IFS Protectors, ADHD & Work Addiction
➡️ Free IFS Training for Therapists: From Burnout to Balance: https://go.johnclarketherapy.com/ifs-webinar-podcast
In this live Q&A episode of Going Inside, I answer real-time questions from therapists about high-achieving clients, ADHD and over-functioning, shutdown responses during trauma work, and a deeper question: are memories actually parts?
We explore how protector parts drive work addiction, why some clients can’t stop checking email, what’s really happening when someone gets sleepy during parts work, and how polarized masculine protectors impact relationships. This episode dives into the subtle complexities of IFS while keeping it grounded and practical for therapists in the room.
If you’ve ever wondered whether you’re moving too fast in trauma work — or whether a client’s ambition is actually fear in disguise — this one’s for you.
Key Takeaways
How high achievement can actually be a trauma strategy.
Sleepiness in session is rarely random.
Are memories actually parts?
Resources & Offerings:
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Transcript
John Clarke: [00:00:00] My conception is that parts hold memories.
Parts, um, are like people inside of us that have unique perspectives and personalities and parts, hold memories, right? Now all of you, you and your parts went through the same thing, the same experiences grew up on the same street, et cetera, but for some memories, especially intense, difficult memories are predominant for certain parts, right?
Certain parts are just kind of dominated by difficult memories and difficult experiences, right? That's how and when they picked up their burdens.
Going Inside is a podcast on a mission to help people heal from trauma and reconnect with their authentic self. Join me trauma therapist John Clarke for guest interviews, real life therapy sessions, and soothing guided [00:01:00] meditations. Whether you're navigating your own trauma, helping others heal from trauma, or simply yearning for a deeper understanding of yourself, going inside is your companion on the path to healing and self-discovery.
Download free guided meditations and apply to work with me one-on-one at johnclarketherapy.com. Thanks for being here. Let's dive in.
Hey everyone. Welcome back to the show. This is Going Inside. I'm your host, John Clarke, licensed trauma therapist. I'm a group practice owner and a supervisor, consultant and a trainer for therapists. So happy to be with you all today. Um, the point of today is to answer your questions live. That's questions about, um, your work, your cases.
Um, IFS. Somatic work. EMDR, psychodynamics therapy at large, even the business of therapy. It's all fair game here. So, um, I've got a question already, uh, that's here live [00:02:00] in the comments. So, uh, or in the chat, excuse me. So I'm gonna go ahead and pull that up and then, um, if you are here live and have questions, go ahead and submit them as well in the chat and I'll pull them up one by one.
Okay, this question is from writer K. My question, uh, I recently learned with a client that even when not working, uh, can't disengage from work, mentally used to checking emails, always. It's his way of staying in control of an expected risk, ambiguity of corporate nature and his over-functioning leadership trait.
He recently told me it's also part of his A DHD. He feels that if he's not in control or always, uh, keeping up with work, emails, et cetera, he would miss things. Uh, he would miss something, forget things would fail, and that failure is never accepted in his system. He has a high position, uh, role in his company.
Okay. It's a good question. So [00:03:00] this feels really familiar because. I live and work in the Bay Area, arguably the most competitive place in the world in terms of, um, smart, ambitious people who come here to do smart, ambitious people. Things like launching companies and uh, taking over the world with their technology, et cetera.
I won't get on a soapbox, but that's what people come here to do. They come here to be special, to be unicorns and to be shiny. Where does that come from? Right. People that are quote, high achieving or like extremely high achieving, anyone who is extreme has a lot of polarization in their system, right?
Someone who is extremely high achieving has a extreme degree of burden in their system around worthlessness, right? And around not being special. Anytime I hear the word I want, [00:04:00] client says like, I want to be really successful. What I hear that as is I fear failure, right? I fear being unsuccessful. They have a part that is terrified of being unsuccessful, terrified of failure, terrified of being, quote, mediocre, right?
