Does Everyone Have Self Energy? A Nervous System Perspective
- Katie Helldoerfer
- Feb 21
- 5 min read
In Internal Family Systems therapy, one of the foundational premises is this: everyone has Self. Richard Schwartz describes Self as the seat of qualities like calm, curiosity, clarity, compassion, and connectedness - an undamaged core that exists in every person regardless of their history (Schwartz, 2021). For many people, hearing this is genuinely relieving, especially those who have spent years believing something is fundamentally wrong with them.
But for others - particularly those with histories of chronic trauma or early attachment disruption - this statement can land with confusion or even a quiet sting. If everyone has Self, they wonder, why does it feel so completely out of reach? Why does any sense of calm clarity collapse so quickly under stress?
This isn't a philosophical question. It's a neurobiological one. And I think the field of IFS is better served by holding it with rigor rather than reassurance.
Capacity Is Not the Same as Access
Frank Anderson, MD - psychiatrist, IFS trainer, and author of Transcending Trauma - has written extensively about the neurobiology of Self energy, arguing that trauma doesn't destroy Self but rather creates neurological conditions that make it harder to access (Anderson, 2021). This distinction is important. The cortical capacity for reflective awareness - for the qualities we call Self - is structurally available in most intact nervous systems. The architecture exists.
But cortical availability is state-dependent. Reflective awareness requires sufficient integration between subcortical activation (brainstem and limbic structures) and cortical modulation, particularly prefrontal networks. When survival systems dominate, that integration narrows. As Anderson describes it, trauma loads the system - and a loaded system has less bandwidth for Self.
This is not a moral failure. It's not a sign of bad parts or insufficient inner work. It's bandwidth.
A Physiological Way of Understanding Self
Rather than defining Self energy purely in spiritual or psychological terms, it can be useful to think about it physiologically. Self energy may be understood as a state in which subcortical activation is sufficiently integrated with cortical awareness such that survival reflex no longer dominates perception or behavior. In this state, emotions can be present without being overwhelming. Threat detection systems are active but not driving. Parts can be observed rather than blended with.
Self doesn't require zero activation - it requires what we might call non-hijack. It's a threshold state, and that threshold shifts depending on what the nervous system is carrying.
Stephen Porges' Polyvagal Theory offers a related but distinct frame here. Porges describes the ventral vagal state - that sense of safety, social engagement, and openness - as a physiological condition that comes and goes depending on cues of safety and threat (Porges, 2011; Dana, 2018). It's worth noting that polyvagal theory operates primarily at the level of the peripheral autonomic nervous system, while the DBR framework goes deeper - to subcortical brainstem structures where shock and orienting patterns are stored. These aren't competing ideas, but they're working at different altitudes. What they share is the recognition that Self-like qualities are state-dependent, not fixed - and that the body's current condition shapes what's available to us.
Why Trauma Restricts Access
Early attachment disruption and shock trauma leave lasting imprints in specific brainstem-level systems. As psychiatrist Frank Corrigan has outlined in his work on Deep Brain Reorienting, trauma activates a predictable neurophysiological sequence involving orienting tension (mediated by the superior colliculi), preaffective shock (locus coeruleus), and affective response (periaqueductal gray) - a sequence that, when unresolved, continues to fire in response to later triggers (Corrigan & Christie-Sands, 2020). These systems activate in milliseconds, faster than conscious awareness can form.
When these circuits are sensitized through early experience, they fire quickly and persistently. The body braces before you know why. Reflective awareness narrows. Parts blend rapidly. Self doesn't vanish - the nervous system simply cannot sustain the integration required to access it in that moment.
There's an important nuance here: attachment trauma and shock trauma are rarely separable. Corrigan and Christie-Sands describe how the same midbrain regions that organize turning toward a caregiver also organize turning away in defense (2020). When early attachment was inconsistent or frightening, the system learned to hold simultaneous urges to approach and withdraw. What later appears psychologically as polarized parts often originates physiologically - in the body's conflicted attempt to both seek connection and brace against pain. Allan Schore's decades of research on right-brain development and early relational trauma points to the same conclusion: the deepest wounds to Self access are encoded in the body before language, and they require body-level work to resolve (Schore, 2019).
Self Energy Is Not the Same as Completion
This is a distinction worth sitting with, especially for therapists. Accessing a moment of Self energy does not mean that shock has fully discharged. It doesn't mean attachment pain has resolved or that developmental trauma has been metabolized. As Anderson writes, you can access genuine spacious awareness while subcortical patterns remain stored (Anderson, 2021). Self is evidence of integration in that moment - not proof of total system reorganization.
Which means we can celebrate those moments of calm clarity without overstating what they signify. And we can hold compassion for the client who accesses Self beautifully in session and then finds it gone by Tuesday morning, when ordinary stress re-activates a sensitized nervous system.
A More Precise Statement
Rather than saying simply, "everyone has Self," a more neurobiologically honest framing might be: everyone has the capacity for Self. Sustained access depends on the activation bandwidth of the nervous system - and that bandwidth can be expanded through co-regulation, repeated safe relational experience, gradual discharge of shock activation, and titrated exposure to attachment pain.
Self is not manufactured. It becomes accessible when survival urgency softens enough that the system can integrate what it has been holding.
If you experience brief moments of clarity followed by rapid re-hijack, that doesn't negate your capacity for Self. It suggests that survival circuits still activate quickly under specific conditions. Therapy may need to work not only at the level of insight and parts dialogue, but at the level of sequencing physiology - allowing the deeper layers to slow down and complete before expecting the qualities of Self to stabilize and hold.
Accessing Self energy is a meaningful threshold, and it's also not the end of the story. What becomes possible from Self, and what remains stored beneath it, is territory worth continuing to explore - and the subject of ongoing clinical reflection for those of us sitting at the intersection of parts work and nervous system approaches.
Self doesn't need to be forced. It needs room.
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References
Anderson, F. G. (2021). Transcending trauma: Healing complex PTSD with Internal Family Systems. PESI Publishing.
Corrigan, F. M., & Christie-Sands, J. (2020). An innate brainstem self-other system involving orienting, affective responding, and polyvalent relational seeking: Some clinical implications for a 'Deep Brain Reorienting' trauma psychotherapy approach. Medical Hypotheses, 136, 109502. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mehy.2019.109502
Dana, D. (2018). The polyvagal theory in therapy: Engaging the rhythm of regulation. W. W. Norton.
Kearney, B. E., Corrigan, F. M., Frewen, P. A., Nevill, S., Harricharan, S., Andrews, K., Jetly, R., McKinnon, M. C., & Lanius, R. A. (2023). A randomized controlled trial of Deep Brain Reorienting: A neuroscientifically guided treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder. European Journal of Psychotraumatology, 14(2). https://doi.org/10.1080/20008066.2023.2238690
Porges, S. W. (2011). The polyvagal theory: Neurophysiological foundations of emotions, attachment, communication, and self-regulation. W. W. Norton.
Schore, A. N. (2019). Right brain psychotherapy. W. W. Norton.
Schwartz, R. C. (2021). No bad parts: Healing trauma and restoring wholeness with the Internal Family Systems model. Sounds True.
About the Author: Katie is a Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor (LPCC-S) and board-certified art therapist (ATR-BC) at Lacuna Counseling in Columbus, Ohio. She is IFS Level 2 Certified. Katie specializes in neurodivergent-affirming therapy, integrating Internal Family Systems, art therapy, and somatic approaches including Deep Brain Reorienting.
