Parts work exercises help clients identify different internal reactions, understand what those reactions are trying to accomplish and develop a more curious relationship with conflicting aspects of themselves.
A client might recognise a perfectionistic part pushing them to work harder, an avoidant part wanting to escape, a critical part attacking every mistake and a vulnerable part underneath them carrying fear of rejection.
Rather than treating these reactions as unrelated problems, parts work gives therapists and clients a way to explore how they interact.
Below are 20 practical parts work exercises for therapy, including activities for identifying parts, mapping internal systems, exploring protectors, working with polarisation and developing greater distance from overwhelming internal reactions.
Clinical note: “Parts work” is a broad term used across different therapeutic approaches. Internal Family Systems (IFS) is one specific parts-based model with its own theory and clinical processes. These activities are educational resources for appropriately trained professionals and should be adapted to the client's needs, stability and treatment plan. They are not a substitute for formal IFS training.
What Is Parts Work?
Parts work is a broad therapeutic approach that helps clients notice and explore different aspects, states or “parts” of themselves.
People often describe these experiences naturally:
“Part of me wants to leave, but another part wants to stay.”
“I know I need a break, but there's a part of me that feels guilty whenever I stop.”
“Part of me wants people close, and another part pushes them away.”
Parts work takes these internal differences seriously without assuming that one part represents the person's “real” self.
Depending on the therapeutic model, the work might involve identifying parts, understanding their functions, exploring conflicts between them and helping the client develop a different relationship with internal experiences.
Parts Work Exercises for Identifying Parts
1. The “Part of Me” Sentence Exercise
This is one of the simplest ways to introduce parts language without requiring the client to understand an entire therapeutic model.
Write several sentence starters:
- Part of me wants...
- Part of me doesn't want...
- Part of me is afraid...
- Part of me thinks I should...
- Part of me wishes...
- Part of me is tired of...
Choose one current problem.
For example:
“Should I leave my job?”
The client might complete:
“Part of me desperately wants to leave.”
“Part of me is terrified I'll regret it.”
“Part of me thinks leaving means I've failed.”
“Part of me is exhausted.”
Put each statement on a separate line or card.
Do not immediately decide which part is correct.
Instead ask:
“What becomes clearer when we stop trying to make all of these reactions agree?”
Useful for: introducing parts work, indecision and internal conflict.
2. Parts Roll Call
Choose one situation that reliably creates a strong response.
For example:
“Someone criticises your work.”
Ask:
“Who shows up inside when this happens?”
The client might identify:
- The Defender
- The Critic
- The People Pleaser
- The Worrier
- The “I Don't Care” Part
Write each one on a separate card.
For every part, record:
- What does it say?
- What does it feel?
- What does it want you to do?
The goal is not to find every part the client has. It is to identify the internal team that appears around one particular problem.
Useful for: helping clients recognise recurring internal patterns.
3. Give the Part a Job Title
Instead of asking clients to name parts by emotions, ask them to name parts according to their jobs.
For example:
Instead of:
“The anxious part.”
try:
“The Risk Scanner.”
Instead of:
“The angry part.”
try:
“The Boundary Guard.”
Instead of:
“The perfectionist.”
try:
“The Mistake Preventer.”
Then ask:
“If this were literally its job, what does it believe would happen if it stopped working?”
This can shift attention away from whether the part is “good” or “bad” and toward its function.
Useful for: critical, anxious and protective patterns.
4. Body Map of Parts
Draw a simple body outline.
Choose a recent situation and ask the client where different reactions appear physically.
For example:
- Critic — pressure behind the forehead
- Fearful part — tightness in the chest
- Angry protector — heat in the arms
- Shutdown part — heaviness through the body
Clients can use words, symbols, shapes or colours rather than needing to draw realistically.
Then ask:
- Which sensation appeared first?
- Which feels strongest?
- Do any seem connected?
- Does one appear when another gets activated?
Useful for: clients who notice parts more easily through physical sensations than language.
Parts Mapping Exercises
5. The Parts Map
Place one current problem in the centre of a page.
For example:
“Dating again.”
Draw each reaction around it.
The client might identify:
The Hopeful Part: “Maybe I'll meet someone.”
The Protector: “Absolutely not. Remember last time?”
The Critic: “Nobody will want you anyway.”
