Internal Family Systems Training

Internal Family Systems

 IFS is at the forefront of a movement toward a more collaborative therapeutic approach that relies on clients’ intuitive wisdom.  This model offers a non-pathologizing view of our cognitive and emotional life that is effective in bringing about true and lasting healing.  Developed by Richard C. Schwartz, PhD, over the last 25 years, IFS is practiced by thousands of licensed therapists and other professionals in the United States and internationally.  Mental health care practitioners easily integrate IFS into a wide variety of practices, using its unique methods to create safe environments for their clients to become Self-transforming.

IFS therapy is a simple yet sophisticated integration of psychology, spirituality, and intra-psychic and family systems theory that works well with individuals, couples, children, families and groups, and with some of the most common and intractable issues clients struggle with, such as:   

• Depression
• Self-esteem
• Grief and Loss
• Self-criticism
• Anxiety
• Eating Disorders
• Couples and Relationships
• Trauma

IFS demystifies the psychotherapeutic process for both therapist and client by providing a clear path for working with the client’s inner system.  This model helps people respectfully attend to the parts of themselves that interfere with their enjoyment of life – parts that are self-critical, workaholic, depressed, anxious or traumatized, for example – the very issues that bring people to therapy.  IFS helps people appreciate the suffering of their wounded parts and the good intentions of those that protect.  It offers a clear, systematic approach to transforming and healing all parts by reconnecting them to the powerful core Self that exists in each of us.