Exploring Creative Paths in IFS: 8 Tools for Externalising Parts through Art and Expression

Self Therapy

Feb 17

Most of your IFS work in therapy might be with your eyes closed, speaking to your parts. Despite this, there are lots of creative ways that you can connect with your parts. This article takes you through various creative methods to deepen your IFS work.

InnerActive Cards

InnerActive Cards is a deck of cards designed to help you connect with your own parts. The cards represent different types of parts that you might have encountered in your own internal landscape. Looking through the cards can also connect you with parts that you may not have spent much time with yet. The cards can also be used as a starting point in IFS therapy sessions.

Tarot Cards or Oracle Cards

Similarly to InnerActive Cards, you can use a deck of tarot or oracle cards. You can draw cards intuitively and and reflect how the card might relate to different parts of you that have been active recently.

Items & Figurines

Tangible and tactile, items and figurines can serve as anchors for different parts. Holding an item can help you unblend from a part so that you can be with it and hear it out. Items can represent a certain aspect of a part, for example a tin soldier who is one of your protectors. Some of our parts may also want to choose an item or a toy that they like.

SoulCollage

SoulCollage is a creative process where you find pictures online or from magazines and combine them into a collage. One collage can represent a part of you and you can also create a collage that helps you connect with your Self energy.

Drawing

If you enjoy drawing, you can illustrate your own parts. These drawings can be something you return to as you continue working with a part, perhaps updating the drawing as the part’s appearance or role in your system changes.

AI Tools

Tools like DALL-E, Bing Image Creator and Midjourney can quickly help you visualise your parts using prompts. It’s been interesting for me to see the images that my clients have created of their own parts that we may have been getting to know for a while. I often see my clients’ parts as they describe them, and it’s been fascinating to see detailed images of these parts!

Music

You can find songs that match the story or the energy of a specific part, or craft playlists that resonate with different parts. There may be songs, artists or genres of music that also help you connect with Self energy.

Intuitive Writing

Experiment with allow your thoughts to flow freely, capturing the unfiltered voices of your parts in writing. You can also connect with a specific part, letting the part share whatever thoughts and phrases with you.

Sanni Kujala

I’m an IFS Practitioner specialising in working with highly sensitive people and deep thinkers around the world. With Internal Family Systems therapy, I guide individuals to process past traumas and navigate current life challenges so they can reconnect with themselves and the world again.

https://www.ifswithsanni.com