Mental Injury #

This is an excerpt from Religion Unburdened by Belief: The Way of Open Inquiry.

A defensive response to stress is to split off parts of ourselves. This psychological splitting happens when experiences become too painful to integrate. A child whose anger triggers punishment learns to exile that angry part. A teen whose grief is met with “be strong” messages learns to lock away sadness. These exiled aspects don’t disappear—they become separate, isolated fragments within us that require enormous psychological energy to maintain.footnote:[Parts can even become separated by amnesiac barriers that limit information sharing (see xref:ifs-multiplicity[]).]

Our culture reinforces this splitting process. We’re told to “put on a happy face” regardless of inner pain. Children learn early that certain emotions are unacceptable—boys shouldn’t cry, girls shouldn’t show anger. Family systems often demand this exiling too. A family that can’t tolerate sadness forces children to suppress grief to maintain harmony. But exiled parts still need expression and may emerge through physical symptoms, nightmares, or unexpected emotional outbursts.footnote:[«booth2025», pp. 5–7.]

The real problem isn’t the exiled parts themselves—it’s the separation and lack of communication between parts. When exiled parts can’t communicate with us, they may resort to extreme measures to make themselves heard. A child who exiled vulnerability might develop perfectionism, with the perfectionist part working hard to prevent the failure that would expose the vulnerable exile.footnote:[«booth2025», pp. 44–51.]

Recovery begins when we reverse this splitting process. By turning toward exiled parts and rebuilding inner communication, we move toward wholeness (xref:ifs-exiles[]). Healing isn’t about eliminating any part—it’s about restoring the natural internal connections that psychological splitting disrupted. As we learn to welcome all parts of ourselves, we often find we don’t need the behaviors that were protecting our exiled parts anymore.