Parts of Me
Internal Family Systems for teens, tweens and kids
You're not just one thing. You've got a whole crew in there — and every one of them is on your side.
Internal Family Systems for teens, tweens and kids
You're not just one thing. You've got a whole crew in there — and every one of them is on your side.
The book
Sometimes one part of you wants to go out and another wants to stay in bed. A part gets loud before a test. A part goes quiet when things get hard. None of that means anything is wrong with you — it means you're a person, and people are made of parts.
Parts of Me introduces young readers to Internal Family Systems: a way of understanding your inner world that treats every part of you as worth listening to, however awkward its timing.
Buy the book on Amazon (opens in a new tab) Die Anteile in mir — German edition (opens in a new tab)
Even the ones that shout, hide, or get in the way are trying to help. They just need a better job.
Feeling nervous? That's a nervous part. Naming it is the first step to not being swept away by it.
Curious, kind, steady. It doesn't go anywhere — it just gets crowded out sometimes.
The idea behind it
Internal Family Systems — usually shortened to IFS — is a way of understanding the mind developed by Dr Richard Schwartz. Its starting point is that nobody is one single thing. We're all made of parts: the part that wants to try out for the team, the part that's certain everyone will laugh, the part that would rather stay home than find out.
IFS treats every one of those parts as having a good reason for what it does, even when what it does is unhelpful. The part that snaps at your sister is protecting something. The part that won't stop checking your phone is worried about something. Nothing gets thrown out — it gets listened to.
That framing turns out to be unusually easy for young people to pick up, because it matches how being a teenager actually feels. Instead of what's wrong with me, the question becomes which part of me is having a hard time, and what does it need? That's a question a twelve-year-old can answer.
A calm, private space for working out what's going on inside you — built for tweens, teens and young people, and just as useful for everyone else.
Somewhere to put the big feelings on a Tuesday afternoon, and to come back to when things settle.
Questions
The book is written for roughly ages 9 to 14 — tweens and younger teenagers — though plenty of older teens and adults read it and get something out of it. The app is built for the same age group, with a reading level to match.
Yes. IFS is widely used with young people, and the core idea — that you're made of parts and none of them are bad — tends to land faster with children than with adults. What changes is the language, not the model. Parts of Me keeps the model and drops the jargon.
No, and it isn't a replacement for it. It's a self-guided space for noticing what's going on inside you: checking in with feelings, getting to know the parts behind them, and having somewhere private to put it all. If a young person is struggling, it sits alongside proper support rather than instead of it — and it points towards help when something serious comes up.
Everything a young person writes is stored on their own device, encrypted, and nothing is uploaded unless they switch it on. Backup and research are separate choices, both off by default, and journal entries and part names are never part of research data. The full detail is in the app privacy notice.
That's very much the intention. The book works as a shared reference point in a session or a classroom, and the app gives a young person something to carry on with between times. Sign up below and we'll let you know when it's ready.
It's in development now, for both iPhone and Android. Pricing isn't settled yet. The mailing list below is the only place we'll announce the launch date.
For grown-ups
If you're a parent, teacher, or therapist, leave your email and we'll let you know once it's ready. Nothing else — no newsletter, no forwarding your address to anyone.
This list is for adults. If you're under 16, ask a grown-up to sign up for you. We'll only ever email you about the app launching, and you can unsubscribe from any message.