When Food Feels Unsafe: IFS Therapy for Eating Disorders, ARFID and Childhood Trauma

When food has been paired with fear, shame, or scarcity, eating is no longer a simple act; it becomes a conversation between parts. Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy helps us understand avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder (ARFID), binge eating, and childhood food trauma not as defiance but as protection. Beneath the picky eating or urgent binges are parts doing their best to survive a past that once made nourishment feel unsafe. IFS offers a compassionate roadmap to listen inward, meet those protectors, and help the system trust that nourishment no longer has to hurt.