Articles

The lastest research on the utility of psychedelic agents for treating PTSD from Bessel van der Kolk and his MAPS team. 

Following the study of MDMA in the treatment if PTSD that was published 2 years ago in Nature Neuroscience, which the journal Science elected as one of the 10 most significant scientific breakthroughs of the year 2021, the team analyzed further data from this study on the effects of MDMA on self-experience. Half the group received 36 hours of psychotherapy from a team of 2 thoroughlly trained, experienced, therapists, while the other half received the same treatment, but...

Title - Family Systems Contributions to the Development and Best Practice of IFS written by Elizabeth G. Brenner, LICSW, Richard C. Schwartz, PhD, and Carol Becker, PhD 

Abstract: We describe Richard Schwartz's Internal Family Systems model (IFS), developed from his position as a Structural/Strategic family therapist. The IFS model is explained by describing a range of family systems theories and practices that informed development of the model and contribute to its best practice. A composite client example illustrates the practice of IFS and the ways several family systems approaches are...

IFS and Chronic Pain

Listening to Inner Parts that Hold the Hurt

By Howard Schubiner, Richard Schwartz, Ronald Siegel

January/February 2021

https://www.psychotherapynetworker.org/magazine/article/2523/ifs-and-ch…;

Susan is a dance teacher in her mid-30s who performs regularly. For years now, she’s lived in constant fear that her back will go out. She’s haunted by chronic low-level backaches, which flare up without warning every few months, turning into days-long bouts of excruciating pain.

Two years ago, on the day of a big recital, she could barely get out of bed. Her...

When people are dominated by striving, individualistic, and materialistic inner parts that, by certain measures, seem to bring them success, they won’t change regardless of any collateral damage to their other parts, relationships, or physical health. The same is true for countries that are dominated by similar forces; leaders ignore the damage to the majority of their people and the health of the climate and the earth.

Such domination, however, usually results in a crash of some kind that can be a wake-up call. For type A people, it might be the survivable heart attack, a divorce, or hitting...

The Internal Family Systems Model (IFS) has evolved over the past twenty years into a comprehensive approach that includes guidelines for working with individuals, couples, and families. The IFS Model represents a new synthesis of two already-existing paradigms: systems thinking and the multiplicity of the mind. It brings concepts and methods from the structural, strategic, narrative, and Bowenian schools of family therapy to the world of subpersonalities. This synthesis was the natural outcome that evolved after I, as a young, fervent family therapist, began hearing from my clients about...

I. BASIC ASSUMPTIONS OF THE IFS MODEL

• It is the nature of the mind to be subdivided into an indeterminate number of subpersonalities or parts.
• Everyone has a Self, and the Self can and should lead the individual's internal system.
• The non-extreme intention of each part is something positive for the individual. There are no "bad" parts, and the goal of therapy is not to eliminate parts but instead to help them find their non-extreme roles.
• As we develop, our parts develop and form a complex system of interactions among themselves; therefore, systems theory can be applied to the internal...

By Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.

We all know about those luminous moments of clarity and balance, in our own lives and in those of our clients, which come briefly now and again. However we get there, we suddenly encounter a feeling of inner plenitude and open heartedness to the world that wasn’t there the moment before. The incessant nasty chatter inside our heads ceases, we have a sense of calm spaciousness, as if our minds and hearts and souls had expanded and brightened. Sometimes, these evanescent experiences come in a bright glow of peaceful certainty that everything in the universe is truly...

Internal Family SystemsSM (IFS) therapy, in addition to being a powerful and effective approach with individuals, is also often used by couples and marriage counselors to promote harmony in relationships and support intimate partners in developing Self-leadership. Since IFS is generally focused on an individual’s inner system of Self and parts, people may have confusion about how it can be used in couples and marriage counseling. Hence, we asked IFS Senior Trainer Toni Herbine-Blank (MS, RN, CS-P) to shed some light on how married and unmarried couples can benefit from IFS. Toni, a successful...

Although Internal Family SystemsSM (IFS) therapy is most commonly associated with adult clients, child counseling is another effective application of this form of therapy. Child counselors, as well as others in the counseling field, may not be familiar with ways to apply the IFS Model to child and play therapy, so we asked Pamela Krause (LCSW, ACSW) to write an introduction to IFS child counseling. Pamela is an IFS lead trainer in private practice, where she works with children and adolescents in addition to adults. One of her specialties is the adaptation of the IFS Model to child therapy...