The Body Keeps the Shame: An Internal Family Systems (IFS) View of Somatic Collapse

In Internal Family Systems (IFS) Therapy, shame is never just a cognitive belief. Shame has posture, tension, weight, and a breathing pattern. In other words, shame is a somatic experience. Clients will rarely show up to therapy saying, "I am blended with a shame exile.” They say things like: “I feel heavy” or “My chest caves in, ” or “I go blank in conversations” or “I disappear when someone criticises me.”

What we are often witnessing nervous system adaptation organised around survival under threat, or in therapy language: somatic collapse.

How Shame Becomes Somatic in IFS

In IFS, Exiles (aka child parts) commonly hold early relational experiences of intrusion, emotional neglect, subtle humiliation, or exposure to being seen in a negative or toxic way. Nothing dramatic may have happened, but something in the child’s internal system registered: When I am fully myself, connection becomes unsafe or dangerous. This is not a cognitive learning, shame becomes held in implicit, somatic memory. And the body learns quickly.

Physically, the young child learns at a primitive level, to lower your gaze or look down, soften your voice, round your shoulders, become small and don't take up space, or become too much.

Over time, this becomes practiced and held in procedural memory. The spine flexes forward, breath shortens, the diaphragm tightens, and prolonged eye contact feels threatening. The body organises around invisibility and remaining hidden, and the child cannot yield into safety.

From an IFS lens, this is not pathology but a brilliant adaptation. Young parts concluded that shrinking preserved attachment, and for a child, attachment equals survival and existence - in whatever way that happens.

The Collapsing Protector and the Exile in Somatic Collapse

Many shame states carry a low energy, fogginess, numbness, or a sense of being under a great weight. Clients describe: “I feel flat" or “I’m here but not really here" or “Everything feels pointless.”

In IFS terms, this presents as a polarisation that is initially somatic. A protective part develops around taking what happened outside to the inside. Parts that criticise or judge develop around external criticism or shaming and take that experience inside, continuing to push that experience onto internal children long after the external events have happened. Again, they are trying to help the system by hiding away the parts of the children external caretakers have labelled or deemed unacceptable, with the goal being maximising attachment and love from the outside. So, an exile may be carrying shame, helplessness, or humiliation, while protective parts may intensify or amplify somatic collapse to prevent further relational injury.

Protectors remind exiles somatically, "If you stay small, you will not be attacked" or "If you disappear, you cannot be rejected" or "If you go numb, you cannot feel the sting of humiliation."

The system is not broken, but the ingeniously organised around preventing or minimising re-exposure to the external shaming events that happened in the first place.

Why Cognitive Insight Isn’t Enough

Shame rarely dissolves through cognitive restructuring or logical challenging. You can rationally dispute distorted beliefs, rehearse affirmations, or intellectually understand your childhood, but if you have a brutal Inner critic shaming inside, and/or the exile is still holding humiliation in the chest, throat, or gut, the body will continue to contract, no matter what resources you develop intellectually around this.

Approaching shame in IFS with a somatic focus slows the process down.

"Can you notice where you feel the shame in or around your body?" "How do you feel toward that sensation?" Is there enough compassion/curiosity/presence there to stay with it without needing pushing it away? When the Self can befriend the Inner Critic and gain enough of this protective part's trust to rest, it becomes possible to turn toward the collapsed shamed exile, and this creates the conditions for healing. The exile no longer needs to be hidden and alone, and it is no longer being managed, fixed, or silenced. It is being witnessed from an open place.

When this happens, often the body responds first. You notice breath deepening, shoulders softening, tension dissolving. Tears emerge quietly and there is a quiet relief, not drama.

Restoring Dignity Through Embodied Self-Leadership

Healing shame is about restoring dignity to the part that once had to fold inward to survive. The restoration of this dignity should be somatic and embodied for it to stick. As Self-leadership strengthens, protectors relax, and the nervous system reorganises. Clients report:

“I feel taller.” “My voice sounds stronger and steadier.” “I didn’t shrink in that meeting.” “I held eye contact.”

These are not performance strategies, but indicators of integration.

The exile is no longer carrying shame alone, and the protector no longer needs collapse as strategy. The body no longer has to disappear in order to belong.

And slowly, an upright posture and safe embodiment can return.

About the Author

Sean Cuthbert is a Clinical Psychologist, Psychology Board of Australia (PBA) Approved Supervisor, Certified IFS Therapist, and IFS-I Approved Clinical Consultant in private practice in Melbourne, online throughout Australia, and internationally. He provides 1:1 therapy for clients, and supports professionals through individual and group supervision/consultation.