By Mona Barbera, Ph.D., Internal Family Systems Therapy Topic Expert Contributor

Click here to contact Mona Barbera, Ph.D. and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile

David Brooks, New York Times columnist, was recently inspired by the movie, “Where the Wild Things Are.” He wonders if we are one person, with an ingrained, stable character – or are we different people in different situations, tripping around the truth with one person and going whole hog honest with another?

His thoughts, and the movie, offer us a great forum to explain Internal Family Systems (IFS).

In “Where the Wild Things Are,” Max the child is torn between loving and needing his mother and raging at her. He falls into another world, populated by strange, wild creatures that he tries to control. They want him to build a world free of burdens and pain, but sadly, he can neither build the world nor control the creatures. Read the rest of this entry

An Excerpt from ‘Bring Yourself to Love: How Couples Can Turn Disconnection into Intimacy’
By Mona Barbera, Ph.D.

Click here to contact Mona Barbera, Ph.D. and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile

What to Expect in Internal Family Sytems (IFS) Couples Therapy

Hopefully the ideas and exercises in this book have been helpful to you, and you feel confident that you can improve your relationship. Or perhaps you feel that you and your partner could use some professional help.

This chapter will tell you what to expect from a couples therapist who uses the IFS model. Since there are so many IFS therapists in the United States and in other countries, there is a lot of variety in the way IFS is practiced. This chapter gives the basics of the IFS approach. Read the rest of this entry

Dear Members and Visitors to GoodTherapy.org,
Today we were pleased to present the first teleconference in the GoodTherapy.org Winter Teleconference Series: An introduction to the Internal Family Systems model (IFS) of Psychotherapy presented by Richard C. Schwartz, Ph.D., the developer of the IFS model. Thanks to Richard who volunteered his time to present to GoodTherapy.org members this fascinating and beautiful approach to helping people heal.

To support those of you who attended today’s teleconference and who may have more questions or would enjoy having a forum to discuss the IFS model with others, we created this blog entry to serve as a forum where you can post your questions, leave comments, and engage in a dialogue about it. I hope all people will feel welcome, whether you attended the conference or not, to join us in the discussion. Having trained in the IFS model myself and being intimately familiar with it both inside and out, it will be pleasure to monitor the comments and answer as many questions as I can. I also welcome other IFS trained practitioners to join me in answering questions and taking part in the dialogue.

To view the comment or make your own, simply scroll to the bottom of this particular article and click on the “Comments” link.

For more information about the IFS model and their training programs, please visit the Center for Self-Leadership. For a quick overview of the IFS model you can go to our list of psychotherapy & counseling models and click on the link for Internal Family Systems Therapy.

Enjoy,

Noah :)

Noah Rubinstein, LMFT, LMHC
Co-Executive & Clinical Director
http://www.GoodTherapy.org

© Copyright 2008 by http://www.GoodTherapy.org Therapist Oakland Bureau - All Rights Reserved.

~Written by Karen M. Reed

When I began training in Internal Family Systems Therapy (IFS) several years ago, my whole life became a healing story. It is difficult to even know how to begin or focus in the attempt to tell it. I was drawn to the model after reading Dick’s textbook in graduate school. It stirred my heart. It just felt right to me. And now I know why!

Not long after beginning the training, I started to have difficulties being there without exiles crawling out of the woodwork. I knew I was a woman with a history of what I called “sexual problems,” but I did not know I was a person with a severe trauma history. I should applaud the strength and tenacity of my performing managers, who pulled it off so well they even had me fooled.

Most people who knew me as I was growing up considered me bright, popular, successful, and very likely to succeed. I think we all wondered over the years why that didn’t seem to be happening. It wasn’t that my life was a failure – I just never seemed to find myself or settle anywhere professionally. I always felt like I was running away inside. Truth be told, I was.

I knew that I had been through some sexual abuse as a foster child, and that I seemed to be a magnet for inappropriate treatment by men as I was growing up. As an adolescent and young adult I went through several long-term, destructive, illicit relationships. I blamed and hated myself for them. I remember wondering how and why I seemed to keep ending up in those situations, especially since I was a Christian and did not believe that was the way God wanted me to be living. From the time I had a personal encounter with Jesus at age 13, I loved Him and wanted to live in way that honored the love I found in that relationship.

