Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy is an empowering, collaborative approach that synthesizes psychology, spirituality, and systems thinking.

Over 30 years ago, Richard Schwartz, PhD, the originator of IFS, discovered that a person’s inner experience is a dynamic system of relationships between a multiplicity of parts that each have their own unique perspectives, feelings, motivations, and roles.

Parts also carry your most treasured and longed-for gifts, which were long ago exiled for safe-keeping. These exiled parts have never given up hope that, one day, you will heal, retrieve, and restore them to their valuable place in your daily life.

Schwartz describes how parts take on dysfunctional roles, and how they are transformed:

“The IFS Model … views a person as containing an ecology of relatively discrete minds, each of which has valuable qualities and each of which is designed to -- and wants to -- play a valuable role within. These parts are forced out of their valuable roles, however, by life experiences that can reorganize the system in unhealthy ways. A good analogy is an alcoholic family in which the children are forced into protective and stereotypic roles by the extreme dynamics of their family. While one finds similar sibling roles across alcoholic families (e.g., the scapegoat, mascot, lost child), one does not conclude that those roles represent the essence of those children. Instead, each child is unique and, once released from his or her role by intervention, can find interests and talents separate from the demands of the chaotic family. The same process seems to hold true for internal families -- parts are forced into extreme roles by external circumstances and, once it seems safe, they gladly transform into valuable family members.”

IFS therapy facilitates the parts of your personality (your internal system) to heal and transform their burdens and reactive roles, so they (and you) can be reunited with your original beauty and genius.

An IFS motto is, “Love your parts. Lead from Self.”

Self is a spacious, open presence that unconditionally welcomes and compassionately witnesses all the parts of your personality. Self is the benevolent, generative intelligence that is the metaphysical background of the world. It is fundamentally who you are and it is also more than you.

Self contains many crucial leadership qualities such as perspective, confidence, compassion, and acceptance. We are all creative, inclusive, resourceful, and calm, despite the fact that many of us, initially, have very little access to these qualities.

IFS psychotherapy supports you to discover and engage your own Self leadership, which then becomes the guiding force of surprisingly effective healing and transformation.

Internal Family Systems is listed in NREPP (the National Registry for Evidence-Based Programs and Practices) as an evidence-based practice. IFS has been subject to independent, rigorous scrutiny, and is deemed to show significant impact on individual outcomes relating to mental health.

These scientific findings and the listing of IFS in NREPP affirm the vast potential of IFS therapy for advancing emotional healing and mental well-being. In particular, they indicate promising effects on mind (depression, anxiety), body (physical health conditions), and spirit (personal resilience and self-concept).

For more information about IFS, visit ifs-institute.com.