my therapist and I did not use IFS. short version it went contrary to our mutual personal and therapeutic beliefs in that IFS works on suppressing/ repressing and distractions, rather than facing ones traumas, hard times, not actually taking care of the problems from that past that are causing problems in the present.

example when feeling pain, shame, anger, hurt or depressed (otherwise called exile parts) push those feelings away, lock them up somewhere and move on to happier things (otherwise called firefighting or firefighters) and remain in complete control of your life and everything outside yourself (otherwise called managing/ managers) and when the problems come up again just continue to do the same thing...repress, suppress, exile, push the bad away and move on with the happy happy life focusing outside yourself. over and over and over again.

where as mine and my therapists personal and therapeutic belief is a problem is going to keep being a problem until you find out what is causing the problem and take care of it, face the problems, we believe that if I want to stop dissociating or stop feeling angry, guilty what ever other emotions I need to not suppress/ not repress, not push it away, but rather discover what happened and why and then do some thing about it to change myself and my life for the better. and once the problem is taken care of it no longer keeps continuing to be a problem over and over and over again.

theres more to IFS like learning to like yourself, how to listen to your gut instincts and other things too but over all this way of doing things was not for my treatment provider and I simply because of the basics of supression/ repression push away and other aspects of it.

IFS is also for normal parts of self not something like what my system was (DID) its on the premise that everyone even non mental disordered people have these parts of selves known as exiles/ firefighters/ mangers. where as my alters were a bit different than the normal parts of selves.

not saying it cant be used with dissociative disorders, because it can be used for any mental and physical health problem, just that my DID alters were different than having normal Exiles/Firefighters and Managers. which is another reason why my treatment provider and I did not use IFS.

that said I do know some people that it has worked great for them.

your own treatment provider will be able to tell you whether it will work for you based on what ever therapy plans you are working on.