Internal Family Systems (IFS)

What is it?

Richard Schwartz (2021), the creator of the Internal Family Systems (IFS) Therapy model, suggests we have all been born with many sub-minds interacting with one another. The mind is not a singular entity or self, but is multiple, composed of parts. Thinking involves parts “talking to each other and to you constantly about things you have to do or debating the best course of action, and so on. Each part has its own beliefs, feelings, and characteristics and a distinct role in the overall system They get frozen after trauma and stuck in the past.

How does it work?

Within IFS, the Self guides and leads protector parts and Exiles. Protector parts include Managers and Firefighters. The protector parts have goals, protector the exiles, even if that gets in the way of Self or each other, Managers or Firefighters.

Flow of IFS

- Create presents with Self within Self energy

- Get to know Managers and Firefigthers, protector parts

- Identify presence of Self with and among protector parts

- Work with Exiles and unburden

Who is it for?

IFS is for those wanting and willing to get to know themselves on a deeper level, identify parts that may be stuck in patterns or behaviors causing harm and discomfort and find freedom to work within their systems to create space and harmony.

“When you were young and experienced traumas or attachment injuries, you didn’t have enough body or mind to protect yourself. Your Self couldn’t protect your parts, so your parts lost trust in your Self as the inner leader. They may even have pushed your Self out of your body and took the hit themselves—they believed they had to take over and protect you and your other parts. But in trying to handle the emergency, they got stuck in that parentified place and carry intense burdens of responsibility and fear, like a parentified child in a family.”

― Richard C. Schwartz, No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma and Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model

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Licensed Provider

Grace Mickle, LMFT

EMDR & Somatic Experiencing for BIPOC and LGBTQ+ across California, Florida & Virginia

Seeker of Peace
Seeker of Peace

Licensed Provider

Grace Mickle, CA AMFT