Transforming Relationships Starts with You: IFS Therapy in San Francisco
Our intimate partnerships often activate our deepest-rooted struggles and can manifest as one of the most dominating issues in our lives. As a therapist in San Francisco, I use Internal Family Systems therapy (IFS) to help my clients navigate difficulties in their relationships. You’re probably here because you read my previous blog, where we explored how our inner parts - especially neglected Exiles - can create challenges in our intimate relationships.
Today, I’m going to discuss ways we can apply IFS to move beyond cycles of pain and disconnection and toward healing and growth in our relationships - starting with the most important: the relationship we have with ourselves. (You can brush up on the key concepts of IFS here and here.)
What Schwartz refers to as “Self-leadership” is the cornerstone of healthy relationships. When you and your partner find yourselves trapped in a cycle of triggering each other’s Exiles, Self-leadership can help guide you out of that cycle and into a place of deep understanding and mutual trust.
In Schwartz’s book, You Are the One You’ve Been Waiting For (Sounds True, 2023), he invites us to cultivate Self-leadership by becoming the primary caregiver of our parts, un-blending from and speaking for our Exiles, and practicing Self-to-Self communication with our partner.
Becoming the Primary Caregiver for Your Parts
When our Exiles are activated in relationships - when something our partner says or does hits a tender spot - we often expect them to soothe or fix what we’re feeling. In doing so, we unintentionally hand over the responsibility of caring for those vulnerable parts. But when we abandon our own Exiles this way, we miss the opportunity to connect with the compassion, clarity, and strength of our core Self. And it's that Self-leadership that truly helps our relationships thrive.
So, what does it mean to become the primary caregiver for your own parts?
When we think about what a healthy caregiver looks like for a child, we might imagine a gentle, responsive dynamic where the caregiver pays adequate attention to the child and responds to the child’s pain with curiosity for their feelings, tender acknowledgment, and asking what they’re afraid of and what they need. They are a steady presence in the child’s life, and when the child comes to the caregiver with a problem, they can trust that the caregiver will always be there, ready to embrace them and help guide them.
In this analogy, as adults, our Self becomes the caregiver, and our Exiles are like the child in need of care and attention. When we take responsibility for the healing and attention our inner Exiles need, our Exiles look to us first for comfort and sustenance, and we can release the pressure we put on our partners to do this process for us.
Being our own primary caregiver allows our parts to trust us enough to remain calm in the face of disagreements, and to feel assured that they will be safe and tended to even when our partner is behaving in ways that trigger us.
When both you and your partner take responsibility for caring for your own inner parts, defensiveness and judgment naturally soften. You begin to recognize how your vulnerable Exiles are reacting to the relationship - and that insight brings greater compassion and curiosity.
Rather than trying to change or “fix” your partner, you can begin to accept them as they are, parts and all. This kind of Self-led responsibility fosters a more collaborative, trusting dynamic - one where true intimacy can grow.
Un-blending and Speaking For Exiles
The process of becoming our own primary caregiver to our parts and being Self-led involves what Schwartz calls “unblending” - identifying our parts and building trust with them. In my overview of IFS we discussed how un-blending can help cultivate a safe and harmonious inner world, so by extension, it can also support a safe and harmonious relationship.
Remember - how we relate internally informs how we relate externally.
Unblending means looking beneath the surface of our triggers to understand the deeper wounds our Exiles carry. You might gently ask your Exiles:
What beliefs about love and intimacy did you develop in response to early attachment injuries or the relationships you witnessed growing up?
What are you afraid will happen if you stay vulnerable and sit with the pain of abandonment or shame, instead of projecting those fears onto your partner?
And what do you need in order to feel safe, reassured, and able to trust me to handle our relationship with care?
The very act of asking these questions means we are separating from being blended with our parts and instead interacting with them from our core Self.
When you feel triggered by your partner’s behavior, instead of being overwhelmed by your Exiles’ extreme emotional response, you can recognize their desire to be witnessed and advocated for. What this means for your relationship is that you are able to speak for your parts, not from them.
For example, if your Exiles are terrified of being abandoned, you might have an extreme emotional reaction if your partner was hanging out with their friends and didn’t text you that they’d be home late. As soon as your partner walks in the door, the protectors of your Exiles may lash out, devastated and furious by how unreliable and careless your partner is.
This, in turn, may activate your partner’s Exiles - those tender parts that carry shame and the painful belief that they’ve failed or aren’t enough. In response, protectors often step in, fiercely guarding against vulnerability and the fear of losing autonomy. This might look like anger, emotional distance, or accusations that you’re being controlling or too needy.