The Lonely Part: “I don't want to be alone anymore.”
Connect parts that respond to each other.
For example:
Loneliness → Protector activates → Critic reinforces avoidance.
Suddenly, what felt like one confusing reaction becomes a visible internal system.
Useful for: visualising complex internal dynamics.
6. Who Protects Who?
Once several parts have been identified, write each on a card.
Choose one protector and ask:
“Who or what do you think this part is protecting?”
Place the protected part underneath it.
For example:
Perfectionist
↓ protects
Part afraid of being criticised
Or:
“I Don't Need Anyone” Part
↓ protects
Part afraid of abandonment
The map does not need to be objectively “correct.”
Treat it as a hypothesis that can be explored with the client.
Useful for: understanding the function of protective behaviours.
7. Parts Timeline
Choose one familiar part.
Draw a timeline from childhood to the present.
Ask:
- When do you first remember this part?
- What was happening around that time?
- What did it help you do?
- When did it become stronger?
- When does it become quieter?
- Does its current job still match your current life?
For example, a client may recognise that a highly independent part became strong during a period when adults were unreliable.
The exercise helps place the behaviour in context without assuming that discovering an origin automatically resolves it.
Useful for: understanding how protective strategies may have developed.
8. Internal Meeting
Choose a decision the client is struggling with.
Write each relevant part on a separate card and place the cards around the table.
Give every part a turn to answer:
- What do you want?
- What are you worried about?
- What do you want the other parts to understand?
No part gets to interrupt another.
For example, around the decision to end a relationship:
The Loyal Part: “We don't give up on people.”
The Exhausted Part: “I can't keep doing this.”
The Fearful Part: “What if nobody else wants us?”
The Angry Part: “We've tolerated enough.”
Finish by asking:
“What does each part seem to be trying to protect or preserve?”
Useful for: major decisions and competing internal needs.
Exercises for Working With Protective Parts
9. What Are You Protecting Me From?
Choose a protective response such as avoidance, perfectionism, overplanning or people pleasing.
Ask the client to imagine that the part could answer:
“What are you afraid would happen if you stopped doing this?”
Continue one level deeper.
For example:
Perfectionist: “You'll make mistakes.”
Therapist: “And what are you afraid would happen if they made a mistake?”
Part: “People would think they're incompetent.”
Therapist: “And if people thought that?”
Part: “They'd reject us.”
Now the function of the perfectionism looks different.
Useful for: moving beneath surface behaviours toward protective fears.
10. Thank the Protector
This exercise is particularly useful when the client is fighting with a part.
Choose one protective part they strongly dislike.
Ask:
“Can we identify one thing this part has tried to do for you, even if we don't like how it does it?”
A client might say:
“My critic has tried to stop me being embarrassed.”
Then complete:
“I understand that you've been trying to ______.”
This is not:
“Thank you for ruining my life.”
Nor does it mean approving of harmful behaviour.
The purpose is to acknowledge intention separately from impact.
Useful for: reducing internal hostility toward protective parts.
11. Protector Cost-Benefit Map
Divide a page into four boxes:
What this part protects me from
How this strategy helps
What this strategy costs me
What this part might need instead
For a people-pleasing part:
Protects from: rejection.
Helps by: keeping other people happy.
Costs: resentment, exhaustion and weak boundaries.
Might need: confidence that disagreement does not automatically mean abandonment.
This creates a nuanced conversation where a strategy can be both understandable and costly.
Useful for: behaviours clients feel ambivalent about changing.
12. Update the Job Description
Choose a part whose current strategy creates problems.
Write its existing job description.
For example:
Current job:
“Make sure nobody ever criticises us by checking everything repeatedly.”
Then ask:
“If this part didn't have to work quite so hard, what job might it prefer?”
Perhaps:
Updated role:
“Help me prepare carefully for things that genuinely matter.”
The aim is not to force the part into a new role. It is to explore whether its useful qualities could exist without the same extreme strategy.
Useful for: perfectionism, vigilance, control and other overworked protective strategies.
Exercises for Polarised and Conflicting Parts
13. Two-Chair Parts Dialogue
Place two chairs facing each other.
Choose two parts that regularly conflict.
For example:
Part A: “You need to work harder.”
Part B: “I refuse to do anything.”
Sit in the first chair and speak from Part A.
