Max Littman, LCSW
January 16, 2026
Is IFS a morally relative model? Does Self take a morally relative stance?
Does the model imply that there is no right or wrong, only parts doing their best?
Does Self take a neutral stance toward harm?
These questions surface periodically, both within IFS circles and outside them. They come from critics at times, and at other times from clients who witness harmful behavior being named gently and wonder whether gentleness has crossed into permissiveness. These questions also arise within me.
Some of my therapist parts lean toward that gentler stance, drawing on the work of Rogers and Jung and on lived experience of how non-pathologizing even the most troubling behaviors can promote healing. Other parts, anchored in firm moral commitments, resist this orientation. In the therapy room, when they hear about erratic substance use, betrayals that fracture trust, or figures of authority causing harm through unexamined power, they press for action. They want me to intervene, to disrupt the pattern, to insist on accountability rather than understanding alone.
At a quick glance, IFS can appear morally ambiguous. This is especially true when the model is encountered through aphorisms rather than through experience, immersion, and practice. It is also more likely when Self is reduced to calmness, curiosity, or compassion, or to any of the 8Cs, without discernment and with rigidity. And it becomes even more confusing when Self-like parts are mistaken for Self.
But IFS is not a morally relative model. And Self is not morally indifferent.
What the model does is discern between moral judgment and moral clarity.
Where the Confusion Comes From
IFS invites us to approach all parts with curiosity and care. To welcome all parts. Yes, all of them. Even parts that lie. Even parts that hurt others. Even parts that act in ways we would clearly name as harmful.
That invitation can sound like moral ignorance. As if the act and the actor are being merged and together named as “good”. As if harm is being excused because it is understood. As if accountability is being overridden by compassion.
But understanding why something happens is not the same as justifying that it happened.
IFS does not claim that all behaviors are acceptable or good. It asserts that all parts have reasons to do what they do. It holds that the intentions of a person’s parts are oriented toward their own system’s survival and protection. And it maintains that parts are not identical to their roles or behaviors. These are related ideas, but they are very different claims.
The confusion often deepens when Self-like parts are in the lead. These are parts that sound reasonable, spiritual, inclusive, calm, connected, compassionate. They may speak the language of non judgment while subtly avoiding truth. They may emphasize compassion and intention while bypassing impact. They may confuse acceptance with appeasement.
When these parts are mistaken for Self, the model can appear morally relative. But what we are witnessing is not Self. It is protection wearing Self’s clothing.
Self and Discernment
Self does not collapse distinctions. Self sharpens them.
Self energy includes compassion, but it also includes clarity. It includes curiosity, but it also includes courage. It includes calm, but it also includes confidence.
Self can say “this behavior caused harm” without saying “you are bad”.
Self can hold accountability without resorting to humiliation.
Self can refuse collusion without becoming punitive.
This non-judgmental stance is not moral relativism. It is moral discernment without shame and without collapsing a person’s identity into a single act or a single part.
One of the core focuses of IFS is to help us distinguish between who we are and what we have done. That distinction is what allows responsibility to be taken without the nervous system going into collapse or defensiveness.
A system that believes identity equals behavior will either deny harm or drown in it because being seen as bad is an existential threat. Neither leads to repair or transformation.
Self offers a third position. One that can name wrongness clearly while staying in relationship with the system that enacted it.
Why Parts Need Care Even When Their Behavior Is Harmful
If a part engages in harmful behavior, approaching it with contempt does not reduce future harm. It usually entrenches parts in their behaviors.
Parts that harm others carry fear, powerlessness, rage, and/or legacy and cultural burdens that predate the behavior itself. That does not excuse the harm. But it points to why punishment alone rarely leads to transformation.
IFS works upstream from behavior. It asks what conditions made this behavior necessary in the system. It does so not to absolve responsibility, but to free the stream and reduce recurrence.
This is not moral relativism. It is moral pragmatism.
A model that ignores causality is not more ethical. It is often just less effective.
Morality is a secondary emergence of wholeness, something that follows healing rather than attempts to force it.
The Difference Between Moral Relativity and Moral Humility
Moral relativism suggests that right and wrong are purely subjective. That harm is a matter of perspective. That no stable ethical ground exists.
IFS does not make this claim. Self does not make this claim.
What they do offer is moral humility. They offer recognition that harmful behavior emerges from systems shaped by their environments including trauma, culture, attachment, and survival strategies. And they point out that condemnation without understanding often reproduces the very conditions it seeks to prevent.
Moral humility means we stay curious about how harm happens while remaining clear what happened matters. It does not mean anything goes.
Where the Model Can Be Misused
IFS can be misused when Self is reduced to niceness. When curiosity is used to avoid confrontation. When compassion is used to silence anger. When accountability is postponed indefinitely in the name of safety.
These are not failures of the model. They are failures of discernment.
Self does not avoid hard truths. Self embraces them.
Self does not erase moral boundaries. Self holds them without outsourcing enforcement to shame.
When harm is minimized, excused, or ignored in the service of staying true to the IFS model, something has gone off track. It means a protector has taken over. Here, we are encouraged to befriend this protector so we can return to clarity, confidence, and compassion, allowing us to address harmful behavior with firmness and truth, while holding the part behind it with love.
Self Is Not Neutral About Harm
Self is not a blank slate. It flows toward integration, repair, reduced suffering, wholeness, and a love that is present, fierce, clear, and attuned.
That orientation carries moral weight and force. In this sense, there is a kind of moral physics to Self. As with gravity, there is an order to things. With Self, the gravity of love draws systems, internal and external, toward harmony. Love begets love. Self begets Self.
Self recognizes that harm fragments systems. It recognizes that repair matters. It recognizes that actions have impact beyond intention.
Self does not rush to punish, but it does not hesitate to name.
IFS does not impart moral relativity. It teaches moral clarity without moral collapse. It takes a stance of moral humility.
That distinction is subtle. And it is easy to miss if one has not spent time inside the work.
But once seen, it becomes hard to unsee.
The model does not ask us to abandon our ethics and morals. It asks us to hold them with enough spaciousness that real change becomes possible.
For feedback and comments, I can be reached at max@maxlittman.com.
I provide consultation and therapy for therapists.
Purchase my new book IFS Therapy for Gay and Queer Men here.