Here, we have all the ingredients for an explosive argument. Each of you are blended with your parts and speaking from your parts.
Alternatively, if you’ve been working on un-blending from your parts and tapping into your Self energy, you can understand why your Exiles and Protectors are so upset and reassure them that they don’t need to “take over”.
You can speak for your parts by telling your partner, “There’s a part of me that’s feeling really angry and abandoned that you didn’t text me while you were gone. I support you going out and having fun with your friends, but it would mean a lot to me if you could drop me a quick text letting me know you’ll be out late.”
In response, your partner’s parts may feel more relaxed, knowing that you aren’t trying to control them, and what could have turned into a nasty fight could be a calm and compassionate discussion about ways to communicate that help both of you feel seen and heard.
Self-to-Self Communication
Un-blending and the ability to speak for - rather than from - our parts are crucial elements of what Schwartz calls “Self-to-Self communication”. Self-to-Self communication is a way of approaching conversations with your partner with the embodiment of the Self’s innate qualities, which Schwartz refers to as the “8 C’s”: compassion, curiosity, clarity, creativity, calm, confidence, courage, and connectedness.
In You Are the One You’ve Been Waiting For, Schwartz offers the following tips to practice for when you and your partner are edging dangerously close to a destructive argument:
Pause
Focus inside and find the parts that are triggered
Ask those parts to rest back and let you speak for them
Tell your partner about what you found inside (speak for your parts)
Listen to your partner from your open-hearted Self (114)
Self-to-Self communication encourages each of you to take responsibility for your vulnerable parts and witness your partner’s vulnerability with compassion and curiosity, making room for true intimacy.
Because you are the primary caregiver to your parts, you are liberated from the cycle of blaming and shaming each other for failing to meet your every need.
And even if only one of you is tapped into your Self energy while your partner is struggling to un-blend from their parts, Schwartz points out that “when extreme parts are met by Self, they lose their steam. Consequently, when one partner stays Self-led and resists the invitation to the predictable dance, the pattern is broken” (119). One of the amazing things about Self energy is that it’s contagious.
Self-to-Self communication leads to acceptance and understanding despite your differences, and you each can be reminded why you fell in love with your partner in the first place. You can appreciate your partner for all their complexity, and experience the wonderful feeling of acceptance for you and your parts, cultivating a sense of deep trust and collaboration between you. Which sounds pretty great!
Self-Leadership Is Not a Moral High Ground
As we grow in Self-leadership, it's easy to fall into the trap of using it as a measuring stick - consciously or not - against our partner.
You might find yourself thinking, "I'm being Self-led - why aren't they?" or feeling frustrated when your partner is blended with a part. But true Self-leadership isn’t about being “right” or emotionally superior; it’s about staying curious, compassionate, and grounded - especially when others aren’t.
Using your Self-led state as leverage in a conflict can quickly become a subtle form of control or judgment, which only distances connection. Instead, let your Self-energy be a quiet invitation - not a weapon. The goal isn’t to lead the relationship from your Self, but to lead your inner system with care, and show up with presence, patience, and humility, if possible.
We’re Not Meant to Be Self-Led All the Time
While Self-leadership is powerful, it’s not a standard we’re meant to uphold at every moment.
We’re human - which means we get triggered, we blend with our parts, and sometimes we react in ways we later wish we hadn’t. Sometimes, it’s not even about reactivity, but about a part communicating that something doesn’t feel right or just and needs our attention. That’s not a failure - it’s part of the work. Healing doesn’t mean always staying calm or “getting it right”; it means building the capacity to notice when we’re off-center, listen inward, and gently return to Self when we can.
Let’s honor the full range of our experience - including the messy, tender, well-meaning, deeply human parts of us.
Explore IFS Therapy in San Francisco to Support Your Relationship Growth
Self-leadership shows us that a healthy relationship starts with you. When you are your own primary caregiver and tapped into your Self energy, you create a sense of safety within yourself first, which provides the foundation for a more secure, compassionate connection with your partner.
This process may not be easy, but it’s a worthwhile journey toward mutual healing and trust with your boo, often leading to new depths of intimacy you couldn’t have imagined.
I am passionate about helping individuals navigate their relationship challenges through the lens of IFS. While I don’t work with couples, I’ve seen how individual IFS therapy can deeply transform relational dynamics. If you’re looking for IFS therapy in San Francisco, feel welcome to call me at (415) 851-5125 for a free 15-minute phone consultation. My specialties include anxiety, self-esteem, and relationship wellness.