In IFS, we sometimes encounter parts that have been disowned or exiled because their feelings or behavior are seen as unacceptable. Originally the part wasn't acceptable to the family of origin (or culture), and then it became unacceptable to other parts of the client as well, and this dynamic has carried forward into the present. I will call these disowned parts.
Anger is probably the most common kind of disowned part. When clients have disowned their anger, they tend to lack assertiveness or strength. They may even be passive, pleasing, self-effacing, or lacking in self-confidence and drive. This is because their strength has become disowned along with their anger.
Let's look at an example. Donna's parents were judgmental and shaming whenever she got angry. They gave her the message that she was supposed to be a nice girl and not be aggressive or make waves. As a result, her anger got disowned, and this was enforced by managers that believed her anger was bad. Donna became meek and quiet and had a hard time asserting her needs or opinions.
Clients who have disowned their anger may occasionally have angry outbursts, due to the disowned angry part breaking through. This anger is usually extreme and inappropriate to the context. The person may feel ashamed of these incidents and believe that he or she has an anger problem. However, the real problem with the person's anger is that it is disowned.
Disowned anger can come from a protector, an exile, or even a healthy part. In the case in which it comes from an exile, the part is just responding in a naturally aggressive way to childhood insults or deprivations. However, this anger often becomes extreme because it is disowned. In other words, the part reacts to being disowned by becoming increasingly and irrationally angry.
In working with this type of anger, the goal is to gain access to the disowned angry part and welcome it back into the internal family of parts and into the client's conscious life, where it can live and express itself. It is helpful to do this even if the anger is extreme-though in this case, it should only be expressed in therapy sessions. Have the client witness the part's feelings, and encourage it to express the anger in whatever way it wants in a session. This is often a great relief to the client since the anger has been repressed for so long.
However, welcoming back the disowned anger may not be easy. There will probably be protectors that are frightened of it, and they will fight to keep it from being reowned.
IFS recognizes that a disowned part often holds a positive quality or energy that can be integrated into the client's psyche. For example, sexuality, spontaneity, and caring are all positive qualities that could be disowned if they were unacceptable in the client's family of origin. When the disowned part is welcomed back, it allows the person to reown this positive energy.
When anger is disowned, it isn't the anger itself that is the positive quality to be reowned. There is a positive quality that gets disowned along with the anger, which I will call strength. Strength means healthy aggression, aliveness, personal power, and the ability to assert oneself. It includes the ability to take risks, adopt a powerful stance in the world, and feel a zest for life.
Anger is a natural protector reaction to injustice, boundary violations, mistreatment, or frustration of one's aims. When we are in Self, anger is rarely necessary because we can call on our healthy sense of power, forcefulness, and limit setting to handle these situations. We can be strong and assertive without frightening or harming other people. This is what I mean by healthy aggression or strength.
When we exile our anger, we also exile our strength, not because we intend to but because is the way the human psyche operates.
By welcoming back disowned anger, we open the possibility of reclaiming this positive quality of strength for ourselves. This is especially true if we welcome back the anger in an embodied way that includes feeling the anger fully and perhaps expressing it. This helps us embody our strength and aliveness.
