name these parts so that we can get an idea of kind of the parts we're working with here? And she might say yes, or she might say, no, that seems weird or that seems creepy or whatever.
[00:09:33] John: And then that would be part of the contract, right? Naming parts wouldn't be in the contract. So we'd have to figure out something else here. So contracting happens in many levels and it happens moment to moment. In other words, we're contracting with protectors, and the way we keep the work safe is fundamentally by working with protective systems first and foremost.
[00:09:54] John: And that's what we're thinking here. Yeah. Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. [00:10:00] Either of these could be great to work on here today. And it's possible that there's a part or two involved in both. It's possible they're separate, but related. Who knows? Do you have a sense for which one feels more pressing or more?
[00:10:16] John: Okay, so this is classic working with the six F's of IFS here. If you're a practitioner or if you're a client and you're just curious about this, then you might learn a little behind the scenes here about how it all works. I'm also keenly aware of the fact that I'm wearing the same shirt in the demo that I'm wearing right now.
[00:10:37] John: And there's a part of me that finds that embarrassing and a part that finds that pretty funny. So it was not planned, but here we are. And it's strange to be looking at myself here. If you're watching the video element. So I'm reflecting back to her, the parts that I've noticed, right? And we are going through a couple different Fs [00:11:00] in this case, finding The part focusing on the part fleshing out the part a little bit.
[00:11:06] John: They're all happening at the same time and they're happening fluidly and again, that invitational language is key here. I'm just asking her and what I'm doing really is I'm defaulting to her self energy. By saying, do you get a sense of which part we should focus on? In other words, which part most needs our help today.
[00:11:26] John: And what I might do is, especially if it's not clear, have the client go inside or do a miniature version of going inside here and say, do me a favor and just shift your focus inside, whether you're closing your eyes or not, and see if you can ask. Which part most needs my help today? Just ask that inside as a general PSA and see what happens.
[00:11:49] John: See if a part clearly raises their hand in some way, whether you get that in the form of a thought, an image, a body sensation, whatever it might be. So I'm [00:12:00] just trying to see if she can be the one to choose where we send the help, right? This is essential, right? This is part of what keeps her in the driver's seat and not me.
[00:12:13] John: And this is how we keep the system as safe as possible. So let's see where she goes from here.
[00:12:18] Sarah: It's the same really because I get the same internal reaction somehow when it happens. So it feels like it's, it goes down to the same thing, really. I don't know what it is, but yeah. Yeah. So I don't mind really.
[00:12:34] Sarah: Yeah. Yeah. Cause it even stops me sometimes asking people about their interests, their passions, anything like that. Yes. So yeah.
[00:12:41] John: Okay. Yeah. Are you noticing any of that activation right now as you think about it?
[00:12:48] Sarah: I think it's probably recent enough that I can feel it. [00:13:00] So last night I wanted to, it's my mom's birthday in a couple of days and I wanted to get her.
[00:13:11] John: Okay, before we go further with that, there's a clear shift there where I'm inviting her, if she wants, to go from talking about the thing to focusing inside, right? IFS is also about working in the here and now, it's about working in the moment. So client comes in with this external situation in this context, or a thing that happened, or something my boss said, or the way that my partner looked at me.
[00:13:37] John: And what I'm always trying to do is find what's in the here and now, right? As you think about that thing your partner said to you, the look your partner gave you, what do you notice inside? Can you notice the activation? Can you notice the part of you? It's activated right now in this moment, and can you connect with it?
[00:13:58] John: So IFS [00:14:00] is fundamentally about part to self connection, self to part connection, and part to self connection. Self to part connection means can you notice the part and find it and connect with it? Can you make it more aware of you? Hey part, this is me. John at this current age saying hi and connecting with you and letting you know I'm here and I'm interested in hearing your story.
[00:14:24] John: And then part to self connection, right? Hey part, now that I'm here and you know that I'm here, what do you want to tell me? How aware That is the part of me, of self, right? We strengthen that connection and we try to really bolster that connection before we go forward with the work in any IFS session.
[00:14:42] John: It's really important that we that we do that due diligence that way. I'm inviting this invitation and it sounds like she's starting to give more context as to. How this bubbled up recently and Let's see where it goes from here
[00:14:57] Sarah: thought suddenly later the Amazon [00:15:00] basket. Oh, there's a little like heart thing Oh, I could get her a little heart necklace and I had to fight against myself to do that because even just buying her Like a little heart shape necklace.
