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Lia Deland, LPC Apartamentos La Roca #2 Atenas, Costa Rica 20501 lia@newsummitacademy.com liadeland@earthlink.net 336-671-1601 (as of 3/26/15)
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Abstract
The purpose of this study was to develop a new measure based on the Internal Family Systems (IFS) model that would be useful for clinical and research purposes. Adults from a variety of settings (N = 1174) volunteered to rate how frequently they experienced various thoughts and feelings on a self-report questionnaire. Cronbach's alpha, Pearson product-moment correlations, partial correlations, and factor analysis were used to examine the internal reliability and construct validity of the scale. A 57-item IFS Scale with 10 subscales and a 25-item Self Scale were developed. Both of the measures were found to have adequate internal reliability and to reflect meaningful group differences consistent with IFS theory.
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This paper discusses the development of an IFS-based personality scale in order to profile types of Parts present, relative strength of the Parts, and the strength of Self. A brief introduction to the theory behind IFS as well as a brief literature review on the method is provided, focusing on two studies that looked specifically at Self-leadership and the development of an initial Self rating scale. The authors discuss the potential usefulness of moving beyond a Self-leadership scale, and instead creating a scale to profile the entire inner system. They describe the need for a scale to address two major questions: "What parts dominate the inner system" and "How polarized are those parts." They assert that having a scale of Parts and Self would provide the clinician with a general overview of the system, an idea of how protected the system is, and how difficult it may be to safely access the Exiles. Additionally, it would provide a tool for assessing clinical progress. The authors describe challenges including needing to identify patterns of Parts without losing the individuality of the Parts themselves, having overlap within the scale categories, distinguishing between Managers and Firefighters, and what they refer to as "reversed items." A preliminary study using a 178-item scale, broken into the Self and 18 Part subscales, was initially conducted to test the reliability of the method. The scale was found to differentiate between population groups with high Self and low extreme Parts and those with low Self and high extreme Parts, as expected. There were no gender effects identified. A second, larger study was conducted to refine the scale, specifically by reducing overlap between subscales down to 9, as well as bringing the scale down to 57-items with a 25-item Self scale. A sample of 1,174 people, age 18-80, from across the USA and Canada were studied. A demographic questionnaire was obtained from each participant. The participants were given a 130 item, refined IFS Scale with which they rated how frequently they experienced thoughts/feeling on a 5-point Likert scale. Statistics were run on all data collected, including on subgroups such as male vs. female and high vs. low trauma. Results show there was internal consistency of identification of both subparts and Self, and that the construct of the scale was valid. Parts were found to be positively correlated to each other. For example, the more burdened the Exile, the more protective the Managers and Firefighters, and the more negatively correlated they become to Self. The study also found that Self has two components. The first was an experiential aspect of Self which relates to the experience of being "in Self." The second was an instrumental aspect of Self which relates to the ability of a person to maintain Self while under emotional stress. Subscales maintained their individual dimensions with very little overlap, and the scales are able to identify high trauma vs. low trauma populations. There were some underlying issues with the study, including the unbalanced population of the study. While a large population sample was used, the majority were Caucasian, female, and well-educated, and almost half identified as having trauma. Furthermore, because Self reporting was the primary way of obtaining data, completely exiled Parts may not appear in the data. Additionally, some members were already familiar with IFS, though this data was not analyzed to see if it played a role in biasing the results. This article serves as a springboard for clinicians to further help validate this study and for researchers to continue to examine and refine this scale. There is a powerful potential to develop an initial, preliminary profile of clients, and the ability to reassess clients at various points throughout the process to look at progress would give further weight to IFS as an evidence-based therapeutic model.