Go beyond traditional talk therapy.

Internal Family Systems (IFS) Therapy in Rockford, IL and the surrounding areas.

You’ve tried everything you can think of to feel better, but nothing seems to truly help.

Maybe you’ve been to therapy before. You tried to talk through your past, feelings, or challenges, hoping it would make a difference…

But you’re still feeling…

  • Overwhelmed (at least on the inside) by the different pieces of who you are or how you feel.

  • Weary from trying to manage all of the internal pieces.

  • Confused or frustrated that you are still in this space or “unable to change.”

  • Like the same feelings or patterns could take over at any moment.

  • Hiding thoughts, feelings, or experiences you couldn’t get yourself to talk about.

  • Still constantly fighting against your inner critic.

  • Still falling into past patterns that you want to be different.

IFS Therapy can help you understand yourself in a whole new way.

  • Internal Family Systems (IFS) works with (instead of fighting against) what we call parts, which are different representations of yourself. These are just different expressions of who you are.

    Our parts can be broken down into three basic categories.

    • Managers

      Managers are often tied to and found in our defining personality traits. They help us manage everyday situations and organize our other parts, based on need.

    • Exiles

      Exiled parts hold places of intense emotion, leading them to develop coping behaviors. Coping behaviors are meant to protect us but can have negative side effects and keep us from the life we want to live.

    • Firefighters

      Firefighters are the reactive protectors of the system. Firefighters also try to keep us from the pain our wounded, exiled pieces carry. Firefighters often look like panic, anger, or fear.

    All of those parts can overtake our true selves. By working with the protective parts, we can gain their cooperation, access the hurt places/pieces within us, and allow them to heal.

  • Together we will identify your parts, approaching them with curiosity rather than judgement. We will identify new ways for their needs to be met allowing us to reach your hurt places, process the pain, uncover your true self, and find your healing.

  • IFS is a powerful tool to help you learn about, work with, and ultimately retake control of the parts/pieces within you, while building your self-compassion and self esteem.

At the end of the day…

Effective therapy builds skills to navigate your journey, with or without your therapist beside you. Internal Family Systems is a powerful tool that allows you to understand yourself, your experiences, and your choices in new ways. IFS will help you replace judgment with curiosity and compassion, and that can change everything.

Whatever it is that you’re experiencing, Internal Family Systems is an effective tool to help move you forward.

Is IFS the right fit for you?

IFS therapy can help you learn to trust that you can handle your life and take care of your parts.

The most basic assumption of IFS is that we all have parts. Much like larger systems we know, within our own self we are a system of parts that sometimes work well together and sometimes struggle. At the core of our being we all have a Self. A loving, caring, compassionate, creative, curious Self .

Here’s a brief description of IFS from the IFS Institute:

 

“IFS is a transformative tool that conceives every human being as a system of protective and wounded inner parts lead by a core Self. We believe the mind is naturally multiple and that is a good thing. Just like members of a family, inner parts are forced from their valuable states into extreme roles within us. Self is in everyone. It can’t be damaged. It knows how to heal. 

— IFS Institute

Through life experiences, traumas, distress, and often early relationship attachment wounds, some parts get deeply wounded, causing others to take on the role of protecting us from further harm. Some of those protective parts become so fiercely activated that they “blend” or take over, making it hard to access our true Self.

For example, many clients identify with anxiety. They might feel like they are just an anxious person. But the anxiety is just one part of you, and you have many more. That part likely formed because of a trauma or hurt that could not heal. Because our parts want to help us avoid that unhealed pain, they block us from it (thus keeping us safe in the way they know how). The problem is that the pain doesn’t disappear. It still needs to be seen and processed. Often, our parts’ methods can create other problems, too. Now, we have a system that is in a constant tug of war, and not surprisingly, can lead to outcomes like anxiety.

Being able to see that anxiety as a part can help you create space in your system to better understand where it’s coming from and what it’s scared of.  Then, when it is activated, I can recognize it and approach it with curiosity about its need, and it helps that part feel seen, heard and cared for.

We all have lots of other parts within us. Some of the most recognizable ones are:

  • The inner critical part

  • The perfectionist part

  • The worrier part

  • The planner part

  • The I want to control every outcome so I’m ready for anything part

  • The caretaker part

  • The empathic part.

Sometimes protective parts can have some pretty extreme reactions to want to keep the pain at bay—no matter what. Some examples would be addictive parts—eating, drinking, gambling, shopping— avoidant parts, suicidal parts, and dissociative parts. These parts will do whatever it takes to shut down the pain.

Richard Schwartz, PhD, the developer of IFS, reiterates in his most recent book, No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma and Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model, that there are no bad parts.

They all have good intentions, and sometimes, we need to connect with a part to better understand those intentions.

Through IFS, you can learn to create a strong self-to-parts relationship. That relationship can then calm the extreme protectors enough for the exiled, wounded parts to heal.

Your system feels the Self-energy and learns to trust that you can handle your life and care for your parts.

Parts may still get activated, but you will have the tools to listen, learn, and work to heal the wounds that trigger them.

What you’ll gain

With IFS, you can…

  • Understand the parts within you.

  • Connect with your true self again.

  • Recognize when protective parts are taking over.

  • Find new, healthier ways for those parts to have their needs met.

  • Access wounds with the tools to listen, learn, and work to find healing.

  • Trust that you can handle your life and care for your parts.

Get in touch

Change is possible.

Click this link to schedule a free, confidential consultation. I am happy to answer any questions you may have.

"I am learning to love the parts of myself that no one claps for." Rudy Francisco

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"I am learning to love the parts of myself that no one claps for." Rudy Francisco —