[00:15:14] Sarah: I was just like, oh
[00:15:18] John: So again, she's giving me another trailhead Or this part that's repulsed by mushiness is activated, right? I was buying, or thinking about buying this heart necklace for my mom, and a part of me thought, Ooh, no. Oh, no. Again, I invited her inside. There was another trailhead, so she came out quickly, her eyes are open again, and she's talking about the thing again, which is completely fine and completely normal, but I'm also tracking that during the session.
[00:15:46] John: I'm noticing that imitation to go inside maybe was met for a second or two, and then she came back out, and there's a part of her that feels it's important to give me more context, right? Here's another way that [00:16:00] this part that's repulsed by mushiness plays out in my life, and I'm tracking that and going, yeah, so let's see how I track it.
[00:16:07] John: Oh yeah, so
[00:16:08] Sarah: I can connect to that, I think, quite easily.
[00:16:11] John: Okay, what's happening in your body right now? As you think about buying your mom that heart necklace. Okay. So again, this is critical. I'm making a second invitation to go inside and I get a sense that it's okay to make that second invitation. Beyond that, hopefully not pushing it and hopefully her parts don't feel like that's me pushing too much for her to go inside.
[00:16:37] John: But that's again, really the invitation is as you think about the repulsion around buying mom a heart necklace, what do you notice inside? In other words, what parts are here right now? And can we work with them? So that's the invitation. And you can see right away, she closes her eyes. She goes with it.
[00:16:57] John: But there may be a part of her that feels like she just needs to go with it, [00:17:00] right? So we have to be really careful there and try to go slow. As they say we move at the speed of trust. And so I have to go as slow as needed to work with her. And again, this is the first session. And it's also a demo, right?
[00:17:14] John: So you have first session. I've never met her before, but it's also a demo and I'm keeping these factors in mind. She's been watching the podcast for a while. She had let me know in an email. She knows about the IFS model. She's a big fan of it. She's been doing IFS with her practitioner. So she has familiarity with the model.
[00:17:32] John: So I am thinking of that as well as I'm inviting her. Inside again. And again, let's see where it goes. Once I make this second imitation,
[00:17:43] Sarah: I noticed like the throat is closing the chest is like the solar plexus is tightening. Everything just feels like it's constricting and it's just almost putting me like a block.
[00:17:56] Sarah: It doesn't want me to go there.
[00:17:59] John: [00:18:00] Okay. So getting a really strong protector response. here, right? A part that's expressing through the body and saying it doesn't want me to go there, right? Really clear reaction here. And, incredible how many parts communicate through the body, right? A lot of IFS naturally is somatic IFS.
[00:18:21] John: Because of the way parts often express through the body and that's the case for her, right? So pretty clearly a protector part saying hey, not so fast. Yeah. Okay. So you might just start there with this part that says, don't go there. If you can connect with that part or just ask inside. For that part to tell you more about what could be bad about going there.
[00:18:51] John: I'm doing an okay job here in hearing and noticing that there's protector fears, protector concerns, and [00:19:00] the go to here is really to explore and invite those protector concerns, right? So this is again, a really a pretty illustrative example of using the six F's of IFS, right? We've done work around finding the part, right?
[00:19:14] John: How do you notice it inside? Can you connect with it right now in the here and now? Can you focus on it? And as she focuses on it and flushes it out a little bit more, she notices the activation right away in her body. And then we go right to protect her fears, which is another F. Right. The part is communicating through her body.
[00:19:35] John: Hey, not so fast, right? There's concerns about going forward with exploring this repulse part more, right? So clear protector fears. And all I want to do here is invite those fears, validate those fears, say, Hey, thanks for letting us know. This is a protective system doing what it does best. And again, exploring fears is one of the F's.
[00:19:55] John: And so that's what we're doing here is I'm just inviting her to explore the fears [00:20:00] from the protector. And then we'll see where we go from here.
[00:20:04] Sarah: So the words that came up when you said, don't go there was don't do it. It's all connecting to that. Don't do it. Because
[00:20:22] John: yeah, take your time.
[00:20:24] Sarah: It's something about opening. If you do that, it's going to open up something.
[00:20:31] John: Yeah. Yeah. See if you can just ask, what does this part fear it would open up? Or you can ask this part, when's the first time that it
[00:20:46] Sarah: It was problems and yeah, problems.
[00:20:52] John: Yeah. See if you can ask for clarification what kind of problems or when was the first time this was a problem [00:21:00] for this part?
[00:21:20] Sarah: It's saying
[00:21:26] Sarah: you go down that path, you have to be ready to receive. You have to be ready to show you have to be ready for what's going to come if you show your feelings if you receive their feelings, it's just too much. It's the idea of overwhelm.
