🌿 What Really Happens in Therapy (and Why You Might Try to Bail)

Starting therapy can be a lot like joining a gym in January. Full of good intentions… until your brain starts making excuses. “Maybe I’m just tired today. Maybe I don’t need to feel my feelings right now.” Spoiler: that’s not failure — that’s your nervous system trying to protect you.

I’m Dawn, a LMHC (Licensed Mental Health Counselor) in the Tampa Bay area of Florida. In my style of therapy, we don’t cannonball into the deep end — we wade in, one step at a time. The first session is more like dipping your toes in the water at your own pace — we get to know each other, explore what brought you in, and start building trust. From there, we start exploring your goals and learning coping skills rooted in evidence-based practices like CBT (Beck, 1979) and mindfulness (Kabat-Zinn, 1994).

But then... the plot thickens. As we begin exploring deeper emotional territory, it’s common for your unconscious mind to hit the brakes. According to Internal Family Systems (IFS), those brakes are often protective “parts” of you — like your Inner Manager, Inner Avoider, or Inner Critic — trying to keep you safe from perceived emotional danger (Schwartz, 2001).

Cue: therapeutic resistance. It might show up in unexpected ways. Resistance can look like rescheduling, minimizing feelings, or going into “everything’s fine!” mode just as we get close to something vulnerable.

🛡️ IFS Inner Protector: The Part That Means Well (But Sometimes Blocks the Work)

In Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy, your Inner Protector is a part of you that steps in to keep you safe, especially when emotions start getting raw, memories surface, or vulnerability feels too risky.

Protector parts can look different for everyone.

🗂️ Meet Your Manager: The Inner Organizer of Emotional Chaos

The Inner Manager is a proactive part. Think: hyper-responsible, perfectionistic, and great at creating to-do lists... especially to avoid emotional discomfort.
Its job? Keep you safe by staying in control — and far away from anything messy, vulnerable, or unpredictable.

💭 In therapy, this part might:

• Intellectualize everything (“Let’s analyze this instead of feeling it.”)

• Show up with color-coded coping skills

• Steer sessions toward “safe” topics

• Get twitchy when feelings come up

It’s not a villain — it’s just scared you’ll unravel if you feel too much. (Spoiler: You won’t.)

🫣 Then There's the Inner Avoider: The Master of Distraction

The Inner Avoider is more reactive — it wants out, the second things feel heavy.
This part avoids pain by numbing, deflecting, or distracting, often with a side of procrastination or glazed-over Zoom eyes.

💭 It might say:

• “Let’s do this session in the car... the view’s nice. Look, squirrel!” (Do you like the movie Up as much as I do?)

• “I just don’t have anything to talk about today.”

• “I meant to journal, but I watched eight episodes of a baking show instead.”

Again, it's not trying to ruin your progress. It’s trying to protect you from overwhelm.

🗯️ Meet the Inner Critic: Loud, Uninvited, and (Weirdly) Trying to Help

In Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy, the Inner Critic is one of the most common — and most misunderstood — protector parts. It’s that voice in your head that says:

• “You should’ve known better.”

• “You’re not doing this right.”

• “Why can’t you just get over it already?”

• “Oh wow, great job… let’s overanalyze that for three days.”

Sound familiar? Yep. That’s your Inner Critic. It can be mean, relentless, and exhausting — but believe it or not, it has a job: to try and protect you from making mistakes; motivate you through shame (never helpful); help you avoid rejection, humiliation, or failure; and preempt criticism from others by beating them to it. Unfortunately, none of the tactics has lasting success.

Sometimes, transference joins the party — when old relationship dynamics sneak into the room. Maybe you’re feeling like your therapist is disappointed in you, or too quiet, or too involved. That’s actually valuable insight. Transference isn’t a problem — it’s a mirror (Freud, 1912; Gelso & Hayes, 2007).

Here’s the twist: whatever shows up in therapy usually reflects what’s happening outside it. When you notice these patterns and share them, they become part of your healing, not your sabotage.

So, if your inner protector is sounding the alarm, that’s okay. We’re not here to kick it out — we’re here to understand why it’s scared, and if you find yourself suddenly craving laundry-folding or going through your grocery list in your mind mid-session... now you know the reason.

Ready for change?
Book your session today, bring your resistance, and let’s get curious — because The Way is Through. 🧠➡️💬✨