Internal Family Systems Therapy: Heal Wounded Parts, Transform Protective Parts, and Deepen Connection with Self

• Foundational principles and goals of IFS
• Understand different parts of your clients' internal system
• Parts led systems vs self-led systems
• IFS, cultural identities, and intersectionality
• The 8 C's of self-energy and how to recognize self in session
• Applying an IFS lens to case conceptualization
• Case examples

Steps of IFS Therapy and How to Get Started

• The IFS approach to assessment and treatment planning
• Experiential exercise: Identifying your own therapist parts
• Develop a relationship with clients' core self and develop self-leadership skills
• Facilitating communication and collaboration between parts
• Guided Experiential Exercises to help clients identify and connect with different parts

Working with Protector Parts of the Client

• Integrating IFS into your first session: video demonstration
• Parts mapping: live demonstration and dyad practice
• The 6 F's of IFS - a step-by-step protocol for getting to know parts
• Addressing common protectors, such as avoidance, dissociation, and numbing
• Live demonstration and debrief

Working with Wound Parts

• How to identify that traumatic memory is activated
• Work with exiles to help clients process and heal from traumatic experiences
• Memory reconsolidation: Why IFS is effective
• How to integrate IFS therapy experiences into clients' daily lives
• Video demonstration of unburdening with debrief
• Dyad practice: Clinical signs a client is ready for unburdening using case examples

IFS Therapy for Trauma, PTSD and Complex Trauma

• How IFS differs in emotion regulation strategies from other approaches
• Common therapist missteps in IFS
• Address trauma-related fears and concerns by working with protective parts
• Developing self-leadership in clients to increase their resilience and coping skills
• IFS techniques to help clients release emotional and physical trauma stored in the body
• Navigating polarizations in the client's system
• Working with dissociation using IFS interventions
• Working with substance abuse with IFS interventions
• Case examples
• Extended case example: Working with suicidality through an IFS lens
• How does IFS address intergenerational, collective and ancestral trauma
• Working with marginalized populations

IFS for Anxiety: Working with Anxious Parts to Reduce Their Intensity

• How IFS shifts a client's relationship with anxiety and reduces symptoms
• Identify "worrier" or "perfectionist" parts that activate in response to anxiety triggers
• Facilitate communication with anxious parts to understand their motivations
• Unburden exiled parts and release blocked or stuck anxiety-related emotions
• Practice self-compassion and self-care to reduce anxiety over time
• Case examples
• Dyad practice exercise: Working with anxious parts in clinical vignettes

An Internal Family Systems Approach to Grief: Providing Stability and Support for Clients Navigating the Grieving Process

• The latest grief research and DSM-5-TR™ prolonged grief disorder criteria
• Self-leadership to provide a sense of inner stability through the grieving process
• Exiles in grief and how they can be accessed and worked with in IFS therapy
• Integration of art, writing, ritual & cultural practices with IFS
• Using IFS to identify and process secondary losses
• Working with acute loss, ambiguous grief, prolonged grief disorder
• Intergenerational trauma: legacy burdens
• Case examples

Integrating IFS with EMDR and Other Modalities

• Key integration points between IFS and EMDR
• Introduction to STARR (Self Tapping for Attachment Readiness and Repair)
• When to use IFS vs. EMDR vs. integrated approach
• Brief overview: IFS integration with ACT, CBT, Somatic approaches
• Case examples demonstrating integration

Additional Considerations in IFS

• Using IFS in groups
• IFS & therapeutic relationship
• IFS & countertransference, vicarious trauma & burnout
• Therapist self-disclosure
• Medications in IFS
• Exploration of countertransference - recognizing therapist parts in session
• Limitations of the research & what we still don't know
• Potential risks and contraindications
• When IFS may not be the right fit: client considerations