Internal Family Systems and New Danish Parenting
Part 1: Integrity and Cooperation
Internal Family Systems (IFS) and the concept of New Danish Parenting (NDP) go hand in hand. They contribute to deepening our understanding of ourselves and of the importance of a secure (inner and outer) attachment — and thereby sow the seeds for more access to what IFS calls Self-energy.
Internal Family System (IFS) therapy, founded by American Family Therapist Richard C. Schwartz, is not just a therapeutic modality, but like NDP, a view of life and a way for being (present and conscious) in the world.
New Danish Parenting (NDP) is my translation of what we in Denmark call “Det nye Børnesyn” which translates more directly to “The new view of children” and is build on a foundation of equal dignity, authenticity, integrity, personal responsibility and secure attachment.
Like IFS, NDP is a way of viewing life and of being in the world and is therefore also referred to as “Det nye menneskesyn” which translates to “The new view on humans.”
I call this New Danish Parenting (NDP) because it relates deeply to our parenting styles and way of being in relationship to our children (and ourselves).
NDP was to a large degree founded by Danish Family Therapist Jesper Juul (1948–2019). Juul has written a large number of books on the subject (translated into many languages) and has cofounded both The Kempler Institute and Family-lab which now exists in many countries in Europe.
As a Danish Family Therapist and as an IFS therapist much of my own training and understanding of the (inner and outer) human systems is build on these same views — IFS and NDP — and of how attachment is the foundation for both.
A secure attachment style is the foundation on which we create a Self-led life. The secure attachment to our parents leads to a secure inner attachment between our parts and our Self. I have written more about this here and here.
From a strong inner foundation we build our lives with a feeling of Self-worth that does not break when we fail, when things doesn’t work out or when we lose what we have built.
If we, on the other hand, go out into the world without this foundation of Self-worth, the things we built — a good career, material things like a car, a house, a TV and so on — become who we feel we are and when we lose this or when we mess up, we fall that much harder.
Through the IFS understanding we know that a strong attachment — and thereby Self-worth, foundation and access to Self-energy — is always possible. You don’t lose the chance if your parents couldn’t provide a primarily safe attachment, because it is not something they give you, it is something you have access to inside of yourself and you can gain that access later on though (IFS) psychotherapy, self therapy, conscious living and awareness.
New Danish Parenting (NDP) is built on a foundation of equality and respect, and has a number of concepts built into it.
One of the main concepts focuses on Integrity and Cooperation — the spectrum between the individual and the group (me and us).
I will dive into this concept here and in following articles I will discuss other concepts of of NDP, such as Acknowledgement, Equality, Authenticity and Personal leadership.
Integrity and Cooperation
As human beings our lives will always flow somewhere in the spectrum between integrity and cooperation. Between me and us.
It’s not that one is good and the other is bad. Both are good and necessary and what is important is to be flexible in that spectrum; in opening and closing ourselves depending on who and what we are in relationship with.
Unfortunately as we all carry what IFS calls burdens (pain and beliefs from trauma), many are stuck in one or the other — or jump between two extremes — as our protective parts try to keep us safe in what they know to be an unsafe world or situation.
We all know integrity, because we are born that way.
When we first come into this world, we feel what our small fragile bodies feel and we react in congruence with that feeling and ask for what we need (by crying for it).
When we need the security of being held by a safe parent, we feel it can we call for it.
When we are hungry, need a clean diaper, are tired and so on, we feel it and we call for it.
When we feel overstimulated by to much contact, we turn our head away from the overstimulation.
These are very competent reactions!
What matters here is that our parents can understand and respond to our cries for contact and our turning away from contact.
Nobody is perfect (we are all human) and and therefore parents will not always react in just the way we need them to — often because of their own burdens and wounds from childhood — and when parents do not meet the need of the child, he or she learn to cooperate with them. We cooperate out of love, out of connection and out of survival.
Through cooperation we learn to wait our turn, to make space for others, to say thank you and apologise. We learn the ways of our families and the society we grow up in.
And when our parents teach us to only be breastfed every four hours, we learn to only ask for milk every four hour. This is not the natural rhythm that we feel inside (it is not a place of integrity), but a socially constructed rule, that we -over-cooperate with and adapt to, because we cooperate with the adults we attach to; the people we depend on.
Same thing is true for cry-it-out methods. We cry and cry. Mom and dad does not come to help and we learn to over-cooperate with that by closing off and not feeling what we feel.
Constructs like cry-it-out is not just about the child adapting and cooperating with their parents, but an over-cooperation that feels very unsafe and overwhelming for a small child. The child depends 100 % on his or her parents and learn that it cannot count on them, which makes the world a very scary place. The child cannot yet self-regulate and need mom and dad to co-regulate. When this does not happen, the child instead closes off, thereby creating a system of protectors around the burdened exile that holds the unbearable pain of feeling unsafe and unloved in this world.
When children get hurt by their parents, they will not stop loving their parents — they need them too much for that — instead they stop loving themselves.
If you read this and recognise this feeling in yourself or in your children, know that you are not alone and know that these feelings are held by parts of your internal system and these parts can be helped and healed. It’s never too late.
As parents we are taught a large number of social constructs that are normal in many societies todays, but normal does not equal healthy and safe. We learn the social constructs through our own upbringing, we learn them in our relationships and in the institutions and the (unspoken) rules of society.
What we call normal in many societies today, is to a large degree burdened belief systems formed by the trauma of the past that we pass on and on and on through the generations.
Therefore there is always a good reason why we parent the way we do. There is no need to beat yourself up about things you have done or should have done. Because nobody is perfect and we all do the best we can. When we learn to do something different or better, then we can do that.
It is never too late to heal, change and to clean up after ourselves.
Becoming conscious of ourselves and our parts, is a way of choosing what we pass on and what ends with us; what gets healed with us.
Cooperation is an amazing social skill we all have. We learn to fit in and play by the rules, which is really good and healthy. Only when our parents have rigid and burdened parts (which we all do in one way or another), do we over-cooperate and turn away from our integrity; from what we feel is right.
Children always cooperate with their parents. And when you can’t see it, look harder.
When we are taught not to be angry, we exile the anger inside.
When “big boys don’t cry” we exile the vulnerability.
But as we over-cooperate, our inner system create strong protectors and that anger and sadness will come out in different more extreme ways, to uphold the inner balance.
As healthy and social human beings we don’t need to choose either ourselves — integrity — or to be part of society — cooperation.
Instead we need to re-learn to have a flexible system where our boundaries towards other people can open and close to fit how we feel inside and who we interact with.
One of the most important jobs of a family, is to teach all its members that they can be themselves without loosing the love of their parents. To be ourselves together is to be flexible in the flow between integrity and cooperation.