Open IFS therapy
What to expect from IFS therapy with me
My name is Valerie, I am an experienced, IFS trained therapist and I draw on IFS every day in my work. My OPEN approach to IFS is deeply relational, integrative and informed by what I have learnt and keep learning about psychotherapy on both sides of 'the couch' for over twenty years.
I've been studying IFS since 2017. I completed level 1,2 and IFIO training with the IFS Institue, experiencing the teaching of lead trainers like Paul Ginter, Cece Sykes, Frank Anderson, Tony Herbine-Blanks and more. The core principles of IFS are naturally aligned with my psychotherapy ethos and prior training in Psychosynthesis (PS) which is based on the assumption that
- there is a healthy core in human beings that can help us find more inner cohesion and connects us to a broader dimension of meaning and purpose (both PS and IFS call this SELF),
- the psyche is naturally multiple (i.e. that we all have 'subpersonalities' or 'parts')
- we can access more 'Self energy' through 'disidentification'/'unblending'
IFS therapy complements PS by expanding on how subpersonalities interact inside us as systems (Schwartz has a PhD. in systemic family therapy) . Unlike PS, IFS is a 'manualised' approach which heavily relies on protocols, techniques and mnemonics that are very accessible and can be remarkably impactful, but that may not suit every client's system.
I believe in the need to be flexible and in the benefit of combining
different therapeutic modalities
which is why I have also trained in Janina Fisher's TIST, a parts model
designed for people with complex trauma, in
AEDP,
an attachment-based experiential therapy which focues on attunement in the therapeutic relationship, and in
Sensorimotor Psychotherapy.
My IFS training/ CPD
IFS therapy makes sense to me and it has changed the way I understand myself and my clients ...
AND...to my European ears, IFS therapy can also sound quite 'American'. IFS therapy is extremely well marketed. I have parts who have ethical concerns about the 'commercialisation' of the IFS brand (maybe Schwarz would call it the cultural burden of 'materialism'?). I also believe that...
No therapy model works for everyone (not even IFS).
For me IFS therapy is NOT the magic bullet (although I do have parts that wish it was!). The human psyche is as complex and mysterious as the larger systems where it is embedded, yet IFS can be a helpful lens, or better, a way of cleaning the lens through which we view ourselves and others...read more
Protocols can feel like something is being done to us.
If you hear Schwartz's elevator pitch, you'll know IFS sounds beautifully simple. It's easy to 'talk the IFS talk' but when human messiness spills out of IFS protocols and acronyms we may need to go off the 'IFS script' and listen. IFS offers a map but it is not the territory and each territory is unique.
Wanting to 'unburden' can become a burden in IFS therapy
'Unburdening' for me is not the holy grail of IFS treatment: if 'getting to the exile' becomes an agenda for therapists' and/or clients' parts, inner polarities can often intensify and block the process. By relating to all parts with curiosity and compassion, healing can unfold organically within each system
You don't have to 'fit into' IFS therapy...
IFS therapy keeps growing in popularity. You may have heard a lot of IFS success stories, but what if your experience of IFS was less than transformative? What if you're an IFS misfit and your Inner critics are having a field day telling you that you're doing 'IFS therapy' wrong or that you're too damaged for anything to help anyway! Holding the principles of IFS is possible even when some of the IFS protocols or IFS language don't feel quite right for your system. If traditional, IFS is not a good fit maybe we need to be more OPEN...
'Therapy models' are not something to get right, not an end but a means, not something to fit into but rather something to grow out of...
To be or not to be a hope merchant?
IFS therapy offers a hopeful and non-pathologising framework for nurturing self-understanding and self-compassion. Schwartz often refers to himself as a 'hope merchant' and encourages his students to borrow his confidence in the model.
While this is an invitation to reach into the innate qualities of Self we all share, unfortunately, it can sometimes backfire. In my experience, it is mostly hard working, hyper-trained 'therapist parts', who are keen to take Schwartz up on his offer. Like good scouts they are determined to follow the IFS model, to 'fake it till you make it', if necessary, steering clear from feeling 'not good enough'. Unfortunately, these well meaning efforts can sometimes met by clients' mistrustful protectors, who can sniff 'therapist parts' a mile off and are reluctant to buy into hope when their hopes have been dashed so many times before.