But in spite of sincere and repeated repentance, and many attempts to find help, the destructive relationship patterns continued. As my despair about myself deepened, I began to develop secret firefighter activities to numb away from what I could not change. Drinking, binge eating, and abusive pornography were my favorites—not only did they numb me, they intensified and reinforced the self-hatred I was accumulating over the years.

Periodically I would seem to be getting my life under control—no destructive relationship for a year or so—hope in sight. But inevitably the cycle would resume, and I would once again be battling my inner demons. Few people knew what was going on inside. I managed to get a teaching degree, a ministerial degree, and more recently, a master’s degree. But I struggled to land anywhere professionally because I was internally tormented over my battle with destructive relationships and the drastic dichotomy I saw between my public and private lives. I did not like myself. I did not believe in myself. I did not know who I was.

I spent several seasons of my life not wanting to be alive at all. I made a few half-hearted attempts at suicide. And yet somehow, deep within, I knew that how I lived in secret was not really who I was. I never accepted it as truly me—I just couldn’t find the help I needed to create the congruence in my life for which I longed.

By the time I began studying IFS in CT in 2001, I had not been doing anything “wrong” in my life for many years. But neither had I healed my history, which was evidenced in my lack of professional confidence, and my faithful, unquestioning commitment to a difficult and painful marriage. I had constructed a story for my life that worked—until the exiles began showing up!

My first encounter with one of my exiles came at an advanced training weekend. The topic was sexuality—no surprise it would trigger some junk for me! I was so blended with the exile who came up that Dick did a piece of work with me. We ended up discovering an infant, who was buried under signs that read, “You can fuck me,” “You can hurt me,” “You can treat me like a thing.” I was shocked, amazed, and awed. I began to realize that I had a lot of work to do, and I began to do it, in earnest.

For nearly five years, as I continued to study and work clinically in the model, I was also involved in a deep and intense healing of my life from physical and sexual abuse, much of which was unconscious to me. I have been on an amazing journey of healing with memories going as far back as early infancy, and even in the womb. Sometimes it was difficult to believe the memories that parts began to show me could possibly have come from my life. But I knew I was not manufacturing the mind, body, and spirit torment, nor was I imagining the powerfully spiritual healing experiences I began to have.

Once I had a taste of what was possible for me through this work, it was all I wanted. Years of hopelessness, despair, and desperation began to melt away as my life started to heal. So often I thought I was done—I thought the peace, joy, and wholeness I felt after healing another exile would last forever. I was always surprised, and sometimes discouraged, to find yet another layer of beneath. But I was determined to keep going because I knew I was finding what I have been searching for all of my life.

Through the course of this journey I have written over 50 poems, most of them in times of deep and intense pain, and many of them predictive of where this path would take me. One of them, entitled, “IT MATTERS,” seems to summarize the journey for me. After so many failed attempts to heal my life, I had concluded that my pain, my suffering, my heartache, did not matter. There did not seem to be an answer for it, a solution to it. There was just something defective about me. What did it matter if I spent my life secretly burdened with self-loathing and despair?

But through IFS therapy I have found that it absolutely does matter, as does the pain of every human being, and there is an answer, a solution. I am so very grateful to God, to Dick, to this model, for the internal homecoming I have experienced in my life. I recognize the presence of God and Jesus every time another part is healed and brought home to my heart. Self, to me, is like that sacred presence—where peace, love, safety, and calm abide. For so long I knew that I belonged there—internally at home, unafraid, safe. I just could never seem to stay there.

Now I can. At last I am at peace within. I know myself, like myself, enjoy being with me. I am at rest with God in a way I have believed in for years, yet rarely could experience. The torment is over. The pain is gone. Joy is now my frequent companion. My life and my work are increasingly an overflow of that joy. I am forever grateful.

It is my heart’s desire that sharing this snapshot of my journey, through these writings, will encourage others to fully embrace and experience the healing power of the IFS model.

