What Is Parts Work? Why Part of You Wants to Heal and Part Doesn't

Have you ever felt like one part of you desperately wants to change, heal, stop the pattern and finally feel free… while another part of you is basically saying, "Absolutely not, we will be doing the exact same thing again, thank you"?

Maybe one part of you wants food freedom, while another wants rules. One part wants to stop bingeing, but another reaches for food the second everything feels too much. One part wants to be seen, while another would quite happily disappear into a large cardigan and become furniture. One part wants to rest, but another is convinced everything will fall apart if you stop.

Then we tend to judge ourselves for the contradiction. Why am I sabotaging myself? Why can't I just decide what I want? Why do I know exactly what would help and still do the opposite?

Parts work offers another way of understanding what is happening. Instead of assuming there is one perfectly consistent version of you who simply keeps failing to get it together, we can recognise that different parts of you may carry different fears, needs, memories and protective strategies.

And the part that seems to be getting in your way might not actually be trying to ruin anything.

It might be trying to protect you.

What Is Parts Work?

Parts work is an umbrella term for therapeutic approaches that understand the psyche as containing different inner "parts" or aspects of ourselves. Internal Family Systems, often shortened to IFS, is one of the best-known parts-based models, although parts work also appears in other therapeutic approaches.

The basic idea is surprisingly intuitive. Most of us already talk this way without thinking about it. "Part of me wants to go, but part of me wants to stay." "Part of me loves them and part of me is furious." "Part of me wants to change and part of me is terrified of what happens if I do."

We are full of these inner contradictions. You can want closeness and fear intimacy. You can want food freedom and crave strict rules. You can want attention and simultaneously feel unsafe being seen. You can genuinely want to heal while another part of you remains deeply attached to the strategy that helped you survive.

Parts work gives us a way to understand those contradictions with less shame. Instead of saying, "I'm self-sabotaging," we might begin with, "A part of me is scared." Instead of, "I'm out of control," we might wonder whether a part of us is desperately trying to create relief.

That small change in language creates space. There is you, and there is a part of you having an experience. Suddenly there is room for curiosity rather than immediately deciding that you are the problem.

Parts Aren't Bad — Even When Their Strategies Hurt

One of the ideas I find most useful in parts work is that we begin by assuming protection rather than defect.

That does not mean every part makes helpful choices. A protective strategy can absolutely create pain. A part can be trying to help you while using a method that no longer works particularly well. Many of us have at least one inner part with roughly the emotional strategy of a raccoon in a bin.

But there is often a reason the strategy exists.

The part that wants strict food rules may be trying to create certainty, control or protection from shame. The part that binges or overeats may be trying to soothe, numb, discharge or provide relief when something feels unbearable. The part that desperately wants your body to become smaller may believe being smaller will make you safer, more acceptable, less judged or more loved.

The part that wants to be seen may long for expression, intimacy, aliveness and connection. Meanwhile, the part that wants to hide may remember experiences in which visibility didn't feel particularly safe.

Both can exist.

This is similar to the way I talk about the nervous system as a protection system. Protective responses often make much more sense when we stop asking only, "How do I make this stop?" and start asking, "What has this been trying to do for me?" You can read more about that in Your Nervous System Is a Protection System — Here's What That Actually Means.

The Part That Wants to Heal and the Part That Doesn't

I think this is where a lot of people become incredibly hard on themselves.

We imagine that genuinely wanting recovery or change should mean every part of us is fully on board. If I really wanted to stop bingeing, surely I wouldn't keep doing it. If I really wanted food freedom, why would I still crave rules? If I really wanted to stop restricting, why does the idea of letting go of restriction feel terrifying?

But healing often contains ambivalence.

One part of you may desperately want to stop bingeing because bingeing feels exhausting, shame-filled and painful. Another part may be terrified of losing one of the only reliable ways it knows to create relief.

One part may want to stop restricting. Another may believe restriction is the thing protecting you from body change, rejection, judgment, loss of control or becoming someone you don't recognise.

So feeling stuck doesn't necessarily mean you don't want healing badly enough. Sometimes it means that some part of you isn't convinced healing is safe yet.

