IFS and Parts Work Compared
While IFS is considered a type of parts therapy (or parts work therapy), there are fundamental differences between the two that are important to understand. Parts work is an umbrella term covering any therapeutic approach which works - in an explicit way - with different parts or aspects of the mind. The term itself is quite vague, and what it means varies significantly between different modalities and practitioners.
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As IFS also falls under this umbrella, it's helpful to understand what differentiates IFS from other approaches to parts work. Below are the key things that set IFS apart.
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IFS Views Parts as Real
The IFS perspective is that parts are full-fledged subpersonalities within us. Very few other modalities take this stance. Most parts work therapies work with parts on the side - as an adjunct - and view them as metaphors. It's common in these circles to hear that parts are helpful to work with conceptually, but they're not actually real.
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In my experience, this viewpoint fundamentally limits the effectiveness of these other approaches. If we assume for the sake of argument that the IFS position is correct - that parts are real - it naturally follows that working with parts will have limited results if the underlying assumption is that they're not real. If we don't think they're real, then we are, in a sense, pretending when we work with them. I find this to be bordering on disingenuous, and I don't think it's conducive to fundamental healing.
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In IFS, the Inner Child is actually Inner Children
Many approaches that fall under the category of parts work speak of an inner child in the singular. They often advocate, for example, "Talking to your inner child" as if it's a single entity. This is often referred to as inner child work.
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The IFS perspective is that we have multiple inner children. Parts are almost invariably younger than we are - usually child or young adult age - and therefore can be considered inner children for all practical purposes. Trauma causes our parts to get stuck in the past, typically in both space and time. What we find when we get to know our parts is that they are, in a very real sense, younger than we are.
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While inner child work is a step in the right direction, abstracting our many parts into a single inner child is of limited effectiveness. Almost always, more than one part will be found in a person's first IFS session.
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The Concept of the Self
When we relate to our parts, who is it who's relating? Self is our essence, our seat of consciousness - it's the aspect of us that's not a part. Self forms relationships with our parts, and those relationships become the basis of our healing.
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Only Self can heal our parts - parts can't heal each other. Therapies which don't recognize this essence of being (regardless of what name we use for it) often try to put the therapist - or other parts - in the driver's seat of healing a given part. While this can seem effective at first, the results are typically superficial.
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Multiple Types of Parts
From an IFS perspective, there are two fundamental types of parts in a traumatized system. Exiled parts carry pain and toxic self-beliefs; they absorb what is inflicted upon us, and they're stuck carrying it until we do healing work to release it. Protector parts, on the other hand, take on protective roles in the system which are aimed at preventing burdened parts from being traumatized even further.
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These two types of parts are worked with in very different ways. Not recognizing this - working with all parts as if they're in the same category - can be counterproductive and destabilizing to the system.
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IFS uses a Systemic Perspective
Using IFS, we look at the whole system to understand not only the individual parts themselves, but also the relationships and interactions between them. Who's aligned with whom? Which parts are fighting against each other? Which parts are protecting others? Which parts are hiding (or trying to hide) others? These dynamics must be understood before parts can be healed. Otherwise, working with one part in isolation can throw the whole system off-balance and possibly make things worse.
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Conclusion
There are major differences between IFS and other forms of parts work or inner child work. IFS is, in my view, one of the only approaches that is able to heal trauma in a true bottom-up way.