©Copyright 2007 Karen M. Reed. All Rights Reserved. Permission to publish granted to GoodTherapy.org. If you’d like to comment on this story, the author has given us permission to accept comments here. All comments are moderated.

Written by Christine Horn, MA

Click here to contact Christine and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile

“The past is the past. Don’t cry over spilled milk. Put it behind you. Get over it already.”

We all have voices within ourselves that say these kinds of things. Usually it is after some event or interaction has left us feeling angry, lonely, or hurt. These messages are from parts within ourselves that want to protect us. By saying these things they calm us down and prevent us from becoming “triggered” – feeling and reacting from the “emotional baggage” of our old, painful experiences and self-limiting beliefs.

Internal Family Systems (IFS) is a style of therapy that calls these different voices parts. The language of “parts” may sound odd at first. Yet, we often speak this way quite naturally. For instance we may say, “part of me wants to go out tonight, but another part of me wants to stay home and chill out.” With IFS we use this language to get to know and appreciate the different parts that comprise our being. This helps us recognize those parts that may have been left holding old “emotional baggage.” The good news is that these parts can be relieved of their burdens allowing us to live fuller and richer lives. IFS therapy uses compassionate inner dialogue to facilitate this process… Read the rest of this entry

Written by Noah Rubinstein, LMFT, LMHC

Dear Friends,

GoodTherapy.org received an email today from a therapist concerned about one of the principles of good therapy: collaboration. I was surprised at first, but after reading her email I could see the validity of her concern and how she could be led to it by the way the definition was written. She was concerned that working collaboratively might re-traumatize a person. I believe she was equating collaboration with total non-direction. I wrote back to her to clarify. I thought I would copy my email here so others with similar concerns could be reassured, and so we could have a forum about it if people would like. Below is my email and a better approximation of the spirit of collaboration. I hope you will add your wisdom to the discussion.

Hi Anonymous Therapist,
Your email is a gift to me…. I can see how the idea of collaboration as written on GT might mislead people into thinking that collaboration is something it is not. I hope this email will begin to clarify to you what collaboration means for me and for others who work similarly. Although I have not had anyone else contact us with a similar concern, there may be others, and so perhaps I will update the definition on the website. Or actually, I may add another principle which I’ve been meaning to for a long time: Safety. Collaboration does not preclude safety, as you are concerned about…. Anyhow, my thoughts are a bit scattered tonight as I’m tired from a long day…. But I know if I don’t respond now other things will preoccupy me.

I too guide people through the process of healing sexual, emotional, and physical trauma. I work collaboratively and I help people to heal from the worst of the worst and to heal safely…. I have been taught to heal collaboratively by a number of wise and experienced mentors. My definition of collaboration is, at best, only a poor reduction of their wisdom and of what I see occurring in the therapy room.

The spirit of collaboration is about helping a person to access their own Self (the calm, curious, compassionate, wise, and clear center) and, once “in” Self, it’s about trusting the Self of the client to take each and every gentle step toward caring for the parts which have been wounded or, perhaps, appreciating the ones which protect. In the same way that most of us know in our hearts what to do for the distressed and sad child who runs to us for help, we can also learn to open our hearts to our own inner wounds. So, it’s much different from the therapist providing all the care and wisdom (which teaches the client to continue searching outside herself for redemption)…. Collaborative work is like teaching one to fish for themselves, as opposed to feeding one a fish. Once in Self, a person can do most of the work as the therapist helps, here and there, to keep it going on track. So you can see that teaching one to fish is not directionless. If we do not trust the client’s Self to know how to attend to a part, or care for a wound, then we are not allowing the healing process to happen. I believe that without the presence of Self, healing is only simulated.

The client’s Self will not lead them to places they are not ready to go. Parts of the person might do that, but not Self…and this is one of many reasons it’s useful to help a client to access Self. I have seen that working without collaboration can raise a client’s defenses/resistance (and rightly so), can rush and re-traumatize, and can lead people to places that are not relevant to healing. Collaboration, in my estimation, is the safest way to heal trauma. I did hear your concern that if a therapist works collaboratively the client will lead themselves prematurely and unsafely into the trauma. This is not true in my experience. It’s actually quite the opposite.

