The Panic Attack That Isn't Yours: Unattached Burdens, IFS and Hypnosis

A panic attack, or mental spirals, or just our emotional not-well-being, our emotional struggles and suffering, is not just psychological. It is psycho-spiritual.

A different video: unattached burdens and IFS

This video is going to be a little different. We're going to talk about deeper concepts of Internal Family Systems. We're going to talk about unattached burdens: what they are, how they relate to panic attacks and spirals and our stress. And we're going to touch on both. We're going to touch on the Internal Family Systems side, the psychological components of our internal parts, but we're also going to talk about spiritual components.

Spirituality and mental health: the studies

When it comes to spirituality, there are studies that our spirituality and our mental health are related. That spirituality, regardless of the personal level of religion or being religious, actually helps with mental health struggles: anxiety, depression, addiction, and other components.

So this is what we're going to talk about today. If you are a high-level executive, an entrepreneur, or just a person who really likes the combination of spirituality and psychology and psychotherapy, this episode is for you. And maybe this episode will give you the answers that you're looking for.

What are unattached burdens? Spiritual possessions

Now, what are unattached burdens? Let's start there. Unattached burdens are, simply put, spiritual possessions. In IFS, Internal Family Systems, which is an evidence-based psychotherapy treatment, IFS is a highly psycho-spiritual approach. So is dialectical behavioral therapy, by the way. But today we're going to talk about Internal Family Systems.

Guides, and the opposite of guides

In the Internal Family System, we have guides. It can be spiritual guides. It can be just positive parts that come to our system, our internal system, to guide us. They're well-intentioned.

Unattached burdens are the direct opposite. They might feel like a part, but they're not part of us. They feel more like a spiritual possession, but not in the traditional exorcism way.

Persistent, treatment resistant, nothing works

It is something that persists, and something that is treatment resistant. People might take medication. People might go to psychotherapy. And it seems like nothing is working. This is one of the components that I would look at. And we're going to talk about it specifically, when we have a panic attack out of nowhere.

No spiritual bypassing

What we're not going to do, we're not going to do spiritual bypassing, to say, hey, it's spiritual warfare. Because it may be spiritual warfare, or it may not be spiritual warfare. But we're going to dive deeper into this concept today.

The scientific explanation: introjects

A more scientific explanation, or a more acceptable explanation, of unattached burdens is introjects. When we are adopting beliefs of our parents, of our society, of our culture, unconsciously. Even beliefs about demons and spirits. When it's unconscious, when it's unprocessed, they can kind of occupy our system, run free, and make us suffer.

When you're building something bigger than yourself

But let's break it down. When it comes to panic attacks specifically, especially if it is not typical for you. When you are running, when you are building something bigger than yourself, when you are creating so much goodness and so much light in the world, then you might indeed experience unattached burdens. Those intense spiritual experiences that feel physical, that feel psychological, that totally represent a mental health condition, like high anxiety or a panic attack, or voices, delusions, hallucinations. I'm going to talk about a few examples that I personally observed in my career as a psychotherapist later in this video. But this is basically unattached burdens.

Why few therapists touch this

Not many psychotherapies and not many approaches actually work with unattached burdens. Even within the Internal Family Systems community, not a lot of people are actually willing to touch that.

Because, again, in the past, before we had scientifically sound psychotherapy, a lot of mental health illnesses were ascribed to spiritual possessions, and people were treated badly.

The lesson: psychosis is not possession

And this is a historical lesson that we're learning. Now, people who experience psychosis, hallucinations, panic attacks, anxiety attacks, spirals, just being unwell, they're not just possessed, and they're not just possessed by the devil. It can be the actual mental health illness. So I don't want to spiritually bypass a very important component.

What the West abdicated

But also, as the science started developing in the West, in the Western world, all of a sudden we abdicated centuries of spiritual teachings, ancestral traditions, for what seems to look like a certain way to prove that something is real, developed by a small group of people in comparison to the entire world. We have to prove it by specific measures in a very specific way. And if we can't prove it in a very specific way by very specific measures, then it's not real.

Spirituality and science are not opposed

I think this is the modern problem. Because spirituality and science, they are not opposed to each other. They're actually part of the same thing, in my opinion. And in recent development, I also noticed, going to mental health conferences, how a lot of conferences and a lot of practitioners actually start embracing spirituality and welcoming spirituality into their practices.

How I work with it: clinical hypnotherapy, IFS informed

But let's go back to unattached burdens. When it comes to my practice specifically, as I'm releasing this video, I am practicing hypnotherapy, clinical hypnotherapy. My license is registered, within my scope of practice.

