Internal Family Systems (IFS) Health Therapy

Nancy Sowell, LICSW Related seminars and products

Nancy Sowell LICSW, is an Internal Family Systems lead trainer and consultant in private practice on Cape Cod and in Newton, Massachusetts. She is a teaching associate at Harvard Medical School in the Department of Psychiatry at the Cambridge Health Alliance, where she has been a clinical supervisor for many years. Nancy has been a psychotherapist since 1992, working with individuals, couples, and groups. She has pursued training from many therapeutic schools of thought and in various therapeutic techniques, such as hypnosis, biofeedback, EMDR (Eye-Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) and meditation. She integrates mindful awareness of the body, emotions, thoughts, and deeply held beliefs, as they influence our mood, behavior, health, and relationships. Specializing in behavioral medicine and IFS-based treatment for pain and illness, Nancy co-created an IFS treatment program for rheumatoid arthritis patients in a pioneering research study at Brigham and Womens Hospital in Boston. She knows both personally and professionally the power of Self compassion in healing and restoring health.

Speaker Disclosures:
Financial: Nancy Sowell maintains a private practice and has an employment relationship with Harvard Medical School. She is an IFS Trainer and Presenter with the IFS Association of Paris, the IFS Institute of Barcelona and Madrid, and the IFS Institute. She receives a speaking honorarium and recording royalties from PESI, Inc. She has no relevant financial relationships with ineligible organizations.
Non-financial: Nancy Sowell is a member of the Society of Behavioral Medicine, the National Association of Social Workers, and the New England Society for the Treatment of Trauma and Dissociation.

Martha Sweezy, PhD Related seminars and products

Martha Sweezy, PhD, is a part-time assistant professor in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, a research and training consultant at the Center for Mindfulness and Compassion at the Cambridge Health Alliance, and a psychotherapist at a private practice in Northampton, Massachusetts. She has published articles on IFS in peer-reviewed journals, co-edited two books on various applications of IFS, and co-authored three treatment manuals on IFS (on trauma, couple therapy, and now addictions), as well as the second edition of Internal Family Systems Therapy with Richard Schwartz. Her next book, which explores shame and guilt in the context of psychic multiplicity, will be published by Guilford Press in 2023.

Richard C. Schwartz, PhD Related seminars and products

IFS Institute

Richard Schwartz, PhD began his career as a family therapist and an academic at the University of Illinois at Chicago. There he discovered that family therapy alone did not achieve full symptom relief, and in asking patients why, he learned that they were plagued by what they called "parts." These patients became his teachers as they described how their parts formed networks of inner relationship that resembled the families he had been working with. He also found that as they focused on and, thereby, separated from their parts, they would shift into a state characterized by qualities like curiosity, calm, confidence and compassion. He called that inner essence the Self and was amazed to find it even in severely diagnosed and traumatized patients. From these explorations, the Internal Family Systems (IFS) model was born in the early 1980s.

IFS is now evidence-based and has become a widely-used form of psychotherapy, particularly with trauma. It provides a non-pathologizing, optimistic, and empowering perspective and a practical and effective set of techniques for working with individuals, couples, families, and more recently, corporations and classrooms.

In 2013, Schwartz left the Chicago area and now lives in Brookline, MA where he is on the faculty of the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.

Speaker Disclosures:
Financial: Dr. Richard Schwartz is the Founder and President of the IFS Institute and maintains a private practice. He is a consultant with Portage-Cragin Mental Health and has a employment relationship with Harvard Medical School. He receives royalties as a published author. Dr. Schwartz receives a speaking honorarium, recording, and book royalties from Psychotherapy Networker and PESI, Inc. He has no relevant financial relationships with ineligible organizations.
Non-financial: Dr. Richard Schwartz is a fellow of Meadows Behavioral Healthcare and is a member of the American Family Therapy Academy and the American Association for Marital and Family Therapy. He is a contributing editor for Family Therapy Networker. Dr. Schwartz serves on the editorial boards for the Journal of Feminist Family Therapy, the Contemporary Family Therapy, the Journal of Family Psychotherapy, and the Family Therapy Collections.