Offering hope when negotiating with protectors demands a lot of integrity and honesty, else it can create false expectations and intensify an inner polarity between eager parts who desperately want us to heal deeper wounds once and for all, and more cautious ones who have ensured our survival through numbing, avoidance, distraction or fighting. Change feels like too big a risk and 'healing', a luxury we can't afford!
When we get stuck in this inner conflict, our wounded parts can end up feeling even more broken, deficient and ashamed: 'If IFS therapy is so great and everybody else gets better fast, there must be something so very wrong with me if I don't!'
Especially when it comes to complex, relational injury and attachment wounds, slower is often faster.
it can be counterproductive and potentially re-traumatising when our healing-focused manager parts (not only in the client, but also in the IFS therapist) 'push' the hope agenda, maybe aiming for the type of cathartic 'unburdening' (another IFS term I am not particularly fond of) seen in Dick Schwarz's demonstrations. What shall we do then? (our manager parts might want to know...)
IFS invites us to think systemically
The image above illustrates what IFS lead trainer Cece Sykes calls the 'three legged stool'. Teasing out how various parts polarise to protect what is most tender within us is a great first step towards unblending (differentiating). IFS clusters parts according to roles (manager/ ff/exile) which helps us track how parts trigger each other within the system. Each part/cluster of parts is a necessary 'leg of the stool' and is fully deserving of attention and appreciation.
When the members of our inner family fight or avoid each other, we experience psychological distress.
In IFS therapy we often hear Self has no agenda; that applies also to following the 'IFS steps to healing'
Healing can take many forms
I find helpful in my own system to normalise that
healing does not always follow 'IFS protocols' nor does it need to be a BIG event.
For some of us, healing may be a subtle and gradual release, it may occur spontaneously, within and beyond therapy, through the body or through insight. Also, in this troubled world, HEALING can only be an ING verb, not a destination but an ongoing, often challenging, process. We need each other in healing!
'Unblending' IS healing
Unblending means separating/differentiating from a part in service of 'Self-to-Part' relationship. Unblending can be tricky: manager parts may be reluctant to unblend out of a sense of duty and responsibility, while exiles often fear that if they separate they'll be abandoned again. Yet, paradoxically, the more parts unblend, the more access they have to an inner source of compassion, courage and creativity (i.e. Self). Possibly, the biggest burden a system can carry is the experience of having 'NO Self' (often felt as a void, anunbearable aloneness, shame, hopelessness and rage).
Adapting Rogers' famous quote we may say:
'the curious paradox is that when Self accepts parts just as they are, then they can change'.
.By increasing access to Self, then,
unblending is not only a precondition to healing, it is a process of emergent hope which is, in and by itself, healing.
Each time a part holding intense feelings and beliefs (be it a protector or an exile) can unblend and experience, even fleetingly, Self's caring attention, a ray of hope illuminates the Self within the part. Both interpersonally (between people) and intrapsychically (between the 'people' within us), protectors' energy begets protectors (polarisation), while 'Self energy' draws out Self within the other and within each part of the system.( more to come about 'fractals' and how parts, like people, also have a core Self, beyond the role they fulfill.).
If Protectors are not welcome in therapy, they will hold tight: therapists' own protectors parts call that resistance...
While the focus in IFS therapy is on the internal, if parts don't feel welcome by the therapist in the here and now of the therapy hour, protectors will take over to maintain safety. For people who have been hurt in early relationships, feeling
safe enough in the therapeutic relationship may be a precondition for the inner work of IFS. Therapy can be triggering
and
for a lot of us healing is an ongoing, non-linear process which requires patience, and perseverance (and yes. IFS has a list if P qualities too,,,). Enough
trust may need to be earned over time: inside ourselves as well as within the therapeutic relationship.
Links
Get in touch
Fill in the contact form to book an initial call to see if Crea Counselling is the right therapy service for you
