Parts Work Therapy: Healing Through Inner Connection
If you’ve ever felt like different parts of you are pulling in opposite directions, you’re not alone.
We all have different parts within us, shaped by our experiences, emotions, and relationships. Parts Work Therapy helps you understand these inner dynamics with curiosity and compassion, offering a path toward greater clarity, connection with yourself, and emotional well-being.
What Is Parts Work?
Parts work is based on the understanding that all humans have different parts of themselves—distinct inner voices, roles, or emotional states that show up in different situations. You might notice a part of you that wants connection and another that pulls away, or a part that’s highly driven and another that feels exhausted or unsure. This is not a sign of dysfunction—it’s the natural way the mind organizes experience.
Trauma doesn’t create these parts, but it can increase the tension or disconnection between them. When you've had to navigate overwhelming or unsafe situations, parts of you may have taken on extreme roles to protect you—sometimes by shutting down, avoiding emotion, or staying on high alert. Parts work helps you explore these internal dynamics with curiosity and care, so that your system can move toward greater harmony and healing.
Parts Work Approaches
Internal Family Systems (IFS)
IFS recognizes that our inner world is made up of distinct parts, each with a specific role. Some parts carry pain, while others work hard to protect us from that pain—sometimes by shutting down emotions, avoiding vulnerability, or reacting when you are triggered. IFS helps us build relationships with these parts, understand their function, and create internal conditions where they no longer have to manage emotional pain.
Ego State Therapy
Ego State Therapy is grounded in the idea that our personality is composed of different parts of self that may be linked to specific experiences, ages, or roles. These parts can emerge under stress, often representing earlier developmental stages or trauma responses. In therapy, we bring these parts into conscious awareness so they can be supported, updated, and integrated—not silenced or ignored.
Theory of Structural Dissociation
This theory explains how overwhelming or chronic trauma can lead to internal divisions in the mind as a survival strategy. Some parts take on everyday functioning, while others remain closely tied to traumatic experiences. These parts may hold intense emotions, sensations, or memories that feel disconnected from your current sense of self. By recognizing this internal structure, we can work gradually and respectfully with each part's specific needs, history, and function in the system to promote greater internal communication and cooperation.
How Parts Work Supports Trauma Healing
Trauma often fragments our internal world. You may feel disconnected, stuck in loops of self-blame or avoidance, or find yourself overwhelmed by emotional reactions that feel disproportionate or out of your control. Parts work offers a framework for understanding why these patterns exist—and how to relate to them differently.
Through this process, you can:
Understand and shift internal conflicts that keep you stuck
Reduce shame and reactivity by understanding protective patterns
Create space for emotional healing without becoming overwhelmed
Cultivate greater compassion and connection toward all parts of your experience
Reclaim agency and coherence in how you respond to yourself and the world
Who Can Benefit from Parts Work?
Parts work can support anyone who feels internally conflicted, emotionally stuck, or overwhelmed by reactions they don’t fully understand. While this approach is grounded in trauma-informed care, it’s not only for people with trauma histories—it’s for anyone who wants to understand themselves more deeply and relate to their inner world with more clarity and self compassion.
This approach is especially helpful for individuals who:
Feel torn between opposing thoughts, feelings, or desires
Experience intense inner criticism, self-blame, or shame
Notice emotional reactions that feel disproportionate or confusing
Have a hard time making decisions or trusting their own instincts
Struggle with chronic self-sabotage or perfectionism
Feel emotionally numb or disconnected from parts of themselves
Sense that unresolved pain from the past still has a hold on them
Parts work is also beneficial for treating trauma-related diagnoses, including:
Developmental or attachment trauma
Dissociative experiences or Dissociative Disorders, including DID and OSDD
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
Whether you’re managing the aftermath of chronic relational trauma or navigating dissociation, parts work offers a respectful and non-pathologizing way to engage with your internal experience. It helps you build bridges between disconnected parts of yourself, creating space for emotional resolution, resilience, and deeper self-understanding.
Integrating Parts Work with EMDR Therapy
In EMDR therapy, we often begin with identifying internal parts that may influence your readiness for trauma processing. Some parts may be eager to move forward, while others are fearful, skeptical, or protective. Before we begin reprocessing specific memories, we build relationships with these parts and explore their concerns, helping ensure the internal system feels safe and supported.
As trauma work progresses, different parts of self may become activated—not just cognitively, but through emotional surges, body sensations, or shifts in voice and awareness. Rather than pushing through or overriding these responses, we slow down and work collaboratively with the part that’s coming forward. This helps prevent retraumatization and allows the EMDR process to proceed in a way that’s respectful of your system’s natural rhythm and needs.
Online Therapy for Parts Work and EMDR
Whether you already have a strong sense of your inner parts or are just beginning to notice shifts in emotion, behavior, or bodily reactions, this work can meet you where you are. We’ll move at a pace that supports your nervous system and respects your lived experience.
I offer trauma-informed therapy online for adults in Arizona, Oregon, Washington, and Massachusetts—providing access to care that’s both skilled and compassionate.
Start Listening to the Parts of You That Need Healing
You don’t have to carry internal conflict alone. With the right support, it’s possible to develop a deeper understanding of your inner world and create space for lasting change.
Curious about how parts work and EMDR therapy might help?