Xuan(5): Clashing Voices | Internal Family Systems Therapy (7)

文章由作者秦小杰（心理咨询师，心理治疗师）用中文写作，后经deepseek翻译成英文，秉持：写作初心和来访咨询故事写作原则.

This article was originally written in Chinese by Qin Xiaojie (Counselor and Psychotherapist), and later translated into English with DeepSeek, adhering to the author’s original intent and principles of writing about client stories.

Author: Xiaojie Qin | Psychotherapist

Time: Dec 2025

My therapy with Xuanxuan, a client whose experience is defined by polarized states (Chapter 1), began with the crucial work of emotional stabilization. We made meaningful progress, reshaping unhelpful thoughts through top-down approaches like CBT and ACT.

Yet, we eventually reached a plateau—a familiar but frustrating stage of "I know, but I can't" (Chapter 2). During this time, I too navigated my own feelings of professional uncertainty and frustration. Preparing for our sessions became an exercise in grounding myself in my own Self (Chapter 3), a foundational concept in IFS.

This shift in my own stance allowed me to pivot our work. We moved from top-down analysis to bottom-up exploration through IFS parts work. This led to a pivotal understanding: her recovery had stalled because of a profound, protective rift—an estranged alliance (Chapter 4) between two of her most powerful parts.

Now, let's step into the therapy room. The following dialogue brings that theoretical understanding to life, showing how these estranged allies manifested in the raw, real-time ‘mania’ and ‘depression’ of our session.

作者：秦小杰

时间：2025年12月

我与璇璇（一位内在状态双相分化的来访者，见第一章）的心理咨询工作，始于情绪稳定化这一关键阶段。我们通过如认知行为治疗(CBT)、接纳承诺疗法（ACT）等“自上而下”的认知行为疗法，重塑了诸多非适应性思维，取得了切实的进展。

然而，我们最终仍抵达了一个瓶颈——那个熟悉却令人挫败的 “我知道，但我做不到”阶段（第二章）。在那段时期，我也在应对自己身为咨询师的困惑与无力感。准备与她的会谈，成了我练习回到自己内在真我（Self，IFS核心理念，见第三章） 的功课。

正是我自身状态的这一转变，让我得以调整我们的工作方向。我们从“自上而下”的分析，转向了通过IFS部分心理学进行的“自下而上”的探索。这引出了一个关键性的理解：她的康复之所以停滞，是因为两个最强大的部分之间，存在一种深刻且具有保护性的裂痕——一种“疏离的联盟” （见第四章）。

现在，让我们一同走进咨询室。接下来的这段真实对话，将把这一理论理解生动地呈现出来，展示这对“疏离的盟友”如何在咨询的实时进程中，外显为那些未经掩饰的“躁狂”与 “抑郁”状态。

The Inner Dynamics of Xuanxuan's Parts

At this point, we have clearly identified the inner parts within Xuanxuan:

• The Exile: The wounded, hidden little girl from her early years.

• The Manager: A tyrant who protects the system through rules and control.

• The Firefighter: An impulsive, fiercely protective brute who uses extreme methods (violence, depression, etc.) to numb the pain.

  
  

They share the same ultimate goal: to protect the 'exiled' little girl at all costs.

However, they hold diametrically opposed beliefs about the best way to protect her, and become "estranged allies". The Manager views the Firefighter as a dangerous "saboteur", while the Firefighter sees the Manager as a heartless "tyrant".

This fundamental distrust causes their methods to clash and counteract each other, pulling Xuanxan's internal system between the two poles of "extreme control" and "catastrophic collapse," leaving her utterly exhausted.

璇璇内在部分的博弈

至此，我们已经清晰识别出旋旋的内在部分：

• 「流放者」部分：那个早年受伤、被隐藏的小女孩

• 「管理者」部分：通过规则和控制保护系统一个暴君

• 「消防员」部分：冲动又护犊的暴徒，用极端方式（暴力、抑郁等）止痛

它们怀有同一个最终目的：不惜一切保护那个流放者“小女孩”。然而，它们对‘如何最好地保护’有着截然不同的信念。管理者视消防员为危险的‘破坏分子’，消防员则视管理者为无情的‘暴君’。这种根本上的不信任，导致它们的方法互相冲突、互相掣肘，将璇璇的内在系统拉向‘过度控制’与‘失控崩溃’的两极，令她精疲力竭。

Having a Dialogue with Her Parts

Xuanxuan's counseling, during periods of relative emotional stability, entered a phase of working directly with trauma. During this stage, I primarily employed experiential techniques, aiming to temporarily bypass her habitual logical thinking—a neuroscientific approach often termed "bottom-up" processing.

