I.F.S. has much in common with other Mindfulness Based psychological approaches and spiritual traditions which emphasize establishing a compassionate relationship with Self.  Richard Schwartz refers to "Self" or "Self-energy" as a central healing energy characterized by qualities such as Curiosity, Calmness, Clarity, Courage, Confidence, Creativity, Compassion, and Connectedness.  When we make room for our "Self" it opens and strengthens a healing presence which can reach vulnerable injured aspects of our internal system in a safe respectful manner.  As we come to be with the various layers and aspects of our internal system it builds trust, compassionate curiosity, and helpful perspective towards extreme exaggerated protective patterns.  The burdens we carry in the form of limiting beliefs and painful emotions persisting as legacies of traumatic experience can begin to resolve.  Our sense of Self can shift in profound ways as we differentiate from the burdens our parts have taken on and mistakenly identified with as intrinsic to "us".  

D.W. Winnicott (1965) coined the term "False Self" as an Object Relations phenomenon resulting from the child's adaptation to excessive ruptures in the Primary Maternal Preoccupation we depend on.  The need for consistent attunement with our primary caregivers is so essential that the ego resorts to extreme measures of accommodating by becoming what is imagined as necessary to maintain a connection.  He becomes what the parent seems to need him to be rather than joyfully welcoming and "mirroring" his authentic being.  This sort of early chronic relationship trauma is now being referred to as "Complex Trauma".  

Much of what afflicts us as human beings can be understood as various kinds of "mistaken identity" about who we are and loss of connection with our true Self.  The problem of being taken over by  emotionality, extreme limiting beliefs, and distorted perspectives is what Schwartz refers to as the phenomenon of "Blending".  When we identify with our own compelling emotional drama it's like an actor who gets lost in their parts.  "Un-blending" of our parts from our Self can occur as we open up curiosity and take a genuine interest in getting to know how and why our parts have become personally invested and identified with various aspects of our experience.  When Schwartz begins to work with clients he will invite them to find the part they are interested in working with in or around their body, and focus on it.  This is essentially a mindfulness practice of coming back to the present moment in the body which helps our parts to un-blend from our Self.  This practice opens up a dyadic relational presence which provides compassionate connection and builds trust in our Self.  As our parts realize their power to un-blend, differentiate, and find their true place and connection with us, the healing presence of Self energy allows previously overwhelming aspects of our experience to be appropriately tended to and begin to transform.  Relationship with Self becomes a way of welcoming and holding our most tender aspects in the spirit of unconditional loving kindness.  "Turning it over" to a higher power in the 12-step tradition can be understood as an "un-blending" step.  

Carl Jung referred to the higher Self as the "Self with a capital "S".  He developed a therapeutic method called "Active Imagining" which involves opening relationship and dialogue with various aspects of our internal world expressed in dream images, art work, and sand tray play.  Donald Kalsched (The Inner World of Trauma, 1996) is a modern Jungian therapist who has noted that Richard Schwartz (Internal Family Systems Therapy, 1995) developed an effective way of accessing and healing traumatized aspects of the personality.  The therapeutic attitude of welcoming all parts of our experience is a central feature in I.F.S., Mindfulness practice, and the active imagining of Carl Jung.  Though it may seem counter-intuitive to be with, and relate to what seems to be the "source" of our fear, pain, and suffering, clinical expertise in Pain Management and Cognitive Behavioral treatment for Anxiety Disorders continues to support this strategy (Stephen Levine, A Gradual Awakening, 1979, Who Dies, 1982, David Burns, When Panic Attacks, 2006, Peter Levine, Freedom from Pain, 2012).