Max Littman, LCSW
March 5, 2026
There are moments in session when I notice myself asking a client, “Would it be okay if we got curious about that part?”, “Can I ask a question?”, “Would it be ok if we slowed down together here?” or “Can I offer something here?”. In such moments, or sometimes in reflection upon them, I can feel that something about the question is more complicated than it sounds. The wording may be careful. The tone may be warm. But internally, the energy does not always match. Sometimes the invitation is spacious and genuinely open. Other times there is a subtle leaning forward, a hope that the answer will be yes. A therapist part that is invested in an outcome.
This is where consent becomes tricky.
In IFS, we often speak of the eight C’s of Self energy: calm, curiosity, clarity, compassion, confidence, courage, creativity, and connectedness. Over time, I have come to think of consent as a kind of unofficial ninth C. Not because it needs to be formally added to the model, but because it reflects something essential about Self leadership.
Lead trainer Cece Sykes has named choice as the ninth C of Self energy, and I find that distinction important here too. Choice and consent are deeply related, but they are not identical.
Choice refers to the internal experience of agency: the felt sense that I can move toward something, away from something, or pause.
Consent lives in the relational field. It asks whether that internal sense of choice is truly available in the presence of another person, especially across a power differential.
A client may technically have choice inside their system, but if the relational environment does not make “no” genuinely welcome and safe, consent is compromised. In that way, consent could be understood as choice made viable through relationship.
Consent, in this sense, is not simply about asking permission. It is about whether there is real freedom for the other person, or the other part, to say no. When Self is leading, there is no internal rush and no hidden agenda. Another way some view it, including Dick Schwartz, is that although Self has a healing agenda, it is not attached to a particular outcome, either in the moment or across the arc of treatment. We do not need the session to move in a specific direction. The invitation is Self led because a refusal would be respected.
Trickiness with consent emerges because both therapists and clients bring protector parts into the room that complicate what yes and no actually mean. And some parts may say yes and others may say no.
Many clients have people pleasing parts that developed in response to authority, unpredictability, or emotional withdrawal. These parts learned that agreement or compliance preserves safety. When we ask, “Would you be open to trying something?” those parts may answer in the affirmative automatically. The yes may be adaptive rather than fully chosen.
We as therapists have our own versions of this. We often carry good therapist parts that want to be helpful, skillful, and effective. We may have people pleasing parts that want to maintain rapport or avoid disappointment. These parts are not inherently problematic. They are deeply caring for us and for others. But when they blend, they can subtly steer the process and reinforce a lack of choice while still sounding collaborative.
Our invitation can be phrased as a question while having an investment or attachment to therapeutic momentum, movement toward a goal in treatment, or alleviation of a symptom.
Clients can feel that, even if neither person names it.
Layered onto this is the inescapable power differential of therapy. No matter how relational or egalitarian we aim to be, we hold structural authority. We define the frame. We guide the pacing. We are paid for our expertise. For clients with attachment trauma, religious trauma, racial trauma, queer trauma, or histories of being overruled or objectified by authority, saying no to a therapist is rarely neutral. It can carry the weight of earlier consequences or risks of saying implicitly or explicitly “no”.
So when a client says, “sure,” it does not automatically mean wholehearted consent. It may mean trust. It may mean compliance. It may mean a protector choosing safety over authenticity. Often, it is some combination of these.
There is also a developmental layer to all of this. Learning to say no is one of the earliest expressions of individuation. Toddlers discover autonomy through refusal. The word no is often the first clear boundary a child experiments with. It is how a child discovers that they are separate, that they have preferences, that they can exert will.
Yet in many families and cultures, no is not welcomed. Children who say no are labeled uncooperative, defiant, disrespectful, or difficult. Some are overtly punished. Others are met with subtle withdrawal, shaming, or disappointment. Over time, parts may learn that autonomy threatens attachment. Individuation becomes associated with loss, terror, disconnection, and risk.
