Glossary

The seat of awareness in IFS. Not a part. Self is what shows up when the parts have stepped back.

The 8 C's of Self-leadership:

• Calm — settled in the body, even under pressure.
• Clarity — able to see what is, without distortion.
• Curiosity — interested rather than reactive.
• Compassion — kind toward what is, including parts you don't like.
• Confidence — trust that you can stay with what comes.
• Courage — willing to face what you have been avoiding.
• Creativity — open to new possibilities.
• Connectedness — in relationship, not isolated.

Sub-personalities that carry feelings, beliefs, and roles. Everyone has them. They emerged because they were needed.

No bad parts.

• Manager — a part that tries to keep you safe by running the show. Plans, perfects, performs.
• Firefighter — a part that puts out fires when pain gets too loud. Distracts, numbs, escapes.
• Exile — a young, vulnerable part carrying old pain or longing. Usually hidden by managers and firefighters.

The state of being led by Self rather than by a part. Indicators: you can be with what's here, you're curious about it, and you don't need to fix or escape it.

The map for visiting a part:

1. Find — notice the part in your body or mind.
2. Focus — turn toward it.
3. Flesh out — let it show you more (image, age, posture, voice).
4. Feel toward — check how Self is feeling toward the part. If not curious or compassionate, that's also a part.
5. BeFriend — ask the part how long it has been doing this job. What is it afraid would happen if it stopped?
6. Fears — name what the part fears.

• Trailhead — a moment that points toward a part. A reaction, a body sensation, an image. Worth following.
• Burden — a belief or feeling a part is carrying that doesn't belong to it. Often inherited or absorbed.
• Unblending — when a part steps back enough that Self is in the lead.
• Polarization — when two parts hold opposing positions. Common between managers and firefighters.
• Witnessing — being with a part's experience in Self-energy, without trying to fix.
• Unburdening — a deeper IFS process for releasing a burden a part has carried. Best done with a therapist.

The system as a whole — Self plus all the parts. The relationships matter as much as any single part.

Marilyn Murray's framework, used at PCS, complements IFS by adding developmental and spiritual dimensions. Where IFS describes the inner system, Murray describes the integration arc.

The Healthy Balanced Person

Murray's term for the integrated adult who has access to all five areas of the self without being dominated by any single area or by trauma-driven adaptations. Not a person without wounds — a person whose Original Feeling Child, Survivor Self, and Damaged Self can coexist and inform a unified, present-day life.

The Five Areas

Five interconnected dimensions of a healthy life:

• Physical — body, health, sleep, nutrition, movement, embodiment.
• Emotional — feelings, expression, regulation, capacity to be moved.
• Sexual — desire, intimacy of that kind, embodied expression.
• Spiritual — meaning, connection to something larger, ritual, faith or practice.
• Relational — connection, friendship, intimacy with others, belonging.

A Healthy Balanced Person can move freely across all five without one dominating or being neglected. Trauma typically shows up as one or more areas being suppressed, dissociated from, or compulsively over-emphasized.

Original Child

The authentic, pre-wounded core self. The part of the psyche that exists before trauma and adaptation: naturally curious, playful, present, capable of feeling, worthy of love simply by existing.

Overlaps with IFS Self but with different emphasis — where IFS Self is described in terms of access, Murray's Original Child carries developmental weight: it's who you were before the world taught you to defend or hide.

Sobbing Child (Pool of Pain)

The part of the psyche holding accumulated childhood pain. The "pool of pain" is the inner reservoir where childhood trauma, unmet needs, and formative wounding live, often beneath layers of Controlling Child and Survivor adaptation.

Integration involves witnessing the Sobbing Child rather than abandoning it again. The Healthy Balanced Person can be in relationship with the Sobbing Child without being flooded by it — which is what allows the pool of pain to slowly drain through being seen.

Overlaps with IFS Exiles, particularly the carrying-burdens-from-childhood aspect. Murray's framing is more visceral: the pool of pain is felt, located, witnessed, not just identified.

Controlling Child

The part of the psyche that took on control as a survival strategy in childhood. When the Sobbing Child's pain became unbearable and the world felt unsafe, the Controlling Child stepped forward to manage what could be managed: behavior, performance, appearance, the feelings of others, outcomes. The architect of perfectionism, hyper-vigilance, people-pleasing, achievement-as-armor.

Not the enemy. It kept the system going when the Sobbing Child could not be felt and the Original Child could not be safe. The work is to thank it, see what it has been carrying, and let it relinquish control to the Healthy Adult once that adult has shown up.

The three children together (Original, Sobbing, Controlling) form Murray's inner-child triad. Overlaps with IFS Managers but with a child-specific developmental framing.

Survivor

The adult-aged protective adaptations that grow out of the Controlling Child as a person matures. Where the Controlling Child managed in childhood, the Survivor manages in adulthood: the perfectionist career, people-pleasing relationships, the achiever's calendar, the addict's coping, the controller's plans.

Continuous with the Controlling Child — same strategy, different developmental moment. Working with the Survivor often requires going back to meet the Controlling Child it grew from.

Original Pain

The foundational wounding the Survivor Self developed to protect against and the Damaged Self carries. Sometimes a single defining event; more often an accumulation of relational, developmental, or shock traumas. Murray holds that Original Pain must be witnessed, felt, and integrated rather than bypassed. Most adaptive strategies lose their grip once the Original Pain underneath them has been seen.

Trauma Egg

Murray's visualization tool for mapping a trauma history chronologically: a vertical egg shape with birth at the bottom and the present moment at the top. Traumatic events are placed where they occurred in time, often categorized by the Five Areas. Externalizes the trauma history and makes patterns visible. Typically completed with a therapist over multiple sessions.

Shock Trauma vs Developmental Trauma

• Shock Trauma — acute, often single-event experiences that overwhelm the nervous system. Car accident, assault, sudden loss, medical emergency.
• Developmental Trauma — ongoing, formative experience in childhood that shapes how the system organizes. Chronic neglect, repeated boundary violations, growing up with addiction or mental illness in the family, attachment disruption, scapegoating.

Both create lasting effects but show up differently and respond to different therapeutic approaches. Developmental trauma often requires longer-term parts work and relational repair; shock trauma may respond to processing modalities like EMDR.

Cross-references: Healthy Balanced Person → Self; Original Child → Self; Sobbing Child → Exiles + Burdens; Controlling Child → Managers; Survivor → Managers / Firefighters.

Pairs of beliefs from the standard EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) worksheet. Each negative belief has a positive counterpart that names the direction of healing.

VOC (Validity of Cognition) is a 1–7 scale: how true does this belief feel emotionally right now? The trend matters more than any single rating.

Pia Mellody's framing for boundaries: a 1–5 axis from wall (1) through healthy (3) to enmeshment / no boundary (5). The work is staying in the pathway band.

A small repeated act that nourishes a part or a need. Daily, weekly, as-needed, or monthly. The point is contact, not perfection.