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What is IFS Therapy?

Updated: Aug 21



IFS is short for Internal Family Systems, a form of parts work therapy developed by american psychologist Richard Schwartz PhD. It is a gentle, yet powerful tool to explore the subconscious and heal deep seated trauma.


I first encountered parts work in my hypno-systemic coaching training and was completely blown away by it. To realize that I could just talk to my feelings as if they were people, ask them about their needs and motivations and actually get really deep and helpful answers, was mind-boggling to me. It was such a direct and powerful method that I felt like I should only work with parts in the future.


Luckily, thanks to my sister, I later discovered IFS which is an even more thought out, nuanced and powerful form of parts work.


In IFS we assume that all of us have a whole family of inner parts that become active in different situations and influence our behavior. This explains, for example, why we sometimes don't like ourselves or behave in a way that we don't actually find sensible, or why we can be in conflict with ourselves. One part of us might really want to do something, while another is afraid of what might happen.


IFS empowers us to not stay identified with these parts but to befriend them, build a loving relationship with them and convince them to entrust us with leadership of ourselves.


All our parts ultimately are just trying to help and keep us safe, no matter how inappropriate or destructive their behaviour might seem. Many of them are still trapped in traumatic memories, have no idea that we're grown-ups by now and are still clinging to outdated strategies in a desperate effort to keep us safe.


The IFS model is a powerful, compassion-based tool to connect with our parts, relieve them of old burdens and reintegrate them into our system as the amazing ressources they were meant to be.


It is an evidence-based method that has been proven to be effective for treating a wide range of psychological ailments and is endorsed by leading experts in trauma-therapy such as Bessel Van der Kolk.


To learn more about IFS I recommend reading Richard Schwartz's book "No Bad Parts".

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