That makes quite a lot of sense when you think about it. If a strategy once helped you cope, belong, stay in control or survive something difficult, that protective part isn't necessarily going to retire because your adult self listened to a podcast and made a new plan.

It needs more than instructions.

It needs relationship.

The Goal of Parts Work Isn't to Get Rid of Your Parts

Parts work isn't about identifying the part of you that binges and saying, "Right. You. Into the basement. We're healed now."

The goal is relationship, understanding and eventually leadership.

Can we become curious about the part instead? What is it afraid would happen if it stopped doing its job? What is it protecting? How old does it feel? Does it seem to be reacting to what is happening now, or to something it learned a long time ago?

And importantly: can we listen without immediately obeying?

That distinction matters. Parts work does not mean every protective part gets to do whatever it wants simply because its intentions make sense. That would be a little like putting every toddler in a nursery in charge of driving the car.

We want present-day, grounded adult you driving the car.

The food-rule part can be heard without making every food decision. The inner critic can tell us what it is frightened of without being given permission to verbally abuse you all afternoon. The binge part can communicate that it desperately needs relief without food having to remain the only possible route to relief.

Often these protective parts have been doing their jobs for years. The critic has tried to keep you acceptable. The perfectionist has tried to prevent shame. The fawn response has tried to preserve connection. The shutdown part has tried to conserve energy. The food-rule part has tried to create safety. The binge part has tried to provide relief.

They may not need more hatred.

They may need help.

Parts Work and Somatic Therapy

Because this is Becoming Wilder, I'm obviously not particularly interested in keeping all of this inside the thinking brain.

Parts don't only show up as thoughts or voices. They can show up in the body too.

A part might arrive as a tight throat, clenched jaw or collapsed chest. You might notice buzzing in your hands, heaviness in your belly, tension through your shoulders or a sudden desire to curl up. Something might want to move forward, pull back, push, hide, reach, run, speak or become incredibly still.

This is one reason parts work and somatic therapy can fit together beautifully. Rather than only asking, "What does this part think?", we can also ask, "How does this part live in my body?"

Where do you feel it? What posture does it take? Does it want to move toward something or away? Does it feel young? Does it trust you? Does it even seem to know that you are the age you are now?

Sometimes a protective part is responding using very old information. Your adult self knows you can eat lunch; a food-rule part might still experience hunger, fullness or body change as threatening. Your adult self knows you can say no to someone; a fawning part might still believe saying no means losing connection. Your adult self knows one photograph cannot actually harm you; a body-image part may experience being seen as an emergency.

This connects closely with what I wrote about in What Is Somatic Therapy? How Trauma Gets Stuck in the Body. We cannot always reason protective responses out of existence. Sometimes the system needs a new experience of safety, choice or support before an old response begins to change.

Parts Work for Binge Eating and Emotional Eating

Parts work becomes particularly useful when we bring it into our relationship with food.

Imagine there is a part of you that desperately wants to stop bingeing. It hates the shame afterwards. It hates feeling out of control. It wants peace, consistency and the ability to go through a day without constantly thinking about food.

Then there is another part that reaches for food when life becomes too much.

That part might essentially be saying, "Excuse me, I have been dealing with this for years. When we're lonely, I know what to do. When we're overwhelmed, I know what to do. When we're angry and can't express it, I know what to do. When everything feels unbearable, I know how to make it change for a little while."

If we only listen to the part desperate to stop bingeing, we may respond with tighter control, stricter food rules or restriction. But the underlying part still needs relief. Now it may also be dealing with deprivation, shame and even greater urgency.

If we only listen to the part seeking immediate relief, food may remain the primary way of coping even when that creates its own pain.

Parts work offers a third possibility: Can we understand the part that needs relief without making food its only option? And can we understand the part that wants recovery without allowing it to become harsh and controlling?

That question becomes even more useful when we understand how much our relationship with food can shift depending on our nervous-system state. I explore that more in Polyvagal Theory and Emotional Eating: Why Your Relationship With Food Keeps Changing.

What About the Part That Wants Food Rules?

