The Others Within Us: Internal Family Systems, Porous Mind, and Spirit Possession

When an Internal Family Systems (IFS) client revealed a lifelong presence in her mind that was clearly not one of her parts, Bob was drawn into a question that would reshape his understanding of healing, consciousness, and the human mind. That encounter launched a decade-long exploration of the "others within us"—unattached burdens, spiritual presences, guides, and related experiences—and how cultures around the world have understood and worked with them for centuries.

What Bob discovered challenges the Western assumption that the mind is a closed, isolated system. Instead, it points toward a more interconnected understanding of human experience—one that has profound implications for trauma, healing, and our sense of belonging.

By expanding how we understand the mind, this work offers new possibilities for relieving suffering and addressing the deep feelings of alienation and isolation that so many people carry.

The Others Within Us includes:

• Case studies
• A detailed description of how to work with unattached burdens (UBs or entities) from an IFS perspective
• An extensive survey of how people have worked with the others within us in times past, and in many cultures around the world.

The journey Bob has taken goes to the farther reaches of human experience. It has revealed insights and understandings that can't help but cause readers to expand their beliefs about the nature of mind and healing.

Robert Falconer is best known for his deep involvement with Internal Family Systems therapy as a practitioner, teacher, and writer. For much of his long career, he has focused on the healing of childhood sexual abuse and other major trauma. He now is focused on placing IFS in a multicultural and historical context and working with the others within us --what we find in our minds that is not part of our systems, called unattached burdens and guides in IFS. Bob has come to recognize and appreciate that how we conceive of ourselves and the boundaries of our minds is vitally important not only as a substantial cause of personal suffering but also as an underlying factor in many of our modern social problems. This book clearly describes how to work with unattached burdens and guides, and it explores the farther reaches and wider implications of this topic.