So how would I deal with unattached burdens? I would deal with that with clinical hypnotherapy. Start with motivational interviewing, IFS-informed, and then there are certain techniques that we can use. And there is certain guidance when it comes to unattached burdens.

Not exorcism: respect, compassion, guide it to the light

When it comes to unattached burdens, it is not just to do an exorcism, but rather to approach that burden with respect and compassion, and guide it to the light. Guide it to the light, and release that unattached burden to the light. And normally, I would say, one session could be enough.

Our mind is porous

But the thing with our mind, I will argue, is that it is porous. What it means is that we are constantly being affected by other people's energies, if you will, information, environment. Some people feel the emotions of other people. Some people might feel all of a sudden unwell, or off, in certain environments. So our mind is constantly affected by different energies, by different environments. Our mind is porous.

But once you know how to deal with that, or certain practices that you can have, maybe you can also deal with your unattached burdens if you ever experience them by yourself, after working with a professional. So I use a very specific protocol for that, and we're using hypnosis as well.

Safe space: your true Self cannot be damaged

In hypnosis, I often use the practice called safe space. Safe space is when you can actually reconnect with, deal with, really important stuff internally, in a safe space. Meaning in that safe space, you cannot be harmed. And in IFS, Internal Family Systems, your true Self, your higher Self, cannot be damaged by anything, even the most severe unattached burdens.

What I have seen: psychosis, and the ones that are different

I was telling you before that in my practice I've seen weird cases. Now, because of HIPAA, I can't really be very specific, but I will tell you the general components of what I have seen.

I have seen people with schizophrenia, or people who experienced psychosis or delusions. There are people who just have those conditions. They're the textbook definition, almost, of what they're experiencing. And I would not personally spiritualize their experience. They just have schizoaffective disorder, schizophrenia, or psychosis, or delusions.

And there are people who on paper manage that diagnosis, but there's something different about them. Their struggles are a lot more, their delusions, their symptoms, a lot more personalized, in a way. And it's almost like dealing with an entity. And I'm very careful with my words here, okay?

My psychiatry professor in Soviet Moscow

I graduated with a master's degree in psychology in Moscow, Russia. And I had a psychiatry professor, an old professor, who practiced as a psychiatrist during the Soviet Union and post-Soviet Union. He was probably one of my favorite professors.

And I asked him. I said, hey, I want to ask you, off the record: have you ever seen spiritual or demonic possession, a patient that you could possibly classify like that? And where do you stand on this?

My psychiatry professor, who was an atheist until recently, when the Soviet Union collapsed, kind of had his spiritual return, his spiritual awakening. He was baptized in the Russian Orthodox Church. He said the following.

What he said: enough people we cannot explain

He said, you know what? Yes. The majority of the time, patients just have a psychiatric disorder, a psychiatric disease. And I don't want to just say that everybody who has schizophrenia or delusions or bipolar or BPD is possessed by an evil spirit. However, I've seen enough people that we cannot explain what is happening to them. We signed a diagnosis like schizophrenia, because this is the only diagnosis that we knew at the time. And in atheist Russia, in the atheist Soviet Union, we couldn't possibly dig into spiritual stuff. So inviting a priest, inviting a spiritual healer or a shaman, was out of the question. And nothing would help those people at all. And for many, many years, I just didn't know what to do with those patients.

You might see it. It's not uncommon

So back to your question, he said: if you're going to see people who are possessed, or experience spiritual possessions, you might. And it's not uncommon. And it does happen. And eerie stuff, when a person in psychosis tells you something about you that they could possibly never know, it's also possible. Other psychotherapists also confirm that sometimes it does happen.

Lisa Miller: The Awakened Brain

Now, when it comes to spirituality, there is research by Lisa Miller. She has done a lot of research on that. Not just in her book, The Awakened Brain, but actually documented research and peer-reviewed articles, research papers done by her and other psychologists and other mental health providers and researchers. That spirituality affects things a lot. Spirituality affects things in a more positive way.

Kabbalah: the dybbuk

So now, if we talk about different traditions. For example, in Jewish mysticism, in Kabbalah, there is a teaching about the dybbuk. A dybbuk is an unrested soul of a person who used to be alive and is kind of stuck in between. They were so restless, they were suffering so much, that they couldn't transition beyond. Kabbalah believes in reincarnation. They couldn't reincarnate, or they couldn't reconnect with the light of the Creator, with God. They're kind of stuck in this place in between, and they're restless, and they're suffering, because they probably were either evil, or attached to their earthly sufferings, and they just couldn't transition. And sometimes they attach themselves. They try to attack, or attach themselves, to a person.