Intuitive eating and food freedom can sound wonderful to one part of you and absolutely horrifying to another.

One part may want to eat without rules, enjoy meals, stop obsessing, stop moralising food and trust the body again. Another part may desperately want rules because rules reduce uncertainty. They promise control. They seem to offer protection from body change, guilt, judgment or chaos.

If we completely ignore that second part and announce, "Well, we're doing food freedom now!", it may panic.

That panic can sometimes look like more obsessive thoughts, more body checking, more restriction, more guilt or an overwhelming urge to regain control.

Instead of shaming the part that wants rules, we can get curious. What are you afraid would happen without them? What do you believe your job is? What are you protecting me from? What might help you tolerate even a tiny bit more flexibility?

This is also why "just listen to your body" isn't always enough. If different parts of you have very different relationships with hunger, fullness, control and body change, body trust may need to be built gradually rather than demanded. I talk more about this in Why Healing Your Relationship With Food Requires More Than Listening To Your Body.

Parts Work for Body Image and the Inner Critic

Body-image spirals can feel like one enormous voice: I hate my body. I need to change it. I can't be seen like this. I can't wear that. I don't want the photo taken.

But when we slow the experience down, there may actually be several different parts involved.

There might be a critic trying to protect you from other people's judgment by judging you first. There may be a younger part remembering being compared, commented on, ignored, teased or sexualised. There may be a controlling part convinced that changing your body will finally make life safer. There may be grief about how much time has already been spent fighting your body. There may even be a rebellious part that is completely sick of everyone telling you what to do.

The inner critic is particularly interesting because it can feel so obviously hostile. And yet even criticism may have begun as protection.

The critic might essentially believe, If I point out the flaws first, maybe nobody else can surprise us with them. If I keep you under control, maybe you won't be rejected. If I shame you enough, perhaps you will change before anybody else notices.

Is that kind? No. Is it usually particularly effective in the long term? Also no.

But understanding its protective intention means we don't have to choose between believing everything it says and going to war with it.

You can begin to say: I see that you're trying to protect me. And I also don't want to be spoken to like that anymore.

That is relationship and boundary.

Why Parts Work Can Reduce Shame

Shame says, "I am bad."

Parts work offers, "Something in me is trying to protect me."

Shame says, "I'm broken."

Parts work asks, "What happened that made this strategy necessary?"

Shame says, "I should be over this by now."

Parts work considers whether a part of you may still be responding as though the old danger is happening now.

That does not remove responsibility. Parts work is not a way of hurting yourself or somebody else and shrugging, "Sorry, it was one of my parts."

It can actually ask for more responsibility, because instead of handing control to whatever part is loudest, you begin learning how to lead your inner system. You can understand a behaviour without automatically continuing it. You can respect why a strategy developed while deciding that you want to build something different now.

Who Is the "Adult Self" in Parts Work?

Different parts-based approaches use different language for this. Internal Family Systems talks about Self. You might prefer wise self, grounded self, compassionate adult, present-day you or something else entirely.

I don't think you need to become overly attached to the terminology.

What matters is the experience of having enough space to notice what is happening without becoming completely swallowed by it.

Instead of I hate my body, there may be enough space to notice, A part of me is really struggling with my body today.

Instead of immediately obeying the urge to restrict tomorrow, you might notice, The food-rule part is frightened.

Instead of disappearing into post-binge shame, you might recognise, The part that used food for relief was trying to help me get through something.

This adult or grounded self does not have to be perfectly calm, spiritually enlightened or permanently regulated. You can be tired, messy and unsure what you're doing and still be capable of turning toward yourself with curiosity.

Sometimes leadership sounds like: I hear that you want to restrict tomorrow because you're frightened, and we're still going to eat breakfast.

Sometimes it sounds like: I know you desperately want food right now because you need relief. I'm not going to abandon you while we figure out what else might help.

Sometimes it sounds like: I know you want to disappear. We can move gently today, but we don't have to disappear completely.

That is relationship.

A Simple Parts Work Exercise

You don't need to immediately identify an elaborate cast of internal characters with names, ages, outfits and LinkedIn profiles.