In my experience, that is rooted in their traumatic experiences, right? That is directly rooted into their core wounding. Most of the therapy that I do is concerned with people's core wounding. How and what is their, uh, how is their core wounding driving their life, right? Driving them to work 80 hours a week.
So that's what I'm always getting curious about right now. So some part of him that is always checking. Has a lot to do with, um, you know, it, it has a lot to do [00:05:00] with parts that fear failure, right? From a behavioral perspective. It's also just a tremendous and a powerful cycle of avoidance, right? So when you have the urge to check and you have that anxiety in your chest, you check and either something is there in your inbox or it's not, but you have cut off that behavioral cycle, right?
I had an impulse that did the thing and therefore the impulse went away. What you wanna also help him do in the realm of distress tolerance is have the impulse, feel the impulse, do nothing, and come down the other side of it. Create a pause there in that moment, right where he's feeling the impulse, the urge to check, and then what do you do?
Nothing. You just be with it, right? Be with the part of yourself that wants to check. Uh, Daphne Fatter has this thing, notice, know, and need. [00:06:00] So notice there's a part activated. It's in the center of my chest. Let it know that I'm here and ask it what it needs from me and see if I can provide it right. The part just wants to know that even if I don't check email, it'll be okay that I can still be successful in my job or whatever.
Even just letting the part know that I hear it's fears and I validate it's fears, and then making the self-led decision to either check the email or not check the email. So we're just trying to, trying to create a little bit of space in his system and trying to find that pause, right? Anything that feels reflexive and impulsive is a part, right?
Parts have agendas, self does not. So your steps for him really start with getting him on board with IFS and that he's made of parts and he has, [00:07:00] um. These parts that are kind of driving the bus and parts are not self. Exactly.
So that's step one is that getting on board with the model, right. And understanding or explaining some of these basic concepts, exploring them together, either getting him to experience his parts. Their separateness from him experientially and or through reading about it or watching a video or watching.
I've got a bunch of demos on this channel showing him a demo of working with your parts, you know, and what that looks like. 'cause it is different and weird. I hope that's helpful, uh, writer. Kay. If you're here live, let me know in the comments if you have more questions or like follow up questions.
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Got another question from Jenny. Hi, Jenny. Um, Jenny is in our Pathways to Self program, which if you're not in that program, it's a good idea. Every week we meet for, uh, about an hour, and I walk you through, um, uh, an IFS meditation, a [00:09:00] somatic exercise that you can both receive and learn and integrate into your practice.
And then we work through basically two hot seats or two cases from people in the group. And I think it's a pretty fun time. You would have to ask Jenny, but if folks are interested in that, by all means, you can always jump into Pathways to Self, johnclarketherapy.com/pathways. You can join any time and you can step out at any time.
So not much to lose. Okay. Jenny's question is, are memories parts. It's a really interesting question. Here's my conception of it. This is just my conception. My conception is that parts hold memories.
Parts, um, are like people inside of us that have unique perspectives and personalities [00:10:00] and. Parts hold memories right now, all of you, you and your parts went through the same thing, the same experiences grew up on the same street, et cetera. But um, so, so maybe multiple parts hold these memories or all parts kind of hold these memories or kind of have access to them to varying degrees.
But for some memories especially. Intense. Difficult memories are predominant for certain parts, right? Certain parts are just kind of dominated by difficult memories and difficult experiences, right? That's how and when they picked up their burdens. So that's how I see it. But I'm just a dude. Just a dude with a YouTube channel and a microphone, which in 2026 is literally not saying much.
But it's a great question and a fascinating one. I mean, [00:11:00] what I will say is that we have to embrace that as practitioners, all of our work is theoretical, every model that's ever existed, even though we can do brain scans and neuroscience, uh, you know, studies and explanations of, for, for instance, IFS or MDR, it's all still theoretical 'cause I can't, you know, reach in and put my hand on it.
Right. So these ideas of how to understand the human psyche are just ideas. Ideas about how to understand spirit are just ideas. But if they make sense to you and to your client and they feel real and they help work, good work happen in the in the room, then um, who cares, right? And clients experience their parts differently, and that's valid as well.
