When Therapy Asks You to Feel What You Don't Feel
- Katie Helldoerfer
- 4 days ago
- 5 min read
"How do you feel toward this part?"
You're sitting in therapy. Your therapist just asked you to focus on a part of yourself - maybe the one that gets anxious, or the one that shuts down, or the one that needs everything to be just right.
"How do you feel toward it?" they ask.
You pause. You search inside. And what comes up isn't a feeling. It's... understanding. Logic. A clear sense of why this part exists, what job it's doing, how it fits into your system.
"I don't really feel anything," you say. "I just... get it. I see why it's there."
Your therapist looks concerned. Or confused. Or they say something like, "Can you drop down into your body? What's the feeling underneath the thinking?"
And you want to scream: There is no feeling underneath. This IS my access point. Understanding IS how I connect.
But instead you feel broken. Like you're doing therapy wrong.
If This Sounds Familiar, You're Not Broken
Internal Family Systems (IFS) is a beautiful therapeutic model. It helps people recognize that we're not one unified self - we're made of parts, each with its own perspective, history, and protective function. The goal is to access "Self-energy" - a compassionate, curious presence that can relate to these parts with care.
For many people, this works beautifully.
For many neurodivergent people, especially autistic folks, the language of IFS keeps missing the mark.
Not because the model is wrong. But because the way it's typically practiced assumes everyone processes the same way. It assumes emotions come first, metaphor is natural, and warmth is the primary form of healing presence.
What if that's not how your nervous system works?
When "Just Feel Into It" Doesn't Compute
Maybe your therapist asks you to visualize a part. To see what it looks like, how old it is, where it lives in your body.
And you... can't. Or what comes feels forced, intellectual, fake.
Maybe they ask you to "just be with" a part. To sit in sustained internal focus, eyes closed, going inward.
And instead of settling, you feel overwhelmed. Sensory information floods in. Your mind goes blank or speeds up. The lack of structure feels destabilizing rather than opening.
Maybe they interpret your need for clarity as "control issues." Your literal questions as "intellectualizing." Your precision as "a manager part that's afraid of chaos."
And you start to wonder: Am I too defended? Too rigid? Too stuck in my head?
Or maybe - just maybe - therapy is pathologizing the way your mind actually works.
What If Precision IS Your Self-Energy?
Standard IFS talks about Self-energy as curiosity, compassion, calm, clarity. These are supposed to feel warm, open, flowing.
But what if your Self-energy is:
Coherence. Things making logical sense. Patterns clicking into place.
Accuracy. Getting the details right because precision grounds you.
Respect for function. Understanding why a part does what it does, even if you don't emotionally "like" it.
Reduced noise. The calm that comes from clarity, not from "letting go of control."
What if when you understand something deeply - when the logic is sound, when you can see the whole system - that'syour version of compassion?
You're not doing it wrong. You're doing it differently.
The Question No One's Asking You
Here's what might actually be happening:
Some of what looks like "protective parts" is just how your nervous system is built.
You need predictability? That might not be a "controlling part protecting against chaos." It might be how monotropic attention works—narrow, deep focus is regulating, and sudden shifts are genuinely destabilizing.
You process literally, asking for exact definitions? That might not be "intellectualizing to avoid feelings." It might be how your cognition works—concrete before abstract, precision before metaphor.
You can't visualize parts as images? That might not be "disconnection from your inner world." Your access to the unconscious might come through pattern, logic, writing, or art-making - not spontaneous internal imagery.
You don't feel warm toward a part, but you respect its function? That might be exactly what Self-energy looks like in your system.
The Difference Between Neurotype and Trauma
This matters because there's a profound difference between:
"This is how I'm wired" (which needs respect, space, affirmation)
and
"This is how I learned to survive being misunderstood" (which needs healing)
If you're autistic, ADHD, or otherwise neurodivergent, you've likely experienced both.
The way you process information, need structure, think in patterns, focus intensely, require clarity - that's architecture. It doesn't need to be fixed.
But the shame you carry about being "too much" or "not enough"? The exhaustion from masking? The hypervigilance from constantly being misunderstood? The grief of never quite fitting? The rage at having to translate yourself into neurotypical language just to be taken seriously?
That needs healing.
And IFS can be incredibly powerful for that healing - but only when it doesn't mistake your neurotype for pathology.
What You Might Actually Need in Therapy
What if instead of "How do you feel toward this part?" your therapist asked:
"Does this part make sense to you?"
"Can you see the logic of what it's doing?"
"Do you respect the job it has?"
What if instead of asking you to visualize, they offered: "Would it help to map this on paper? To write about it? To use something external to track what's internal?"
What if they understood that when you need to know exactly how long the session will be, or when you correct small details in their language, or when you ask them to be more specific—you're not being "controlling" or "defended."
You're grounding your nervous system the way it actually works.
If IFS Hasn't Felt Right
If you've tried parts work and felt like you couldn't do it "correctly" -
If therapists have suggested you're "too intellectual" or "defended against your emotions" -
If you've been told you need to "get out of your head and into your body" when your body is full of overwhelming sensory input and your head is where you find clarity -
You're not broken.
The model needs adaptation. Not you.
You deserve therapy that honors how your nervous system actually processes. That doesn't mistake literal thinking for defensiveness. That treats precision as valid rather than problematic. That lets cognitive understanding be a legitimate pathway to healing, not something to "get past" on the way to the "real" emotional work.
What Self-Energy Might Actually Feel Like for You
Forget warm and fuzzy for a moment.
Does Self-energy ever feel like:
Finally understanding the pattern?
Everything clicking into logical place?
Reduced sensory overwhelm because things make sense?
Seeing the function of a part and respecting it, even if you don't "love" it?
The relief of precision, accuracy, truth?
Deep loyalty and connection to the few people who get you?
Losing yourself in a special interest and feeling more yourself, not less?
That's Self-energy.
It doesn't have to be soft to be healing.
The Real Question
The next time you're in therapy and something doesn't land -
The next time you're asked to "feel" something you don't feel, or visualize something that won't come, or "just be with" something that overwhelms you -
Ask yourself: Is this resistance, or is this just how I work?
Because sometimes the most radical act of Self-energy is trusting your own processing.
Even when - especially when - it doesn't match what therapy says it should look like.
References:
Price, Devon. Unmasking Autism: Discovering the New Faces of Neurodiversity. Harmony, 2022.
Walker, Nick. "The Neurodiversity Paradigm." Neuroqueer Heresies, 2021.
Murray, Dinah, et al. "Attention, monotropism and the diagnostic criteria for autism." Autism, 2005.
Schwartz, Richard C. Introduction to Internal Family Systems. IFS Institute.
About the Author: Katie is a therapist at Lacuna Counseling in Columbus, Ohio, specializing in neurodivergent-affirming therapy. She works with the assumption that how you process isn't pathology - and that therapy should adapt to you, not the other way around.