[00:21:46] John: Okay we're going to talk through what just happened.
[00:21:50] John: And again, here, you're getting classic protector concerns. And I paused the video again, and the protector concern [00:22:00] is, as, and this is very common, is it would just be too much, right? If we go there and get to know this part that feels discussed with closeness, basically that it would be too much.
[00:22:14] John: Really clear concern, really clear fear. And I'm just inviting to hear more about that, right? The key thing here is that we want to honor those fears. We want to validate them. We want to get to know them more. And we just want to, again, work with what's coming up and not push past any protectors, right?
[00:22:32] John: Not bypass any protectors unintentionally, because then you can get protector backlash and you can do unsafe work. So this part is saying if we went further and explore this more, it could be too much. Now, some things you could do here, and I don't remember exactly what happens after this moment, cause it's been a long time since we did this demo.
[00:22:53] John: But what you could do here is again, you're exploring the nature of the fears, what would happen. You're exploring [00:23:00] the first time it took on this fear, it took on this job of making sure we don't go there. You could also again work more with that self to part and that part to self connection, right?
[00:23:09] John: So that fear is that it would be too much. In other words, too much for Sarah, the client. And you could say, Hey part, how aware are you of Sarah? And Sarah, how aware of you of the part and on, right? And build that relationship a bit. When you explore that a bit more and build some more of that trust, right?
[00:23:25] John: Maybe the part is okay with us exploring 10 percent of it. Or maybe not, right? Maybe that's as far as we get today and that's okay. And we just hanging out, we just keep hanging out with that protector and getting to know that protectors fears again. And we don't go past that. At the end of the day, again, with this small short clip, there's a lot going on there.
[00:23:44] John: And there's a lot of different things that I'm doing from an IFS perspective, really mostly thinking about. So we're going to be talking about those six F's of IFS and again, finding, focusing on fleshing out getting to know the fears. And then hopefully we're doing some befriending, [00:24:00] right?
[00:24:00] John: Which is another F of the part and just letting it know, Hey, I'm here. Thanks for doing what you're doing. I'm not trying to take your job away. I'm just here to learn more, right. And to build a relationship with you and let you know that I'm here and I exist, that self exists and on we go.
[00:24:17] John: When you go inside a client system or your own system, you really never know what you're going to get. That's why it's called a trailhead, right? We're setting off on this trail and seeing where it takes us. In this case, we met some protectors right off the bat. And again, even though there might have been a manager part bringing this topic to the surface and to the demo, there's another part, right?
[00:24:36] John: Another protector going, Hey, not so fast. So really interesting how that works. And again, maybe some form of a polarization there between a part that's Hey, we should be a good client for this demo and a part that's Hey not so fast. This could be overwhelming. We could get flooded.
[00:24:49] John: This could be embarrassing or whatever the fear is. And we just want to say, we want to hear more about that and say, that's totally legit. Thanks for sharing that part. And we want to just slow it all [00:25:00] way down.
[00:25:03] John: I hope this was helpful. Again, really good example of how sessions can go, what it's like to go inside with a client for the first time and how it can be just a dance. So I think you got to see that in this clip today. So I hope this was really helpful. As a reminder, like I said at the beginning of the episode we just opened the doors to my new membership program.
[00:25:24] John: It's called pathways to self. And the doors are open now. We actually, I've just extended the opening so that they can be open now by until the end of the day. So if you want to jump in. To that program. Then now's the time to do that, to secure that founder's pricing. So you're going to get access to my IFS basics course, my meditation and demo libraries, a community of like minded practitioners.
[00:25:49] John: So you'll have a group like a Facebook group, but not on Facebook, where you can share insights, resources, and gain support and engage with me. You'll have access to a weekly Q and a on zoom, where you can come [00:26:00] and ask me anything. Every single week and get help with your IFS work and then you'll have access to one on one sessions with me where you can get more consulting and we can work with your own parts, talk through your cases, whatever you need.
[00:26:12] John: And you'll get access to those sessions at a 50 percent discount, but. The doors are closing later today. So if you want to jump into the program now is your last chance to do that at this current founders pricing that we're offering just here during the first launch of our new program pathways to self.
[00:26:30] John: So if you're interested, jump in now and I look forward to seeing you inside and again, I hope this episode was helpful and I'll see you in the next one. Take care. Thanks for listening to another episode of going inside. If you enjoyed this episode, please and subscribe wherever you're listening or watching and share your favorite episode with a friend.
[00:26:49] John: You can follow me on Instagram, @JohnClarkeTherapy and apply to work with me one on one at JohnClarkeTherapy. com. See you next time.