Couples
In traditional couples coaching and relationship therapy, the focus is often on helping partners accommodate each other’s needs and improve communication. While this can be helpful, it sometimes feels like putting a band-aid on deeper issues, providing temporary relief at best from the inner and outer storms that gradually erode our relationships. In contrast, IFS therapy goes beyond surface-level fixes by addressing the inner worlds of both individuals. It helps each partner heal their own wounds, unburden past pain, and connect with their true selves. When both people do this inner work, it naturally creates a deeper, more authentic connection that isn’t just about meeting needs—
it’s about truly understanding and growing with each other.
Attachment Styles and IFS
You may have read about insecure Attachment styles—anxious, avoidant, disorganized. You may have learned about how they are shaped by early relational experiences and often influence how we all interact in intimate relationships. In traditional therapy and couples coaching, we are taught to learn how to make compromises for our partner to help meet their attachment style needs. In IFS however, these attachment patterns are seen as the result of protective and wounded parts developed to cope with relational challenges, parts that we can heal. For example:
Anxious Attachment:
May stem from parts that fear abandonment and
seek reassurance.
Avoidant Attachment:
May involve parts that protect against
vulnerability by
avoiding intimacy
Disorganized Attachment:
Often involves parts that carry unresolved trauma, leading to conflicting behaviors in relationships
IFS helps partners recognize how their parts interact and trigger one another. For example, one partner’s anxious part might activate the other’s avoidant part, creating a cycle of conflict. By working to identify and heal the wounded parts driving attachment behaviors, each part can understand their own and their partner's emotional triggers, respond to relational challenges from a place of Self-energy rather than reactive parts, and foster deeper emotional intimacy and trust by creating a safe space for vulnerability. Here's how:
1
Identifying Parts
We'll begin by identifying parts involved in your attachment pattern. For example, a part might cling to your partner out of fear of being left, while another part might withdraw to avoid potential hurt.
2
Building a Relationship with Parts
You will learn to connect with your parts from a place of Self, cultivating curiosity, compassion, and understanding. This process helps your parts feel seen and valued rather than judged or suppressed.
3
Unburdening Wounded Parts
Parts carrying painful emotions (e.g. fear, shame, grief, etc. from past relationship experiences) are guided to release these burdens. This often involves revisiting and reprocessing past attachment injuries.
4
Restoring Balance
Protective parts (e.g., those that cling or avoid) are reassigned healthier roles once they no longer feel the need to protect against perceived threats in your relationship. This fosters more secure attachment behaviors.
5
Strengthening Self-Leadership
As the Self becomes the primary guide, you can approach intimate relationships with greater confidence, empathy, and balance. You and your partner will be less likely to react from a place of fear or defense and more likely to engage in open, connected communication.
In essence, IFS doesn't just work to understand attachment wounds. IFS heals and transforms attachment wounds, helping individuals and couples build healthier, more secure relationships.
As the founder of IFS, Richard Schwartz says, "Many of the chronic struggles most couples face melt away because each partner is released from being primarily responsible for making the other feel good. Instead, each knows how to care for their own vulnerability, so neither has to force the other into a preconceived mold or control the other's journey. This shift allows the relationship to move away from dependency and toward a healthier, more balanced dynamic where both individuals feel free to love and connect without losing themselves."
"When I no longer put what is essentially a spiritual longing on my partner, this frees her of a great burden - to make my life work, to fill up my abyss, to be the instrument of my salvation. It also frees me to see and love her as a real person, and to appreciate the real gifts she brings into my life."
- John Welwood
