An IFS Approach to Psychedelic Therapy: How Ketamine-Assisted Therapy Heals Protective Parts

Ketamine Therapy

Feb 25

As somatic and trauma-informed therapists, ketamine-assisted psychotherapy (KAP), and Internal Family Systems (IFS), we’ve witnessed remarkable transformation in clients who previously felt stuck in their healing journeys by combining these two modalities. The combination of these modalities offers a unique pathway to healing that addresses one of the most challenging aspects of trauma work: Engaging with our protective parts that resist becoming vulnerable and letting their guard down.

Understanding Our Protective Parts

In IFS therapy, we recognize that our psyche consists of various “parts” or subpersonalities that developed, often when we were young, to help us navigate life’s challenges. Many of these parts emerged during times of pain or trauma, creating protective mechanisms to shield us from further harm. While these protectors served an essential purpose, they often continued their defensive strategies long after the danger had passed.

Common protective parts include:

The critic who keeps us small to avoid rejection
The perfectionist who believes flawlessness will keep us safe
The isolator who prevents vulnerability by avoiding connection
The numbing part that disconnects us from painful emotions

These protectors, though well-intentioned, can block access to our authentic self and impede the healing process. When they’re rigidly engaged, traditional talk therapy alone may not lead to meaningful change.

The Ketamine Difference

This is where ketamine-assisted therapy offers a distinctive advantage. Ketamine, when used in a therapeutic context, creates a temporary state where the neural pathways that maintain our rigid defensive structures become more flexible. At a neurobiological level, ketamine promotes neuroplasticity while also providing a non-ordinary state of consciousness.

During a ketamine-assisted therapy session, clients often report that their usual cognitive defenses and emotional barriers feel “softened” or more permeable. This neurochemical shift allows for a different kind of therapeutic engagement with protective parts that typically resist intervention.

The Softening Process

What does this “softening” actually look like in clinical practice?

When clients enter a ketamine-assisted session, they often begin with the same protective stances they’ve held for years. But as the medicine takes effect, something remarkable happens: They report a sense of “stepping back” or gaining distance from these protective parts. This doesn’t mean the parts disappear—rather, they become more accessible to gentle exploration.

One client described it beautifully: “It was like my inner critic, who’s always screaming at me, suddenly turned down the volume. I could hear what it was saying, but I wasn't consumed by it. I could actually talk to it instead of just being it.”

This distancing creates space for curiosity rather than identification with the protective part. From this perspective, clients can more easily engage in the core IFS processes of:

Identifying and acknowledging protective parts with compassion
Understanding their positive intentions and original protective function
Unburdening these parts from extreme beliefs and outdated roles
Reconnecting with the authentic self that exists beneath these protective layers

Somatic Integration

The addition of somatic awareness during this process adds another vital dimension. As protective parts soften, previously numbed physical sensations often emerge. Clients receiving somatic and ketamine-assisted therapy report feeling where emotions are held in their bodies for the first time—tensions releasing, breath deepening, and energy moving in ways that feel both unfamiliar and deeply right.

This embodied experience creates a more complete healing that addresses trauma where it lives—not just in our thoughts, but in our physical being. The body’s wisdom, accessed through the ketamine-facilitated softening of defenses, often provides insights that cognitive processing alone cannot reach.

A Case Example

Consider Maria, who sought therapy after years of emotional shutdown following childhood trauma. Traditional approaches had helped her intellectually understand her patterns, but her protective parts remained firmly in place, preventing deeper healing.

During ketamine-assisted therapy sessions integrated with IFS work, Maria could finally establish a relationship with her shutdown part. She discovered this part had been protecting her from the overwhelming emotions of her past by keeping all feelings at bay. In the softened state facilitated by ketamine-assisted therapy, she could acknowledge this part’s efforts with gratitude while gently negotiating for more emotional flexibility.

Over several sessions of somatic and ketamine-assisted therapy, Maria’s rigid protective structure gradually transformed. The part that once blocked all emotions began to trust that she could handle feelings selectively, allowing joy and connection while still providing protection when truly needed.

The Integration Journey

It’s important to note that ketamine doesn't magically “fix” protective patterns. Rather, it creates openings that, when skillfully supported with IFS and somatic approaches, allow for transformative experiences that continue to unfold between sessions and after the medicine work concludes.

The true healing happens in the integration process—those moments when clients bring their insights from somatic and ketamine-assisted therapy back into everyday life, practicing new relationships with their protective parts with greater compassion and flexibility.

For those trapped in trauma responses and rigid protective patterns, the combination of ketamine-assisted therapy, IFS, and somatic approaches offers not just symptom relief, but a profound opportunity to transform their relationship with themselves at the deepest level. By softening the parts that have long blocked vulnerability, this integrative approach creates space for the authentic self to emerge and lead a life characterized not by protection and constriction, but by presence and possibility.