virtual therapy in Texas, Massachusetts, or Maryland
IFS Therapy for those who have been disillusioned with traditional therapy, and seem to be in patterns that don’t make sense at the surface
If you’re a dynamic, hard-working person who has tried to “win” at therapy by going consistently and seeing a talk therapist, and you’re still wondering why you’re stuck in the same cycles, IFS Therapy might be the transformational approach for you.
What is Internal Family Systems (IFS Therapy)?
All people have various distinct aspects of their personality, which IFS refers to as “Parts”. At any given moment, some Parts are very active and prominent, while other Parts are temporarily inactive.
Any person will think, feel, and act in one way at their workplace, another way with their romantic partner, and a third way when taking care of young children.
IFS imagines a human being as something like a bus, with only one driver’s seat and many passenger seats, and in a psychologically healthy human being the various Parts smoothly and harmoniously take turns driving as needed. IFS conceptualizes most psychological problems as resulting from a disruption in the relationships between Parts.
“What part of yourself did you have to destroy in order to survive in this world?”
― Alok Vaid-Menon
Resolving Internal Conflict Through the Reconciliation of Parts
IFS is uniquely suited to resolving internal conflicts and ending self-defeating behavior patterns, because unlike many other approaches, it doesn’t attempt to impose some ‘correct’ way of thinking or acting onto the person from the outside.
If a healthy set of Parts is like a cooperative group of adults taking turns driving a bus, then an unhealthy set of Parts is more like a group of children who were left unsupervised for a very long time, each taught themselves how to drive in a different way, and now constantly fight over who is in the driver’s seat. Every embarrassing behavior that is so mysteriously resistant to willpower, from procrastination to angry outbursts to addiction relapses, is caused by a part that is burdened by painful emotions, memories, and beliefs from that person’s past. When a person is young, these Parts become necessary experts at whatever strategies offer short term relief or safety, but they become increasingly alienated from each other as the person ages and the consequences of their short-term ‘solutions’ pile up.
Rather than attempting to fight or repress the ‘bad’ Parts, IFS enables a person to access their core Self, the long-absent parent of this group of children, which can understand their good intentions and is able to heal each Part through compassion and curiosity, at which point they can learn to cooperate and live a more integrated and authentic lifestyle.
IFS is a ‘constraint-release’ model of psychotherapy, meaning that it rejects the notion of trying to make human beings conform to any idea of how they should be, usually constructed and imposed by society, parents, lovers, and other external forces, and instead helps people remove the internal obstacles preventing them from becoming who they were always meant to be, who they need to be now.
“Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love.”
– Rainer Maria Rilke
Internal Family Systems (IFS) offers a radically deeper, more powerful, and more personalized approach to therapy than more traditional approaches.
No one can guarantee who you will be on the other side of this process, only that you will be more yourself than you are now.
IFS Therapy Helps With Issues Like:
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Addictions, Eating Disorders, Etc
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Procrastination
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Unhealthy Relationship Dynamics
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Anger issues / Anger Management
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Career Changes
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Phase of Life Changes
This type of psychotherapy can change people’s lives forever. It frees them from the psychological prisons that their culture, their childhoods, and their own limiting beliefs have trapped them in.
Fields That We Know offers 100% telehealth/virtual services. Psychotherapy services are only available to clients residing in Texas, Massachusetts, or Maryland.
I provide IFS coaching services to people residing in other areas on a case-by-case basis. Please email me to discuss unique options available to you depending on your circumstances.
Reach out today and we’ll get back to you within 2 business days to discuss availability.