Move to the second and respond as Part B.
Continue for several exchanges.
Then stop and ask:
- What is Part A afraid of?
- What is Part B afraid of?
- What does each misunderstand about the other?
- Is there anything they both want?
Often apparently opposite parts share an underlying goal.
Both may ultimately be trying to keep the person safe.
Useful for: procrastination, ambivalence and strong internal conflict.
14. The Tug-of-War
Draw a line across a page.
Put one part at each end.
For example:
“Get close to people” ←────────→ “Never depend on anyone”
Under each part write:
- What it wants
- What it fears
- What it thinks about the other part
Then ask:
“What happens when one side pulls harder?”
Clients often notice that escalation on one side creates escalation on the other.
Finish by asking:
“What might happen if neither part had to win?”
Useful for: identifying polarisation.
15. Find the Shared Goal
Choose two conflicting parts.
Ask each:
“What are you ultimately trying to achieve for me?”
For example:
The Workaholic: “I want you to be successful and secure.”
The Avoider: “I want you to stop being overwhelmed.”
The strategies conflict, but both may care about the client's wellbeing.
Write the shared goal in the centre:
“I want you to have a life that feels safe and manageable.”
Then explore whether there are ways of pursuing that goal that do not require either extreme.
Useful for: reducing internal battles.
Unblending and Self-Reflection Exercises
16. From “I Am” to “A Part of Me Feels”
Write down several statements the client commonly makes during distress.
For example:
“I'm worthless.”
“I'm a failure.”
“I can't handle this.”
Experiment with changing the wording:
“A part of me feels worthless right now.”
“A part of me believes I've failed.”
“A part of me is afraid I can't handle this.”
Then ask:
“Does anything change when you say it that way?”
Do not insist that it must feel better.
The exercise simply tests whether parts language creates a little more psychological space.
Useful for: introducing the concept of unblending.
17. How Do I Feel Toward This Part?
Choose one identified part.
Ask:
“How do you feel toward this part right now?”
Possible answers might include:
- curious
- compassionate
- angry
- embarrassed
- afraid
- disgusted
- impatient
If the client says:
“I hate it.”
become curious about that reaction.
Ask:
“Could the part that hates it be another part?”
Now there may be two parts to explore rather than trying to force compassion prematurely.
Useful for: identifying when another part may be blended.
18. The Curiosity Test
Choose a part and write three possible ways of responding to it:
Judgment: “Why are you like this?”
Control: “How do I make you stop?”
Curiosity: “What are you worried would happen if you didn't do this?”
Ask the client to imagine receiving each question from another person.
Which makes them most defensive?
Which makes them most willing to answer?
Then apply the same principle internally.
This makes the difference between curiosity and disguised attempts at control much easier to recognise.
Useful for: developing a less adversarial relationship with internal experiences.
Parts Work Exercises for Everyday Therapy
19. Trigger-to-Parts Chain
Choose a recent triggering event and build the internal sequence.
For example:
Trigger: Friend cancels plans.
↓
Vulnerable Part: “They don't want me.”
↓
Angry Protector: “Forget them. We don't need them.”
↓
Action: Send a cold message.
↓
Critical Part: “Why do you always ruin relationships?”
↓
Shutdown Part: Withdraw.
Ask:
“Where in this sequence could we become curious about what is happening?”
This activity is particularly useful because clients begin seeing that several apparently separate problems may form one repeating internal sequence.
Useful for: triggers, relationship patterns and emotional escalation.
20. Personal Parts Guide
Once a client has identified several recurring parts, create a one-page guide.
For each part record:
Name: The Critic
When it appears: After mistakes.
What it says: “You should have known better.”
What it wants me to do: Work harder and avoid mistakes.
What it may be protecting: Fear of humiliation.
Signs it is active: Tight jaw, repetitive thinking, checking.
What helps me relate to it: Slow down and ask what it is worried about.
Repeat for the client's most familiar parts.
The finished guide becomes a personalised map that can be updated as therapy progresses.
Useful for: consolidating parts work and helping clients recognise patterns outside therapy.
Parts Work Exercises for Anxiety
Parts work can be particularly useful for exploring the different reactions surrounding anxiety.
A client who says:
“My anxiety controls everything.”
may discover several distinct processes.
For example:
The Risk Scanner constantly searches for what might go wrong.
