The Journey
One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
Yo... more
Mary Oliver
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What Is Internal Family Systems (IFS) TherapyInternal Family Systems (IFS) therapy was developed in the early 1980's by psychologist Dr. Richard Schwartz. It is a non-pathologizing approach to psychotherapy, often used to treat trauma and depression. It utilizes family systems thinking with the view that the mind is naturally composed of relatively discrete sub-personalities, or "parts," each with their own unique viewpoint and qualities that show up in our daily lives as thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and behaviors.
The goal of IFS therapy is to help people access their "core" state, (the place that exists inside all of us), where compassion, clarity, and a genuine curiosity resides. This inner essence in IFS is referred to as the "Self," which remains undamaged by trauma. This core "Self," when accessed with permission from the protective "parts," has the capacity to heal the vulnerable parts of us that carry the emotional burdens from having been wounded. IFS offers us a path to become our most authentic confident self in the world.
To learn more about IFS including viewing a description of IFS by Dr. Richard Schwartz, see: IFS-intitute.org. For a second video description of what is IFS therapy on YouTube, go to Dr. Tori Olds' Intro to Internal Family Systems.
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