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 is stuck in those traumatic places in time.
When triggered, these parts surface and take over, which is why we suddenly can be flooded with feelings of worthlessness, shame and other painful emotions when someone says the wrong thing or looks at us funny.
This is why we often react like children og teenagers when in conflicts with a loved one. It’s not just that we’re “being immature and need to grow up;” it’s that these parts of us are children and teenagers; these parts — and thereby energy stored inside of us — is still in that place and time and needs help getting out of there, but being told to stop being where they are.

In the Unburdening process the Self of the client will not just be the secure inner attachment figure for the part, but will witness the part and what it is stuck with, and be there in exactly the way the part needed someone to be there at the time of the trauma, so it is not alone anymore.

Remember: Traumas are not what happens to us, but what is stuck with us (or in us) by the lack of a secure witness. When we are not seen and met with loving eyes, we cannot see ourselves (lovingly) and we get stuck.

When the part is ready to leave that time and place, it is taken to the present day and is invited to give up the burdens and burdened beliefs it is holding because of what happened.

This is an important step of the healing because what has happens 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.

Some therapists get insecure about this step 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, selfhate, 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).

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 just enough to notice, some will breathe deeply, the color of their skin might change and some will sit very still and aware. 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).

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. This is often, but now 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 take 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 its 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, the elements holds — or can hold — a felt secure attachment, that can hold us, ground us, fill us with life, warm us, cleanse us and hold for us the core mysteries that is life and being.

In this way the elements, for many clients and their parts, can hold felt connections that are secure and sacred enough to help release the burdens that unsafe situations, 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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