The following excerpt is from one session where visualization was used while unpacking an event from her past week, as it quite vividly illustrates the dynamic interplay occurring within her internal system:

Xuanxuan had fallen into severe guilt after forgetting to pack her child's luggage, leading to the following exchange.

"I retreated to my room, lay in bed, and felt awful," Xuanxuan said.

"Close your eyes and feel what thoughts are present in your mind," I asked.

"You're an incompetent mother," she replied.

This voice of guilt and blame was her Manager part in action. It maintains control, a “mania” stage, through harsh self-criticism, fueling an exhausting cycle of perfectionism and relentless drive—all in a desperate attempt to prevent the deeper, paralyzing anxiety that her perceived “failure” might trigger.

"If this voice were in this room, where would it come from?" I asked, attempting to visualize her experience for better understanding.

"In that wall," she said slowly, looking at one wall of the therapy room.

"What does it look like?" I asked, deepening the imagery.

"It looks fierce, hiding right there in the wall," she answered.

"Keep your eyes closed. What would you like to say to this part?"

She paused for a long time. Her breathing grew rapid, her expression pained. She couldn't utter a word. Her body leaned away from the wall, as if facing that fierce part directly was too uncomfortable.

"That's okay. Shall we try, in your imagination, to slowly turn and face this part?"

"I don't dare," she responded immediately. Her body grew stiffer, her head lowered, and she unconsciously rubbed her fingers to soothe her distress.

Where did this fierce voice truly come from? In the early stages of our work, I would have tried to answer this question from an IFS perspective, potentially falling into a classic pitfall. I will address this practical challenge of IFS in a later chapter.

Noticing she was nearing the edge of her emotional tolerance window; I immediately guided her back to her breath. Yet, within less than a minute, while her body relaxed, it began tilting uncontrollably backward.

"I'm going to fall asleep," she murmured, her voice suddenly wrapped in a thick blanket of drowsiness.

When working with clients who have experienced severe trauma, it's crucial to constantly monitor their state of consciousness. Xuanxuan's state was not physical fatigue. Our visualization work had triggered an emotion too intense to bear—when the psyche is overwhelmed, the parasympathetic nervous system can over-activate. It's like triggering an extreme self-preservation program, plunging the whole person into a "freeze" or "shutdown" state. This is a shared human survival instinct, solely to avoid unbearable pain.

Xuanxuan is a girl who grew up with domestic violence. Making it this far speaks to her incredible resilience, yet her heart also holds mountains of unhealed wounding. In this moment, as her pain was rekindled, the Firefighter part—responsible for "emergency response"—took over. The dissociative "I'm falling asleep" reaction in the session was the Firefighter in action. In her daily life, this same "protection" manifests as the depressive, hypo-aroused state of being unable to get out of bed, work, or care for herself—a world shrouded in exhaustion and numbness.

"Stay awake. Feel the strength in your back. Sit up straight. Stay awake," I followed immediately with guidance, my voice steady and firm. I needed to help her return within the window of emotional tolerance, as she had just been triggered and was almost slipping into dissociative sleep. Only then could our exploration continue.

In those brief ten minutes, I witnessed a classic cycle of her internal system: the seemingly powerful Manager itself lives in fear, and its harshness is a defense against a deeper collapse. When this defense itself is pushed to the limit, the Firefighter ends the crisis by shutting down the system entirely. Exactly aligned with her state of polarizing life in the last couple of years.

This reveals a deeper truth: both the Manager and the Firefighter are, at their core, protectors. They just use their own methods to jointly guard the wounded Exile hidden deepest within.

咨询中，我们和“部分”的对话

璇璇的咨询，在其情绪状态相对平稳的阶段，在璇璇的情绪调节能力能到提升后，我们开始针对创伤部分进行探索。在这一时期，我主要采用体验式的工作手法，旨在暂时绕开其惯常的逻辑思维模式，从神经学角度而言，这是一种“自下而上”的干预路径。

下文截取了一次意象对话中的片段，这段互动较为生动地展现了其内在各部分的动态博弈：她因忘记给孩子打包行李而陷入严重内疚，我们进行了以下的对话。

“我躲回屋子里，躺在床上，一直很难受。”璇璇说。

“闭上眼睛，去感受一下自己思绪里有什么样的想法？”我问到。

“你是一个不称职的妈妈。”她说。

这个内疚与责备的声音，正是她内在 “管理者” 部分在运作。它通过严厉的自我批判来维持控制，外显为璇璇的完美主义与那种“躁狂”状态的“必须为家庭不断付出、不能停歇”的强迫性忙碌——这一切，都旨在防止她因想象中的“失职”而触发更深、更无法承受的焦虑。