Okay. Writer cases. Yes, it's helpful. Uh, I just added follow up details to my question above, but your answer was already comprehensive. Great. I aim for comprehensive and nothing [00:12:00] less, so I love that. Okay. Um,
gonna pull up a. A question here that was submitted ahead of time. Okay. The client has, this is from Olive. The client has a timeless, hyper-masculine protector, part old, yet young that tries to prevent deception and insists its way is best. It clashes with his more feminine parts creating moral rupture.
Okay, so questions to ask this part. Have the client's self, if they have enough self-energy, ask this part. Are you a part, in other words, are you a, are you a part that is native to my system?
If not, if it's something external, then you would ask about [00:13:00] its intentions or its role, right? If it's here to just help and guide. It would be considered a guide or a spirit guide, right? If its job or its role is to be a menace, then it would be considered a UB or nonattached burden, theoretically, right?
Um, in the experience and expertise of Bob Falconer, who's worked with a million UBS and is like the dude in UB land. Um. You know, the, these UBS don't lie, so if you ask them what they are and if they're native, they will tell you if you subscribe to any of this or not. It's okay. It seems like Dick Schwartz is being more open about the spiritual realms of IFS and how it is part of kind of the spiritual realms.
But you don't have to go there, you know, if you don't want to, [00:14:00] if your system is like, uh, this stuff is freaky. I get that. So your job, olive is to work with it as much as you feel safe working with it. Right. Work with it if you feel, uh, enough safety in your system to work with it.
Yeah. And ultimately to connect it with self, right? So self can kind of do that work and do that negotiation. That's really how I would approach it. I hope that helps. I think I answered that in more minutes.
Okay.
So, yeah, she has a follow up here, says, I have ideas about where to go with this, but I wanted to hear your first impressions. Oh, okay. So, um, many of my male clients seem to have this strong, rejected masculine part that goes against their values or ways they want to [00:15:00] be and hold them back in relationships.
We aren't supposed to have an agenda, but in general, what are ways you've seen these parts transform or integrate? Do they play an important role? I'm guessing that belonging to male role models, dads, brothers, et cetera, maybe there's a family intergenerational trauma around being victimized. Curious if, uh, asking the client about more family history would help?
Well, you wouldn't be asking the client about family history. You would be asking the part or whatever this is about its history and who it is and what it does and how it got this job, right? So if you're sticking with IFS, that's basically how you would approach it. So she says, many of my male clients seem to have this strong, rejected, masculine part.
Um, yeah, if it's truly a part, it can be truly a part or one that's very exiled. An exiled exile or an exiled protector,
who knows, right? It doesn't really matter what we call it, right? It [00:16:00] matters. What's it, what its intent is in the system? Is it trying to help the system? Or screw it up. Right? Is it native or non-native? Those are the main questions to ask.
Yeah, great question.
If FS is simple but not easy, on the surface, it's about parts and self. But when you're in the room with a client, things can get complex fast. Helping someone meet a protective part or wounded exile, that takes skill and most importantly, it takes safety. My name is John Clarke, trauma therapist and IFS therapist, and in this free webinar for therapists and practitioners, we're gonna explore the subtleties that make IFS so powerful and how to navigate them with more clarity and confidence.
You're gonna learn why safety is everything and how to do it well. What trips therapists up when applying IFS in practice and a simple tool that you can begin using right away. If you want to go beyond theory and truly embody the work, then this is for you. Join the free webinar today. Link is in [00:17:00] the description.
Okay, next question that was submitted ahead of time is from Leanne. Leanne says, client with complex developmental trauma becomes dier very sleepy during parts work after four sessions, little progress. How would you approach this? Uh, slow down
and check with protectors more, right? So some part that is making, uh, the client dizzy or sleepy. This is really common, right? You start doing the work and the client's like a little spacey. They're just like, what? Sorry, what was the question? Ugh, right, yawning. So first of all, a very organic and expected nervous system response, right?
