Parts Work

You may have heard of therapies such as internal family systems or ego states, that use “parts work.” And you may be asking yourself, ‘what the heck is parts work?’

Parts work asserts individuals have different parts that comprise who we are. You can think of it as parts of a system that create a unified whole. For example, you may have eggs, sugar, flour, butter, leavening, but only together does it make a cake.

Various parts of self have different roles in our system, such as a manager, protector, caregiver, holder of difficult experiences or memories, and so on. We may even have parts of self that hold traumatic experiences, and be stuck at the developmental age the event occurred (wild right??). All that said, there are no bad parts. All parts are welcome and serve a purpose in our system to help us survive. However, sometimes parts have competing views, differing needs, or maybe a part needs a new job, as their previous role is no longer supportive. Parts work is a powerful and experiential therapy that allows you to explore your inner-world, while learning how to navigate and work with these differing views.

Parts work can be interwoven within other therapies. I have completed advanced training in using ego states therapy with EMDR.

For more information on parts work, check out the resource section