Part 1: Introducing External Family Systems (EFS)
What It Is, What It Isn’t, and Why It Matters
I’ve been sitting with something for a while—something that started as a pattern observed over time and is now beginning to take shape as a theory. I’m calling it External Family Systems, or EFS for short. It’s not a clinical model (yet), but rather a developing conceptual framework—one that draws on elements of Internal Family Systems (IFS) while shifting the lens outward, toward the ways that systemic ableism fractures and shapes family dynamics in Unidentified Autistic Family Systems (UAFS).
Internal Family Systems (IFS), for those unfamiliar, is a therapeutic model developed by Richard Schwartz which built on existing theories that imagine each person’s mind as being made up of different subpersonalities or ‘parts.’ These parts are held within the larger internal system. IFS posits that everyone has a ‘Self,’ which can be thought of as the core of this internal system—in essence, our true self. When ‘in Self,’ the Self can emerge as the grounded, courageous leader of this internal system of parts. IFS helps individuals connect with and integrate exiled or protective parts in a non-pathologizing way. It’s a model rooted in curiosity, radical acceptance, and a continued emphasis that no parts are bad.
EFS borrows the spirit of this model—particularly its emphasis on wholeness and self-acceptance—but applies it at the family level. In EFS, the family unit becomes the Self. The individual family members are like the parts—fractured, misunderstood, reacting to each other with fear, rejection, or protection. But instead of focusing solely on intergenerational conflict or relational trauma within the family, EFS turns our attention to something outside the family: systemic ableism and neuronormativity.
Families don’t fracture in a vacuum. What EFS proposes is that many of the ruptures we see in family systems are not just the result of interpersonal wounds, mismatched communication, or even co-occurring mental illness, substance use, and/or trauma histories. They are symptoms of an unspoken, unnamed force: internalized ableism.
This isn’t just about parents or caregivers “not understanding” their neurodivergent child(ren). It’s about entire families operating under the influence of a cultural spell—one that teaches people to abandon the parts of themselves that don’t conform to neuronormative standards. This abandonment happens quietly, sometimes lovingly, and often without anyone realizing what’s going on. But over time, that self-abandonment can turn family members on each other: via control, criticism, shaming and blaming, enforced compliance, scapegoating, chronic invalidation, emotional disconnect, or emotional over-responsibility.
What EFS offers is a way to name the true puppet master. It asks us to externalize ableism, not to displace responsibility or accountability, but to bring the true root of harm out of the shadows. How can people recognize a pattern if they’ve never even had the language to see it? If they don’t know they’re neurodivergent in the first place? If they’ve been trained to believe that everything “wrong” with them is a personal failing?
EFS says: the problem isn’t you. The problem isn’t even necessarily your family members. The problem is the system you’ve all been surviving within.
During my experiences in the mental health and child welfare systems as a social worker, I’ve become deeply aware that clinicians can tell families to “validate each other,” “communicate better,” or “be more compassionate and understanding,” but if the true source of the dysregulation is unseen, it won’t work. If an unidentified parent sees in their child the very traits for which they were repeatedly punished, shamed, or otherwise made to feel unsafe—without knowing the shared root of these traits—extending patience and compassion will feel intolerable. If a sibling becomes the family scapegoat for having needs that shine a spotlight on what others have worked their whole lives to suppress, the conflict won’t be solved by surface-level empathy or therapeutic tools. It can only change when the spell is broken—when neurodivergence is identified and acknowledged, and ableism is named and externalized, so it can be removed from the role of invisible puppet master.
The hope of EFS is this: that by identifying and naming the external force (ableism), families can begin to operate with more clarity, compassion, and truth. That they can stop recreating on a micro-level what is being done to them on a macro-level. That they can shift from survival mode to actual connection based on authentic self-expression. That they can begin to advocate as a collective, not in opposition to each other, but in solidarity with one another. And that maybe, this will allow for the return of what IFS calls the capital-S Self. But this time, it’s the family itself rediscovering who they were meant to be, in imperfect wholeness, before the world taught them to fracture.
⸻
In Part 2, which will be posted tomorrow, I’ll explore how Unidentified Autistic Family Systems (UAFS) can become trapped in trauma loops—and how EFS can begin to break the cycle.
⸻
Want to go deeper?
If this resonates with your experience—personally, professionally, or both—I invite you to explore the rest of the Unmasked Lineage site, sign up for blog updates, or share this post with someone who might see themselves in it. Naming what’s been unnamed is the first step toward healing.
Email: hello@unmaskedlineage.com
Instagram: @unmaskedlineage
Follow along as I continue to develop the Unidentified Autistic Family Systems framework and create tools for families and clinicians alike. Your reflections, questions, and stories are welcome here.
⸻
About the Author
Claire McCulley, LCSW, is a social worker, therapist, researcher, writer, disability justice advocate, and theorist based in NYC developing the Unidentified Autistic Family Systems framework. Drawing on lived experience, clinical practice, and systems thinking, she explores the intergenerational impacts of masking, misattunement, and collective trauma in unidentified neurodivergent families. Her work centers autistic self-understanding, relational healing, and culturally attuned theory that speaks to real-world patterns.