Mysterious illnesses: when people feel odd

This is when people feel odd. This is when people feel weird. This is when people have mysterious illnesses. And it describes unattached burdens really, really well.

Christianity: Yeshua and the spirits. The Talmud

In Christianity, we all know spiritual possessions. In the New Testament, Jesus, or Yeshua, I prefer Yeshua, it's his Jewish name, okay? And when it comes to me, I'm highly spiritual, I'm not as religious. Although my framework, how I understand God, it is very much psycho-spiritual. It's less religious, it's less dogmatic, but more spiritual. But he also dealt with spirits, with demons, evil spirits.

Now, we don't have the whole background: where those spirits would go, whether they went back to heaven, or whether they went back to hell. In the Talmud, actually, there are descriptions of the demons. And a lot of the demons, the evil spirits, were God-fearing spirits, but they were not necessarily well-intended. They were not elevated spirits.

Shamanic traditions

In shamanic traditions, we also see a lot of physical illnesses attributed to different spirits. And often, spiritual rituals that are held by shamans actually show improvement in people.

The trap: "the devil is attacking me"

Now, it's really important to remember not to do spiritual bypassing. Because it's really easy to say: oh, I'm chosen in spiritual warfare. Oh, the devil is attacking me. Oh, it's my unattached burden. Because it may be, it may not be. It might be your parts. Because not every discomfort and not every mental health condition is an unattached burden, right?

Or it's your parts: managers, firefighters

It can be your anxious parts that are activated and throw you into a panic attack, to protect a more vulnerable part of you. Example: you go on stage, you go on a podcast, you have a panic attack. And deep down, there is a part of you that maybe suffered from being seen. Maybe suffered from expressing your opinion. Maybe suffered from the point when you were seen. So your internal system created managers and firefighters, and those are protectors that get activated. And now you feel activated.

Parts live in the body: somatic IFS

And parts can manifest in our body as well, in bodily sensations. Yes, the parts are in our nervous system, in the brain, but they can manifest, they can also be felt in our body. There's a whole approach in IFS, Internal Family Systems, somatic IFS, where you can reconnect with your parts through your body.

Why IFS and hypnosis work together

This is why IFS and hypnosis work together so well. Because when you relax your prefrontal cortex, and when you are in a more suggestible state, and you are in trance, you can reconnect with those parts better, and you can bring more Self energy into the conscious, and work with the parts, or unattached burdens.

Where I stand: we are psycho-spiritual people

I know this episode was a little different. And where I stand: we are psycho-spiritual people. For me personally, I went through a lot of difficult times in my life, and a lot of trauma. And if I was not spiritual, if I was not connected to God... my journey in spirituality.

My journey: a spiritual child, a high-control church, Kabbalah

It went from being a spiritual child. When I was 12, I started being really curious about spirituality. Not just magic. Spirituality. I'm talking about out-of-body experiences, I'm talking about meditation, I'm talking about paranormal and parapsychological phenomena. I actually was reading a parapsychology book as a 13-year-old, okay? These were the books. I was not reading comics, or journals. I was reading supernatural books, because I was really deep into it.

And then I converted into a high-control religion, the evangelical Christian Baptist church in Russia. Then, as I was developing, as I was getting to know God better, and by the way, those spiritual experiences, they didn't go away. Although the high-control religion was trying to prescribe me what the right way to experience God is, that internal voice of God, that guide that was guiding me through my life, and again, in IFS we have guides, has always been with me. And it led me to open and affirming Christianity, where the church doesn't judge or condemn people for being gay or lesbian or trans. Up to leaning into more Jewish and Christian mysticism, and deeper spiritual concepts. So now I'm practicing Kabbalah, and practicing meditations.

Hypnosis is the bridge

I am very deep in IFS, because I think it is a perfect combination and container for me, where I can bring scientific knowledge, as a person who spent a decade in mental health as a therapist, and also connect spirituality. And hypnosis is a perfect bridge in between, that connects psychology and spirituality and your unconscious mind, all together.

Have you experienced this?

Thank you for being here, and I really hope you learned a lot today. Let me know in the comments: have you ever experienced that in your life?

This is education, not medical advice. Psychosis, schizophrenia and panic are medical conditions, and most of the time it is the actual illness. If you are in crisis in the US, call or text 988.

Part 8 of the series A panic attack out of nowhere. The episode arrives on YouTube on November 19, 2026; the written version is here first.