from healing trauma to embodying wisdom: post-traumatic growth through a parts work perspective
what it means to heal the roots of trauma and live life with meaning after
foreword
Welcome to Whole Self! Every Sunday, I send out an offering which expands upon a concept related to parts work, embodied poetics, or post-traumatic growth. This is free, so if you subscribe you will receive this.
A brief note on me: my name is Sarah Ann Saeger and I am a licensed IFS therapist, writer, and post-lineage yoga teacher. My mission is to help you embrace the embodied wisdom of your whole self. You can find me on Instagram where I share short-form musings & lessons related to parts work with over 100k followers!
Last, here are some key concepts that can help you if you’re new to IFS:
Internal Family Systems (IFS) - a compassion-focused, evidence-based psychotherapy based on the assumption that healing happens when we seek to be with our internal experience (or inner world of parts) rather than “fix” or “change” it
Part - an inner complex, sub-personality, or version of yourself that exists with an agenda, emotion, job, memory state, somatic sensation, or belief
Self or Self-energy - the awareness that can hold all parts; compassionate, curious awareness; loving presence; awareness without an agenda
Parts work - the practice of healing your parts through witnessing, listening, and supporting them
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Post-traumatic growth is a phenomenon that defines how we grow after trauma and adversity.
This growth occurs across three main categories: self-perception, relationships with others, and quality of life or life philosophy (Giacomucci, 2024). Post-traumatic growth was first defined in the 1990s and is relatively new in the field of trauma theory and trauma research (Dell’Osso et all, 2022). Its conceptual framework challenges deficit-based models of trauma therapy that focus on the negative impacts of trauma and equate effectiveness of trauma therapy to resolution of trauma symptoms. Post-traumatic growth is a strengths-based approach to working through trauma that focuses on the development of positive qualities like curiosity and resilience, construction of meaningful relationships that offer connectedness and intimacy, and the deepening of meaning-making processes that solidify core values and strengthen one’s sense of purpose.
In strengths-based trauma therapies such as Somatic Experiencing (SE), Internal Family Systems Therapy (IFS), and Eye Movement and Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), post-traumatic growth typically occurs in the final stage of the therapy. In this final stage, the practitioner builds upon the previous work of resourcing, processing, and releasing traumatic memories, responses, and affect states. They integrate what they have learned through the process of trauma recovery and refine the skills that previous stages have taught them. They re-write narratives to include themes of self-efficacy, resilience, and grace where before these narratives strictly housed themes of betrayal, injustice, and cruelty. They adopt a fuller understanding of themselves, others, and life after the one dimensional perspective of trauma has been processed out. Post-traumatic growth is a stage of trauma recovery that continues for a lifetime, and rather than conclude in a linear, black-and-white fashion, it unfolds forward with the living of life just as it recursively spirals back to the traumatic experiences of the past, deepening their place in the present with perennial purpose and fresh meaning.
Post-traumatic growth is thus not only a stage of healing, but it is also a practice, a commitment to living life with meaning and wisdom.
In Internal Family Systems Therapy, the phenomenon of post-traumatic growth occurs when parts unburden from extreme roles, beliefs, and emotions and begin to integrate their repressed qualities, gifts, and lessons. In Transcending Trauma: Healing Complex PTSD with Internal Family Systems Therapy, IFS lead trainer and complex trauma expert Frank Anderson (2021) defines unburdening as “the process of healing wounded parts or exiles” (p. 9) or the “redo that involves the Self as the true corrective experience” (p. 159). Unburdening occurs when Self, the energy of compassionate awareness and rightful leader of the internal system, helps traumatized parts release their stories, beliefs, and affect states through a series of practices such as witnessing, do-over, retrieval, unload, invitation, and integration (Anderson, p.167, 2021). After this release has occurred, parts naturally find a new place in the internal system. The experiences which previously repressed or constricted these traumatized parts adopt new meaning. This happens with the assistance of Self and is quite intuitive, as if the part now has access to space and perspective that it didn’t previously.
The gift of unburdening is multifold: parts not only release the relics and roots of trauma, but they also claim the gifts of wisdom and connection associated with post-traumatic growth.
The IFS Institute describes IFS as a “transformative tool” and “paradigm” as well as an evidence-based therapy. The “goal” of IFS, if any exists (which gets tricky to define because technically Self has no agenda), is to cultivate Self-leadership by allowing Self to lead the internal system (IFS Institute, 2024). In IFS therapy, Self-leadership happens by allowing Self to witness and unburden parts from their traumatized states. As an IFS therapist, my goal with every client is to help their parts heal through this process of unburdening. This goal reflects my ethical and professional responsibility and is a necessary agenda to keep at the forefront of the work I facilitate with clients. But after parts have been unburdened and “healed”, the goal of IFS is really to be with parts rather than heal them, to live with Self-energy and maintain right, balanced relations with parts in the internal world. In the stage of post-traumatic growth which occurs after unburdening, IFS moves from evidence-based therapy to transformative tool, paradigm, and practice. Healing work becomes a practice of presence when parts have been unburdened and trauma has been compassionately witnessed. Situated in the model of IFS, post-traumatic growth looks like parts embodying and expressing their own wisdom and Self drawing on this wisdom in the living forward of life.