EMDR and Internal Family Systems in Sex Addiction Psychotherapy

by Mark Robinett, MFT February, 2022

In this article I’m going to describe two models, EMDR and Internal Family Systems (IFS) theory in psychotherapy with a sex addiction.  The EMDR method (called the Feeling State Addiction Protocol, FSAP) works to de-couple or break up a positive feeling state that is connected with the sex addiction behavior.  In the IFS model, we with parts of a person; one part is doing the sexual acting out and one or more parts are exiled, these are hidden away wounded parts.  We work with all these parts, to heal the wounded parts and after this is done, to work with the acting out part help it see that it doesn’t need to do the behavior any longer. 

The EMDR technique called the Feeling State Addiction Protocol (FSAP) is used to break up the connection between the sexual behavior and a heightened positive charge that has been imprinted (by repeated use of the sexual behavior) so that the person has become habituated to the sex addiction behavior.  Another way to say this is that through continued use of the sexual behavior, a part of you has become activated and formed an identity that this behavior is what it does.  For example, say the behavior is porn use, over time – the habit forms and a part of you develops to continue this habit.  In EMDR work, the Feeling State Addiction Protocol (FSAP) works to break up the habituation of that part.  This theory says the FSAP breaks the fixation between feeling and behavior. This fixation is the cause of the addiction. By identifying the exact feeling and behavior, the fixation can be processed using the FSAP.  The feeling that is processed is usually based on a need that was never met or rarely met in the person’s childhood.  For example, for someone who was emotionally neglected as a child, there is often still a big need for contact with others, and in processing a sex addiction, the feeling that will be processed is the positive feeling state one gets from getting the need of connection met during the sex addiction behavior.  In other words, the real need doesn’t get met during the behavior, but it “feels” like it does and this is what cements in the behavior with the feeling and the person feels impelled to keep getting that need met with that behavior.  And this is what needs to be broken up, so then there’s still the need for connection because this is healthy, but it is not longer hooked up with the sex addiction behavior which doesn’t meet the real need.  The FSAP method is good at breaking up this connection, I’ve seen good results over the past 15 years of using it.  

Internal Family Systems theory (IFS) is a system of doing psychotherapy that is becoming more popular in the field of psychotherapy.  Basically it says that each person is made up of a number of parts and a Self, and the Self is the spiritual essence of a person.  In some other models the Self is analogous to the Adult self (and sometimes the Higher Power in the 12 step model), the part of us that is kind, loving and caring for our parts.  And there is a distinction in IFS that the Self is not a part, it’s different, it doesn’t get hurt by trauma, and it’s always there and can come in to help, although sometimes parts won’t let it, or do not trust it. 

IFS says there are 2 kinds of parts, manager/protector parts and exiled parts.  Manager – protector parts are the parts that protect us from dangers or perceived dangers of life and do a lot of managing of our lives, and exiled parts are parts of us that have been locked away because they’ve been wounded or traumatized and protector parts are afraid that if they were left exposed they would destabilize the system.  In the realm of protector parts there are managers, protectors and firefighter parts.  The managers and protector parts do their best daily to manage and protect you in the day to day challenges of life.  The firefighter parts are there to put out any emotional fires that appear to destabilize the system; they are similar to real firefighters in that they don’t care if they do some damage, their job as they see it is to do whatever it takes to put out the fire, squash an emotional upheaval that seems like it could shake up the person too much.  Firefighter behaviors are usually extreme and include drug and alcohol use, overeating, sexual behavior sometimes extreme, over exercise, cutting etc,.  And usually the exiled parts are what the protector and firefighter parts are worried about, they are worried that if the exiled parts get too triggered or exposed, too much emotion, pain, wounding will come up, so they want to keep these exiled parts hidden away so your system stays in balance. 

In using IFS in therapy, the ultimate goal is to heal the exiled parts.  But usually first we need to work with the protector parts to make sure they feel that it’s safe enough to do this work, to let the work proceed.  For example, there might be a part of a person that feels very afraid to let a therapist and the client work on an old trauma because the protector part believes that the trauma coming up would be too much for the client to handle and process.  So we work with that protector part to reassure it and do whatever helps it feel safe enough to let the trauma work proceed.  Once the protector parts feel OK about doing the deeper work to heal an exiled part we do that work, sometimes the IFS work does it and sometimes regular EMDR processing (of trauma) does the healing. 

In using IFS for sex addiction therapy we also believe that the part of a person that carries out the sex addiction behavior is a fire fighter part and its doing its job of acting out sexually to put out whatever the emotional / psychological fire is.  For example, if there’s an exiled part that was chronically criticized and shamed as a young boy, the firefighter parts job is to make sure that when this part gets activated say by someone criticizing the person in current time, the firefighter part will come in with the sex addiction behavior to dampen out the activation of the exiled young boy that is holding the pain, shame and wound of being criticized.  So in the IFS part of the work, we work to heal the young boy part that is carrying those wounds of being shamed by criticism.  When we get those wounds healed and released, we come back to the firefighter part to show it that this part is no longer wounded and it no longer needs to do its job.  Sometimes we need to work with the firefighter part to help it find a new role.  And I always work with the firefighter part to really listen to it, hear its concerns, let it know that I get it and what its been doing for the person, this is really important as it builds trust with the part.  In IFS work we don’t fight or argue with any parts, we work with these parts to build trust and cooperation.  When things go well, these firefighter parts are much more open to letting go of their role as they see the exiled part(s) are OK now and the extreme behavior is no longer needed.  Sometimes I’ll go back and use the Feeling State Addiction Protocol to work with a firefighter part to help let go of the sexually addicted behavior, and to transform it into a healthy role.