Start with one phrase:

"A part of me…"

The next time you notice an urge, spiral or internal argument, try putting those words before the experience.

A part of me wants to eat everything right now.

A part of me wants to restrict tomorrow.

A part of me hates my body today.

A part of me wants to be seen.

A part of me wants to disappear.

A part of me wants to heal.

A part of me doesn't trust healing yet.

That wording alone can create a tiny bit of space between you and the experience.

Then you might gently ask: What is this part afraid would happen if it didn't do its job? What is it trying to protect me from? How old does it feel? Where do I notice it in my body? What does it need from me right now?

You don't need a clever answer. This isn't a courtroom interrogation where you drag your psyche under fluorescent lighting and demand an explanation.

You're building a relationship.

Maybe all you notice is, The part that wants food feels panicky and young. Or, The part that wants rules is incredibly tense, but underneath that tension is fear. Or, The part that wants to disappear sits right in my chest and really doesn't want anybody looking at me.

Then perhaps you respond.

I see you.

That makes sense.

Thank you for trying to protect me.

I'm not going to force you away.

I'm also not going to let you hurt us.

We're going slowly.

You don't have to do this job alone.

Talking to parts can feel strange at first. But most of us are already talking to ourselves all day anyway. Parts work just gives us a way of doing it with a little less cruelty and, often, a little more accuracy.

You Are Not One Contradictory Mess

You are not one perfectly consistent self continually failing to get it together.

You are a human being capable of holding different fears, needs, memories, desires and protective strategies at the same time.

There can be a part that wants to stop bingeing and a part that still relies on food for relief. A part that wants freedom and a part that wants rules. A part that longs to be seen and a part that desperately wants to disappear. A part that wants to trust your body and another that remembers why trust once felt unsafe.

The goal isn't to get rid of whichever parts make things inconvenient.

It's to build enough relationship with them that they don't have to run the entire system from fear.

Your body is not the enemy. Your parts are not the enemy. They have been trying to protect you.

And you can slowly learn how to protect yourself differently now.

If this is the kind of work you're exploring, you can also read Signs of Trauma in the Body (Even When Nothing "Bad" Happened) and What Is Somatic Therapy? How Trauma Gets Stuck in the Body to understand more about the relationship between protective responses, trauma, the nervous system and the body.

And if food and body image are where these different parts become loudest for you, The Regulated Eater goes much deeper into understanding the nervous-system and emotional patterns underneath bingeing, overeating, restriction and body-image struggles.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is parts work?

Parts work is an umbrella term for therapeutic approaches that explore different internal "parts" or aspects of ourselves. These parts may hold different beliefs, emotions, needs or protective strategies. Rather than trying to eliminate difficult parts, the work generally involves understanding their role and developing a different relationship with them.

Is parts work the same as Internal Family Systems (IFS)?

Not exactly. Internal Family Systems, developed by Richard Schwartz, is one specific and well-known parts-based therapy model. "Parts work" can also refer more broadly to working with different ego states, inner parts or subpersonalities within other therapeutic approaches.

Why do different parts of me want opposite things?

Different parts may have developed different strategies for keeping you safe. For example, one part may want food freedom because restriction is painful, while another may experience food rules as protection from uncertainty, body change or judgment. Both can exist at the same time.

Can parts work help with binge eating or emotional eating?

Parts work can provide a framework for exploring what a binge or urge to eat may be trying to accomplish, such as relief, soothing, numbing or discharge. This does not mean all binge eating has one psychological cause, but it can help reduce shame and create curiosity around the function of a behaviour.

Can parts work help with body image?

Parts work can help separate the different fears and needs that may be tangled together inside a body-image spiral. For example, an inner critic, a younger hurt part, a part afraid of judgment and a part seeking control may all be involved rather than there being one simple belief of "I hate my body."

What is a protective part?

A protective part is a part understood as trying to prevent pain, danger, rejection, shame or another difficult experience. Its strategy may no longer be helpful, but parts work starts by becoming curious about what that strategy is trying to protect rather than immediately treating the part itself as the problem.