“这个声音，如果在这个房间，它从哪里来？”我尝试将她的经历意象化，便于我们更好的理解。

“在那个墙里面”。她看着咨询室的一面墙缓缓说道。

“它长的什么样？”我进一步深化意向画面。

“长的很凶，就藏在这个墙里。”她回答到。

“保持眼睛闭合，你想对这个部分说什么？”

她停留很久，呼吸变得急促，表情痛苦，没能说出一个字，她的身体和这面墙有一个倾斜，仿佛正对着那个凶狠的部分会让她感受不适。

“没关系，那我们尝试在想象中，你慢慢的正面去对着这个部分好吗？”

“我不敢。”她立即回应。她的身体更加僵硬，头低着，无意识的捏搓着手指以缓解她的痛苦。

这个凶狠的声音到底来自哪个部分，我在咨询前期，会尝试从IFS的角度去解答这个问题，而也就陷入了一个经典误区。下之后的章节中，我会放到IFS在实操中的难点中去阐述。

我察觉到她即将超出情绪承受的窗口，便立刻引导她回到呼吸上。然而，不到一分钟，她的身体虽然放松下来，却开始不受控制地向后倾斜。

“我要睡着了。”她的声音忽然被一股强烈的困意包裹。

在与经历过深度创伤的来访者工作时，时刻关注他们的意识状态至关重要。璇璇此刻的状态，并非生理上的疲惫，而是我们刚刚的意象工作触发了过于强烈的情绪——当心理无法承受时，副交感神经系统会过度激活，如同启动一个极端的自我保护程序，将整个人带入“冻结”“”或“关机”状态。这是人类共有的生存本能，只为避开那些难以承受的痛苦。

璇璇是在家暴中长大的女孩。能走到今天，她已足够坚韧，但内心深处也积压了太多未愈的伤痛。此刻，当她的痛苦再次被点燃，那个负责“紧急灭火”的消防员部分便接管了一切。咨询室里“我快睡着了”的解离反应，正是“消防员”在行动——而在她日常生活中，这份“保护”同样会显现为卧床不起、无法工作或照顾自己的“低唤醒”的抑郁状态，那是被疲惫与麻木笼罩的另一个世界。

“保持觉知，用力坐直，保持清醒。”我立刻跟上指导语，声音平稳而坚定。我需要帮助她回到情绪所能承受的窗口之内，因为她刚刚被触发，几乎要陷入解离的睡眠。只有这样，接下来的探索才有可能。

在这短短的十分钟里，我亲眼见证了她内在系统的一次典型循环：看似强大的“管理者”其实也活在恐惧之中，而它的严厉是为了防御更深层的崩溃。当这个防御过度时，“消防员”便用彻底关闭系统的方式结束这场危机。璇璇‘双相’的生活状态，揭示了一个更深层的真相：无论是管理者还是消防员，它们本质上都是保护者，只是用各自的方式，共同守护着那个藏在最深处、受伤的“流放者”。

As I sat with her, I felt a deep sense of empathetic recognition. Beneath her competent exterior, I could now perceive the system at work: the overburdened Manager enforcing control through guilt, and the reactive Firefighter defending a core of childhood pain. Moving beyond merely hearing about her life, I was beginning to feel the architecture of her inner conflict.

Previous interventions had faltered because I was operating from a "problem-solving" framework. When I shifted to a stance of nonjudgmental witnessing—observing her process without an agenda—something changed. I connected with her experience on a different level. That connection allowed my own reactive feelings (countertransference) to settle, which proved to be a pivotal turning point in our alliance.

坐在她对面，我心中涌起深深的心疼。在她坚强的外表下，是一个用“内疚”和“控制”拼命保护所有部分的管理者，和一个不顾一切保护受伤小女孩的消防员。这种亲身体验与仅仅听她讲述生活困境截然不同。当数次干预失败后，我放下CBT的“解决问题”模式，以“观察”而非“干预”的态度贴近她的体验时，我终于真正用我的心灵“看见”了她。那一刻，我的反移情再次化解，这对我们的咨询至关重要。

Where did we go from there? In the following chapter, I'll walk through the next phase of our work: committing to a "bottom-up" approach to slowly mend the connections between Xuanxuan's inner parts.

下一章，我将继续呈现我们的工作进程：如何通过持续的“自下而上”的体验式对话，重建璇璇内在系统各部分之间的关系。文中会附上一段真实的咨询对话实录，具体展现这一过程是如何在语言、情绪与觉察中展开的，并最终导向她内心世界的初步整合。