Treatment

Internal Family Systems (IFS Psychotherapy)

We each are made up of multiple parts that carry personality and memory which influences our behavior. When we don’t like something we do and judge it, we either respond with managing patterns or react with firefighting combustion, all in hopes of controlling our current circumstances. It is my job as an IFS practitioner to introduce one to SELF leadership, unencumbered by polarized parts who are fighting like siblings within your emotional psyche. Once your system trusts you to mend the broken family within, each part subsides its unwanted behavior because its story has been heard. The result is new brain passageways that form in exchange for damaged ones influenced by trauma or systemic negative stimulus. Slow and steady connection with internal parts in consecutive sessions provide sustainable healing.

ifs for ptsd, dometic violence and untreated trauma

PTSD has never been just about veterans, they just thankfully were the pioneers for getting the recognition of it on the psychological map. This is a condition that affects many people and goes undetected because they have not been reported as a trauma survivor. Anyone raised in chaos or witnessed domestic abuse, were unwanted, mistreated or manipulated and even made to hurt someone for their own safety, can have varying degrees of PTSD. Undergoing duress in circumstances out of ones control can result in hypervigilance, insomnia, flashbacks, panic and reactionary startle to sound. There are a myriad of symptoms that accompany PTSD which are parts that form a cluster to keep the person at a high state of expected disaster. In IFS Therapy, we seek answers from each individual part that holds information to the source and origin of perceived threat. Many people find that once they hear why a hypervigilant or over-stimulated part reacts as it does, it will want to choose a positive healing role. When the transformation is embraced through that brain pathway, it makes room for other parts to emerge and get the same chance at inner healing.

ifs for repressed memory, flashbacks and blackouts (complex trauma)

For those who experience the remembering of repressed memory, much about life can seem like a lie. As if flashbacks weren’t enough, the new found evidence that ones brain, blacked-out as a protective measure to deal with the shock, betrayal and catastrophe of sexual violation, incest, rape, abandonment or any other traumatizing incident, can provoke many other emotions that might go misunderstood by family or friends. Delayed responses to trauma were held through dissociative parts and the subconscious but gave clues to historical pain throughout life with symptoms of insomnia, night terrors, fear of recurrence and hypervigilance as well as numerable psycho-somatic disturbances. IFS Therapy can bring inner healing to clients who suddenly remember decades that parts of them have kept in hiding for self-preservation. Internal Family Systems is the best way to access the reason and beliefs each part has in compartmentalizing history. The body keeps the score and this is one example of the vastness our brain has to do just that. When memory emerges, parts will be connected to and given a chance to update from the past into present. This build upon process of earning trust with each part will take a succession of invested time that will reveal truth for the entire system. Healing is slow at times but magnificent and sustainable.

ifs for anxiety, depression and diagnosed mental disorders

Counseling for anxiety, depression, bi-polar and the related disorders that overlap each other, has followed protocol that pathologizes patients which often brings them to IFS Therapy because the defined diagnosis has become oppressive. Dick Schwartz who founded IFS Therapy went against the grain of conventional modalities because his research discovered that we all have multiple parts inside of us that surface through the subconscious and react on our behalf. Because all parts are welcome, counseling through the Internal Family Systems approach removes the stigma of diagnosis and works with each part that has a belief about the clients behavior. Clusters of parts can work together like a gang and tap in to pick up where another part left off. It is in connection to these powerful parts and their groupings that each one speaks its mind so it can feel heard. Calm and clarity can be introduced to these anxious, depressed and disorderly parts which will manifest in daily decision making.

ifs for gender identity, eating disorders and sexual abuse

I haven’t met a client yet who didn’t have a sexual boundary crossed before the age of seven, that didn’t question their gender identity. This is a hot topic because it is foundationally an assault against ones worth. The strong correlation between sexual abuse as a pre-cursor to both eating disorders and homosexuality has been found in my research and time spent with persons who believe they are going to hell for being the only way they know. IFS Therapy allows the parts that experienced polarization within the system during a violation where the child was confused, but also needed to please the perpetrator and/or may have liked the physiological response, to understand ones innocence. All parts were operating during the breech and each came in through coping measures to ensure the child did not self destruct by the time he reached adulthood. Befriending all parts that rival between shame and acceptance or disgust and enjoyment, we must wonder if purge and binge come in to aide the person as well. Weekly sessions are encouraged to un-pack the levels of parts that have picked up speed over ones lifespan to uphold cycles of lifestyle. When these parts are understood, many clients change perspective on their purpose and deeply sustain transformation.

ifs for codependency and relationship boundaries

Relationships make the world go round and to the degree of conditioning that we receive during childhood development, determines if we over-explain, go-low, become passive or deny our truth. When we are challenged on our intuition and interpretation of our surroundings by those who make decisions for us, parts come in to aide our feelings of entrapment, being silenced, rejected or betrayed. Shock factor enters and many people “act” in front of others to uphold their expectations or facades, establishing a trauma bond that requires codependency to maintain. If we were given a chance to speak over time, we would eventually opt out because “it isn’t worth rocking the boat”. Parts involved in this distressing cycle can harbor resentment, bitterness and vengeance for good reason. IFS would engage in a conversation to seek the perspective from the parts point of view, so that SELF leadership can aide in that vantage point becoming a reality.

ifs for female illness, Sexual Ritual Abuse (SRA), religious and spiritual abuse

Females often connect to emotion easier because they use it as a way of communication. The brain is complex enough that physical symptoms that can’t gain comfort from the brain for past trauma, often manifest through sensation. Somatic healing works well with IFS Therapy because the client will use physical pain to connect with a part. Barren womb, UTI’s, yeast infections, PMS, Bacterial Vaginosis and Endometriosis all signify a detachment from safety and security during developmental years which greatly inhibit normal body function by the age of 7. This encompasses survivors of incest, sexual abuse, neglect, physical abuse and all other ACE’s that psychologists rank from. IFS Therapy will help the client deal with the parts that seem to “obstruct normal living” and the natural production of life, by speaking with them about when they started, why they help through shutting down the reproductive organs and what their goal is. Symptomatic ailments that have long been non-responsive to medicine will stop once the reason of the occurrence is accepted by the client. Many years of mourning loss and grief can be restored in an instant when these protective parts stop using obstruction to childrearing and sexuality as a ploy to control ones life.

ifs for sexual addiction, porn, detachment and emotional dysfunction

Although both sexes struggle with sexual addiction, 89% of our male population has struggled with porn addiction. Fantasy and escape parts are brain passageways that stimulate the mind and body for instant gratification, but then recruit shame and guilt parts afterward to manage the effects on the soul. On a subconscious level the parts are looking to avoid internal conflict that was experienced during childhood development through outside stimulus where chaos could not be controlled. In genius fashion, the brain provided a way out of circumstances by re-directing the client to self-medicating practices and distraction. Empowerment is restored to the client when emotions can be understood from within and healed instead of influenced by the environment. IFS Therapy takes time to connect with these parts that were formed to offer comfort physiologically which allows the whole system to replace negative judgments with true freedom that goes beyond abstinence, 12-step programs and maintenance or behavioral modification.

For intensive treatment with addiction search, Psych Intense