For more information on collaboration, Self, and parts, I recommend checking out the Center for Self Leadership and Internal Family Systems Psychotherapy at www.selfleadership.org. I believe that the model described by Richard Schwartz is one of the most comprehensive and safest ways to heal trauma, and it is done collaboratively. I also believe that any successful healing, regardless of the model, is collaborative…for collaboration is the spirit of the healthy client-therapist relationship (or any other kind of relationship) you describe.

I hope this helps. I’m open to dialog about this if you like. Also, I’m thinking I may add this to the blog as way to open a forum about it. I look forward to hearing from you and thanks again, Noah :)

© Copyright 2007 by http://www.GoodTherapy.org Therapist Westlake Village Bureau - All Rights Reserved.

Written by Diane Jhueck, MA

Click here to contact Diane and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile

The following article was solely written and edited by the author named above.  The views and opinions expressed are not necessarily shared by GoodTherapy.org.

In our lifetimes, few of us escape the pain of grief over losing a loved one. Many of us experience this pain a number of times. In fact, the more full and engaged one’s life is the more one runs the risk of this kind of loss. Even if we somehow were never to lose a human friend or family member, any pet owner knows that it is one of nature’s ironies that our beloved pets have a shorter average life span than we do. Whenever we give our hearts to other beings we know that those same hearts may be shattered when our dear ones leave or die.

Some people refuse to take this kind of risk, attempting to solve the problem by not allowing in the feeling of love inside in the first place. But a life without loving connection lacks richness and depth. Most of us are not willing to live our lives that way.

I have found that the Internal Family Systems (IFS) model provides some insight into what is really happening when you are grieving and speeds the process itself.  Dr. Richard Schwartz  developed this model after years of listening to his clients describe what was happening inside them. Read the rest of this entry

A common concern that many people have in therapy is a fear that if they go close to the old feelings they’ve exiled, they’ll get overwhelmed and re-experience the original trauma. It makes sense that anyone who has spent years avoiding vulnerable feelings would be afraid of doing the opposite. Nonetheless, I know there are many creative ways therapists help people to heal trauma successfully, without flooding or overwhelming. I thought it would be interesting to ask others to comment on how they help people to go near the pain without overwhelming or making the trauma worse.

Much of what I do to help heal trauma I learned from Richard Schwartz and the Internal Family Systems (IFS) model he developed. In the IFS model the key to healing trauma without flooding or overwhelming is achieved through helping the client to approach the parts of their own self which carry the extreme feelings while he or she is embodying a state of “Self.” Self is a state of curiosity, calm, compassion, courage, confidence, clarity, creativity, and connection. It’s described by Schwartz as “they eye in the hurricane” and has been demonstrated as accessible by even the most defensive and wounded of us. When we approach the wounded parts of ourselves from Self, the intense feelings harbored inside are modulated in a way in which they don’t overwhelm us. I explain this to clients who need more information about how it works by comparing it to how a parent soothes a child. Imagine a baby crying in a room. A mother who feels anxiety or frustration in response to a crying baby is more likely to intensify the baby’s anxiety and feel overwhelmed herself. But if a mother, in response to hearing her baby cry, feels compassion, and approaches the baby with this energy, the baby will feel it and will relax much sooner than a baby with an anxious parent. This compassionate energy not only affects the child, but it has a way of making us immune to being overwhelmed. Healing trauma works the same way. When we approach the parts of ourselves that have been suffering and wounded in an open, calm, curious, and compassionate manner we will be shielded from the pain and the pain will not overwhelm. Healing this way for the client is like simultaneously being the container and the contained….

There are many variations and techniques within the IFS model which help to prevent overwhelm. I’m interested in hearing from you about what ways you use to avoid overwhelm with your clients, regardless of what model of therapy you use. Please feel free to share.

© Copyright 2007 by http://www.GoodTherapy.org Therapist Philadelphia Bureau - All Rights Reserved.