Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy looks at you as an individual with different parts within yourself – each of these parts has its own thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. The goal of IFS is to help you understand and harmonize these internal parts, leading to greater self-awareness, healing, and personal growth.
Wondering how IFS can help you? IFS fosters self-compassion, resolves inner conflicts, and promotes integration among different aspects of the self. If you are struggling with low self-esteem, for example, IFS can help here by exploring and understanding the protective parts that may be contributing to your condition and then nurturing those parts that hold positive beliefs about themselves.
What might a standard IFS session look like? We’ll start by guiding you in identifying and communicating with your internal parts through guided visualization or imagery exercises. We’ll then help you differentiate between those parts – like those protective parts that may be causing distress and wounded ones that hold emotional pain. The goal is to create a sense of inner harmony and balance by fostering understanding, compassion, and cooperation among all these parts. Key to ensuring progress with IFS is providing a safe and supportive environment for this exploration to occur while also helping you develop skills to continue this work outside of therapy.
