IFS Therapy: Attachment and The Elements in the Unburdening Process
The “Unburdening” process is a part of Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy. This is where the Self of the client recreates the lost secure attachment to the exiled (often very vulnerable) parts, by being with them the way they needed someone to, back when the trauma — and thereby the burden — happened.
We know today that the past is not just the past, but that parts of our internal system can be stuck in those traumatic places in time.
When triggered, these parts may resurface and take over. This is when we are suddenly flooded with feelings of worthlessness, shame and other painful emotions, when someone may have just said the wrong thing or looked at us funny.
This is why we often react like children og teenagers in conflicts with a loved one. It’s not just that we’re “being immature and need to grow up.” It’s that parts of us are children and teenagers. These parts — and thereby energy stored inside of our bodies — are still in that place and time, and need help getting unstuck.
In the Unburdening process the Self of the client, as the secure inner attachment figure for the part, will witness the part and the pain it carries, and be there in exactly the way the part needed someone to be there at the time of the trauma. It will not be alone anymore.
Remember: Traumas are not what happens to us, but what is stuck in us by the lack of a secure witness. When we are not seen and met with loving eyes, we cannot see ourselves (lovingly), we cannot feel safe inside and out. We get stuck.
When the part is ready to leave that time and place, it is taken to the present day and invited to release the burdens and burdened beliefs it has been carrying as a result of what happened.
This is an important step of the healing process because what has happened to us, in the absence of a secure witness, is held inside of our inner system. Many of us feel our burdens very physically like tension, pain and restrictions in different places of our bodies, as feelings of being existentially wrong, bad and unlovable, and as burdened beliefs about ourselves and the world.
Some therapists and practitioners get insecure about this step of the IFS unburdening process because it often involves the elements. They might find it a bit weird or unscientific and will be drawn to skipping it. If this is you, read on and be sure to let me know what you think.
At this step, the actual unburdening step, the part is invited to give up the burdens it carries — shame, feelings of worthlessness, self-hate, loneliness and so on — in any way that feels right. Most clients (or the parts of the clients) will chose an element:
Water, fire, air or earth.
The burden can be washed away, burdened in a fire, sink into the earth and so on. (Any other way that feels right to release the burdens is welcomed. The part and the system always knows what’s right for them).
In this way the energy that is attached to the part and the internal system of the client can be released. Some clients will shake or tremble, move violently or pershaps just enough to notice. Some will breathe deeply, the color of their skin might change and some will sit very still and aware. There may be a big shift inside that is almost unnoticeable on the outside. There is no right or wrong as the burdened energy is released.
(After this there are more steps to conclude the process that I will not go into here. They are taught on the official IFS Level 1 trainings).
Why are so many clients choosing one of the elements at this step of the process?
We can look at attachment for a possible answer.
From the attachment theories we know that children can have more attachment figures, but that they will typically have deeper and more primitive attachment to their primary attachment figure or caregiver. This is often, but not always, the mother.
In relation this the primary attachment figure — and in later life often also a partner that they are deeply and securely attached to — the connection and relationship will be at a deeper felt and more vulnerable level, and more primary in the needs felt and (at times) expressed.
This primary attachment, or what psychoanalyst Michael Balint calls “primary object,” that takes form in the early (existential) stages of life, does not only involve the human connection, but also the elements that we are part of or take part in, if you will.
Have you ever gazed over the ocean or stared into a campsite fire and finally felt at peace? Or perhaps felt a sense of connection and meaningfulness?
Have you ever felt the ground under your bare feet and known the calm secure support that earth seems to hold for us?
Or have you felt the fresh breeze touch the skin on you face or the parasympathetic calmness that fills your body when breathing air slowly and deeply into your lungs; into your body?
As physical creatures of the world, we not only attach to other human beings and I believe our attachment to the elements is so primary that it is “just part of who we are;” that we take it for granted, just like the child in early stages of life take mother for granted because she simply seems to exist for them and without her there would be no being; existence would cease.
Just as our primary attachment figure — if and when attachment is secure enough — is our secure base; the person who holds us, loves and accepts us for who we are, so the elements offer a felt secure attachment that can hold us, ground us, fill us with life, warm us, shine it’s light on us, keep us safe, cleanse us, and keep for us — and with us — the core mysteries that is part of life and being alive.
In this way the elements, for many clients and their parts, can hold felt safety and connections that are sacred and secure enough to help release the burdens that the unsafe situations, relationships, attachment wounds and traumas caused them to take on.
And perhaps for this reason the elements are part of many healing journeys in Internal Family Systems therapy.
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