Cultural and legacy burdens can compound this dynamic. In some systems, obedience is equated with virtue. In others, survival has depended on compliance with authority. For marginalized communities, saying no to those in power has historically carried real danger. For dominant groups, individuation may be encouraged in some contexts and suppressed in others, especially when it disrupts hierarchy or tradition. These collective histories live inside nervous systems. They shape what “no” feels like.
So when a client sits across from a therapist and is asked for consent, the word “no”, and the energy behind it, is not just a simple option. It carries developmental memory. It carries relational risk. It may activate parts that anticipate punishment, rejection, or moral failure.
IFS extends the question of consent inward. We ask protectors for permission before approaching exiles. We honor resistance as information. Yet even here, trickiness remains. A protector might “agree” because it senses the therapist’s investment. A client’s system might comply to preserve attachment. The verbal “yes” does not always equal internal alignment.
This is why slowing down matters. Real consent requires that “no” be viable. That viability has to be felt, not just stated. And sometimes it involves holding an awareness that parts may have fears, concerns, or boundaries being crossed that are not accessible in the moment. With all of this in mind, I might ask, “If a part of you wanted to say no right now, what would it be concerned about?” or “Does any part feel pressure to go along with this?” These questions are not designed to create doubt, but to create room and to move closer to full consent. They acknowledge that people pleasing parts and good therapist parts may already be shaping the field and limiting the capacity to say “no, I do not consent”.
There are clients who rarely disagree. At first this can look like harmony. Over time, it can signal something else. If a client consistently consents, I grow more curious, not less. What would it cost them to decline? What do they imagine would happen if they said no to me? Sometimes the most healing moment is not accessing an exile, but experiencing that connection survives a “no”.
There are also moments when client parts get visibly or subtly annoyed by my repeated consent checking. A part says, “You can just ask the question.” Or, “You do not have to keep checking.” In those moments, parts of me can get activated as well. A part that wants to blow past the whole thing and simply follow their request. A part that feels embarrassed, as if I am being overly cautious or slowing the work unnecessarily. Sometimes even a flicker of guilt arises, as though I am frustrating the client by not moving more directly.
This is another layer of trickiness. Because while overchecking can feel clunky, abandoning checking for consent altogether can quietly reintroduce momentum and authority as mandatory. The practice of regularly checking for consent is not about rigidly repeating a script. It is about maintaining an environment in which autonomy remains alive, even when the client’s system appears eager to proceed or resistant to or dismissive of checking for consent.
Different systems register closeness, rupture, and repair in very different ways. Some learned that intimacy was fused with major ruptures or boundary violations, so friction can paradoxically feel like connection. Others were exiled or shamed in families where disagreement was intolerable, and even minor rupture carries the threat of rejection. Without ongoing consent and calibration, we can easily misread what is happening in the relational field. Slowing down to check again, even when it feels redundant, helps ensure that movement toward closeness is chosen rather than reenacted.
We can make this explicit with our clients and with our own parts. A little psycho-education on consent can go a long way.
The trickiness of consent is not a problem to eliminate. It is a dynamic to respect. Without attention, therapy can unintentionally reenact earlier patterns of authority and compliance, even while using collaborative language. With attention, consent becomes an ongoing relational practice rather than a procedural step.
I do not get this right all the time. There are sessions where I later recognize that I was more invested than I realized. The work, for me, is not about perfect neutrality. It is about noticing when a part is leaning forward and creating enough internal space that the client’s “no”, and their parts’ “no”, would genuinely be welcome. And, in some cases, dismissal from a client’s parts of getting consent at all may be welcomed but not taken for granted or accepted at face value.
Consent in IFS therapy is tricky because it lives at the intersection of power, protection, attachment, intention, history, and development. It asks us to listen not only to what is said, but to what is felt underneath the yes, no, and any other answer.
And to make sure that staying connected never requires anyone, inside or outside, to override themselves.
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.
