The 6 F's of Internal Family System — A Simple Way to Start Healing Your Inner World | Illinois
- Michaela Kozlik
- Oct 28, 2025
- 8 min read
Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy offers a way to relate to the anxious part, the inner critic, the people-pleaser, and the angry part with curiosity instead of shame. The 6 F's are six steps for connecting with your parts and beginning to heal them. This post walks through each one in plain language.
By Michaela Kozlik, LCPC · Therapist for women navigating anxiety, burnout, and trauma in midlife & perimenopause, Illinois
Most of us learned to deal with difficult inner experiences by pushing them down. Staying busy. Thinking positive. Telling the anxious part to calm down and the inner critic to shut up.
And most of us have noticed that doesn't work.
The harder you try to suppress what's happening inside, the louder it gets. The anxiety gets more anxious. The critic gets louder. The part that feels too much keeps surfacing at inconvenient moments no matter how fast you run.
Internal Family Systems therapy (IFS) offers a different approach. Not fixing, but listening.
What IFS Actually Is
IFS was developed by Dr. Richard Schwartz and is based on a simple but profound idea:
You are not just your parts. You are also the Self who can hold them.
Every person has parts like the anxious part, the inner critic, the people-pleaser, the angry one, the lonely part. These parts are not problems to be eliminated. They are aspects of your inner world that developed for real reasons, usually to protect you from pain, rejection, or danger.
The goal of IFS is not to get rid of your parts. It is to build a relationship with them from a place of curiosity and compassion rather than shame and control.
When parts feel seen and understood, they begin to relax. They stop working so hard. The inner world gets quieter, and maybe calmer, because something was finally heard.
One of the simplest, most beautiful ways to begin this process is through what’s known as the 6 F’s of IFS: six gentle steps to help you connect with a part of yourself and begin a healing relationship with it.
The 6 F's of IFS — Step by Step
The 6 F's are a structured way to connect with a part and begin building a relationship with it. Here is what each step actually means in practice:
1. Find
What it is: Noticing that a part is present.
Start by asking: what is happening inside right now? A tightening in your chest. A voice saying you should have done better. A wave of sadness that feels familiar. A sudden urge to scroll, eat, or stay busy.
Finding is about locating the experience, not judging it or analyzing it. Just noticing it is there.
A simple shift that matters: Instead of saying I am anxious, try something in me feels anxious. That small change in language creates distance between you and the part. It opens up the possibility that this part is not all of you.
2. Focus
What it is: Bringing gentle attention toward the part.
Once you have found a part, move your attention toward it. Notice where it lives in your body. Is it in your chest? Your stomach? Your throat?
Focusing is not about fixing or analyzing. It is about sitting with the part the way you might sit beside a friend who is upset. Just being there. Paying attention.
Even a few moments of focused attention communicates something important to your system: I see you. I am here.
3. Flesh Out
What it is: Getting to know the part more specifically.
If this part had a shape, color, age, or expression, what would it be? What emotions does it carry? What does it want you to know?
For example:
The anxious part might look like a small child wringing her hands
The inner critic might show up as a stern teacher standing over you
The people-pleaser might feel like someone holding their breath
Giving form to the part creates a way to understand it rather than getting swept up in it.
4. Feel Toward
What it is: Noticing your reaction to the part.
Now that you are aware of the part — how do you feel toward it? Curious? Irritated? Ashamed? Compassionate?
Your reaction tells you something important: whether you are relating to the part from the calm, grounded, compassionate place, or whether another part has stepped in.
If you feel judgmental, I hate this anxious part of me, that is just another part showing up. Maybe one that is tired of the anxiety. Maybe one that is afraid of being seen as weak.
You can acknowledge that part too: I see that another part doesn't like this one.
The goal is not to push anything away. The goal is to notice what is happening with curiosity, which is itself the beginning of something shifting.
5. Befriend
What it is: Letting the part know it is seen.
Once you have found some curiosity or compassion, even a little, you can begin to befriend the part.
You might say internally:
I see that you have been trying to help me
I know you carry a lot
I'm here now. You don't have to work so hard
Most parts developed to protect you from something real. The perfectionist part learned that achievement was the only way to feel safe or loved. The angry part is guarding wounds that were never acknowledged. The anxious part is still monitoring for threats that the environment taught it to expect.
As I explain in You Can See the Pattern. So Why Can't You Stop It? — these parts formed through experience. They can change through experience too. Befriending is one of the most direct ways to begin that change.
When parts are approached with warmth instead of criticism, they relax. They realize they do not have to keep working so hard.
6. Fear — What Is the Part Afraid Of?
What it is: Asking the part what it is protecting you from.
This is the question that reveals everything.
Ask the part: What are you afraid would happen if you didn't do your job?