Nervous system effectively trying to regulate itself. There's actually a lot of activation in the system. Oh, but we yawn, right? It just happens spontaneously to try to regulate, [00:18:00] right? So if we're getting these somatic responses, you either work directly with the somatic responses, right? Work, work directly with the dizziness and or the sleepiness, right?
Or you just slow it down in general and work more on protector consent before you proceed, right? And you think to yourself, well, if this is happening, if this is a form of protector backlash, which you could see it as such, then perhaps we went too fast and that perhaps I unintentionally bypass some protectors.
Whoops. Go slower next time, right? Slow down, back up. Have the client just simply check inside and see if any parts have concerns about doing this work today or in general. Keep keep checking right with the system over and over again. That's kind of how I would, I would approach it.[00:19:00]
Yeah, these signals are, are, they're just information, right? And the nervous system doing its thing here is just information, so I want to use it, right? Or again, you could ask the client to ask inside. Which part is responsible for the dizziness or the sleepiness. Right. And then get to know that part. So if you see it as parts communicating through the body, then it's just communication, right?
It's not like a symptom to work through or, you know, a, a, a problem, so to speak, or a barrier. It's, it's communication.
Speaking of communication, I have. My baby crying in the background. I don't know if you can hear her. And now I have a cat meowing, so everyone's crying at my house except for me. Knock on wood. That's how things are around here. It's a [00:20:00] good time to have a podcast, you know.
I hope this is helpful. If you guys have other questions, feel free to drop them here. Uh, I've answered everything that's been here so far. Um, and yeah, just another thank you for being here and supporting my work. I mean, I think we just hit like a hundred episodes maybe, which is crazy. Really crazy 'cause I just started this from, from scratch, you know, and started it really as a person who was new to IFS.
But you know, I've been a therapist for, I had my first job as an inpatient psychiatric like aide in 2008. I think it was 18 years ago. Which is crazy, right? So I've been in this world for a long time, been a therapist for a long time, [00:21:00] and really it was in 2016 where I started to really develop my work as a trauma therapist and a specialist.
Got trained in EMDR in 2016 and then really haven't looked back in my work with trauma. Trying to write a book here and there, write a few chapters, then I get stuck and terrified. Seems to be the way to go. The way it goes. Um. But yeah, we're just kind of cruising. We've got the show, we've got Pathways to self.
We've got my digital detox group I'm doing right now, which is gonna, it's got about four more weeks. And then again, we just have pathways to self running all the time, which is great. So yeah, if you enjoy my stuff and enjoy my approach, whatever, by all means, feel free to jump into Pathways to self.
That's a great way just to kinda get involved and also to support the channel and support my work. So. Um, always welcome you into that program, johnclarketherapy.com/pathways. I'm also, you know, I run my group practice in San Francisco, call again, counseling. [00:22:00] I've got, um, a bunch of employees, associates and I do their supervision and training for the board.
So I'm really passionate about teaching. Spend a lot of my week teaching as well as having my own clinical caseload, which right now I've got too many clients. Like 18 clients, something like that, which is too much with all my other roles here. But, um, I'm also lucky and fortunate to have great clients to work with and, you know, a a a practice that's going well.
So I. All good stuff, but um, yeah, that's, that's how I'm kind of feeling today. So, um, I hope that's helpful and um, I look forward to seeing you again in the next one. Speaking of which, that one will be not next week, but we're going to do March 3rd for the next one. So I look forward to seeing you March 3rd, 12:00 PM Pacific, 3:00 PM Eastern, and everything in between and beyond.
So thanks again for being here. Thanks, Jenny for the thanks, dude, and I [00:23:00] will see you guys in the next one. Take care. See you. Bye-bye.
Thanks for listening to another episode of Going Inside. If you enjoyed this episode, please like and subscribe wherever you're listening or watching, and share your favorite episode with a friend. You can follow me on Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok at johnclarketherapy and apply to work with me one-on-one at johnclarketherapy.com.
See you next time.