The Planner attempts to prepare for every possibility.
The Avoider tries to keep the client away from uncertainty.
The Critic becomes angry whenever anxiety appears.
Instead of treating all four as “anxiety,” the therapist can explore the function of each.
A useful exercise is to ask:
- Which part notices danger first?
- Which part tries to prevent it?
- Which part reacts to the anxiety itself?
- What does each part believe would happen if it stopped?
This can reveal an entire protective system around anxiety rather than one isolated symptom.
Parts Work Exercises for the Inner Critic
The inner critic is an especially useful starting point for parts work because many clients already recognise it as having a distinct voice.
Rather than immediately challenging what the critic says, explore its job.
Ask:
- When does the critic appear?
- What does it usually say?
- What does it want you to do?
- What does it believe criticism accomplishes?
- What is it afraid would happen if it became quieter?
A client might discover:
“It thinks if it criticises me enough, I'll never embarrass myself again.”
This does not make the criticism harmless.
It gives therapist and client something more useful to work with than:
“How do we shut the critic up?”
Parts Work Exercises for Teens
Parts work can be made much more accessible to teenagers by dropping overly clinical language.
Instead of:
“Let's identify your internal subpersonalities.”
try:
“It sounds like one side of you wants to go to the party and another side wants absolutely nothing to do with it. What is each side saying?”
Teenagers can represent parts using:
- character cards
- sticky notes
- memes
- colours
- symbols
- comic panels
- different seats around the room
Useful starting activities include:
- Parts Roll Call
- Give the Part a Job Title
- Parts Map
- Internal Meeting
- Two-Chair Dialogue
- Trigger-to-Parts Chain
The aim is not to convince the teenager that the therapist's interpretation of their parts is correct.
Let them define their own internal experience.
Parts Work Questions for Therapy
Useful parts work questions include:
- What are you noticing inside?
- Does this feel like all of you or one part of you?
- What does this part want you to do?
- What is this part trying to accomplish?
- What is it worried would happen if it stopped?
- When do you remember this part first showing up?
- Does another part react to this one?
- How do you feel toward this part?
- What does this part think about you?
- What does it think about the other parts?
- What does this part want you to understand?
- What might this part need from you?
The strongest questions are usually the ones that create genuine curiosity rather than leading the client toward an answer the therapist has already decided on.
Parts Work vs IFS
Parts work and Internal Family Systems are related terms, but they are not interchangeable.
Parts work broadly refers to therapeutic approaches that work with different internal aspects, states or parts.
Internal Family Systems (IFS) is a specific psychotherapy model developed by Dr. Richard Schwartz.
IFS includes a particular framework involving concepts such as:
- Self
- Self-leadership
- managers
- firefighters
- exiles
- protectors
- blending and unblending
- burdens
- polarisation
A therapist may therefore use parts-oriented exercises without necessarily delivering formal IFS therapy.
How to Use Parts Work Exercises in Therapy
Parts work is most useful when exercises serve the therapeutic process rather than becoming an exercise in collecting increasingly elaborate labels.
A simple sequence is:
- Start with a real situation.
- Notice the different reactions around it.
- Separate those reactions enough to examine them.
- Explore what each reaction is trying to accomplish.
- Notice relationships between the parts.
- Become curious about the fears underneath protective strategies.
- Explore whether the internal system has other options.
For example:
Do not begin with:
“List all your parts.”
Begin with:
“What happens inside when your partner doesn't reply?”
Now the parts emerge in context.
One becomes worried.
One wants reassurance.
One says not to look needy.
One becomes angry.
One criticises the entire reaction.
That is something the therapist and client can actually explore.
Final Thoughts on Parts Work Exercises
The purpose of parts work is not to give every thought a character name.
It is to help clients make sense of internal experiences that can otherwise feel contradictory or overwhelming.
A client can want connection and fear it.
They can desperately want to rest and feel guilty whenever they stop.
They can understand intellectually that a situation is safe while another part remains frightened.
They can dislike a protective behaviour while also recognising why it developed.
Parts work creates room for both sides of these experiences.
Instead of immediately asking:
“How do we stop this reaction?”
therapist and client can first ask:
“What is this part trying to accomplish, and what is it afraid would happen if it stopped?”
That question can turn an internal fight into something that can be understood, explored and eventually approached differently.