The answers are almost always rooted in old pain:
The overachieving part: If I stop striving, you'll be rejected
The people-pleasing part: If I stop making everyone happy, I'll be alone
The angry part: If I let my guard down, I'll get hurt again
The anxious part: If I stop watching for danger, something bad will happen
When you listen to these fears without trying to argue with them or fix them, parts begin to trust you. They start to understand that there is a Self, a grounded and caring presence, who can handle things now. Who can protect them in ways they have been trying to protect themselves.
What Happens When Parts Feel Heard
This is how IFS actually helps:
The inner critic softens — it is still there, but it has less automatic power
The anxious part settles — not because the anxiety is gone, but because it no longer has to be so loud to get attention
The sadness becomes more bearable — because it is being sat with rather than suppressed
The people-pleasing part loosens its grip — because the Self is finally present enough to take some of the weight
This is what healing looks like in IFS. Not getting rid of parts. Integrating them. Building a relationship with your inner world that is rooted in trust and compassion rather than judgment and control.
As I write in What It Actually Feels Like to Feel Safe — safety is not the absence of difficult parts. It is the presence of a Self that can hold them.
IFS and Perimenopause
IFS is particularly powerful for women in perimenopause — because perimenopause has a way of activating parts that have been managed for decades.
As I explain in You're Not Losing Your Mind. You're in Perimenopause — the hormonal shifts of perimenopause make it harder to keep parts at a manageable distance. The anxious part gets louder. The angry part surfaces with intensity that feels foreign. The grief that was being held at arm's length gets closer.
IFS gives you a framework for understanding what is happening as parts finally getting loud enough that they can't be ignored. And a practice for meeting them with something other than suppression.
IFS and Therapy Intensives
IFS work needs time. The 6 F's are simple in concept and genuinely challenging in practice, particularly when working with parts that carry significant trauma or have been managed through suppression for a long time.
In a weekly 50-minute session, we often just get to a part and have to stop before anything fully moves. In a therapy intensive — a half-day or full day of sustained, focused work — we have the time to actually stay with a part. To move through all 6 F's. To let something shift rather than just approach it and retreat.
For women who have been in survival mode for a long time, whose parts have been working overtime for decades, intensive IFS work can create movement that weekly sessions have been building toward but haven't reached.
As I describe in What Happens in a Full Day Therapy Intensive — Hour by Hour — the arc of a full day creates conditions for real integration. Not just understanding your parts. Actually building a relationship with them.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is IFS therapy?
Internal Family Systems is a therapeutic approach developed by Dr. Richard Schwartz. It is based on the idea that we all have multiple inner parts — like the inner critic, the anxious part, the people-pleaser — and a core Self that can relate to those parts with compassion. The goal of IFS is not to eliminate parts but to build a trusting relationship with them so they no longer have to work so hard to protect you.
What are the 6 F's of IFS?
The 6 F's are Find, Focus, Flesh Out, Feel Toward, Befriend, and Fear. They are six steps for connecting with an inner part and beginning to understand and heal it. Each step deepens the relationship between Self and part — moving from awareness to compassion to genuine understanding of what the part is protecting.
Is IFS effective for trauma?
Yes — IFS is one of the most effective approaches for trauma specifically because it works with the parts that developed to protect you from traumatic experiences. Rather than pushing past protective parts to get to trauma, IFS builds a relationship with those parts first, which creates the safety needed for deeper trauma work.
Can IFS help with anxiety?
Yes. Most anxiety in adults is a part that learned early to stay on alert, monitor for threat, and prepare for the worst. IFS works directly with the anxious part, understanding what it is afraid of, what it is protecting, and what it needs to feel safe enough to relax. As I explain in You Understand Your Anxiety. So Why Can't You Make It Stop? — anxiety that is rooted in nervous system learning requires approaches that reach that level. IFS does.
How does IFS work in a therapy intensive?
IFS in an intensive gives us the time to actually move through the 6 F's with a part and stay long enough for real integration. In weekly therapy, sessions often end just as something is opening. In an intensive, we can open something and stay with it through the activation, through the understanding, through the shift. For women with complex trauma or long-standing protective parts, this depth of work creates movement that weekly sessions build toward but often cannot fully reach.
Do you work with women outside of Chicago?
Yes — my practice is 100% virtual, and I work with women throughout all of Illinois. That includes Chicago and the surrounding suburbs — Evanston, Oak Park, Naperville, Wilmette, Hinsdale, Glenview, Barrington, Lake Forest, Highland Park — as well as women in Rockford, Peoria, Springfield, Champaign, and anywhere else in the state. We meet wherever you are.
📞 773-343-5005. 🌐 inpsychotherapy.com. 📧 Michaela@inpsychotherapy.com
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