INTERNAL FAMILY SYSTEMS THERAPY IN CHULA VISTA, CALIFORNIA
Internal Family Systems (IFS) Therapy
Therapy to illuminate how childhood trauma intersects your adult life, giving you the tools and self-compassion to thrive.
IFS THERAPY IN CHULA VISTA, CALIFORNIA
I am here to help you use IFS to shine
IFS therapy can help you answer your “whys”. Why do you form the relationships you do, why do you react in a particular way, why do you parent the way you do?
When we are born, and throughout our lives, our Self energy is like an inner sun, shining brightly and clearly. As we go through challenges in life, our Self can become clouded by our parts, all trying to respond to those challenges as best they can.
IFS techniques help you take the clouds that are protecting the sun of your Self and connect with them so they help you truly shine.
INTERNAL FAMILY SYSTEMS THERAPY IN CHULA VISTA, CALIFORNIA
What is IFS Therapy?
Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy is a structure of therapy that asks you to consider your mind as a system, one that includes different parts. These parts may be protective or wounded, and their roles tend to inform how they might spur you into action if they are not properly connected to your core Self.
In IFS therapy, you will be guided to use your Self to connect to your different parts. As you acquaint yourself with them, you’ll understand why they react and drive your actions the way they do. This fuller understanding helps you offer your parts a better way, a way that connects them to their fuller purpose without having to react to wounding triggers.
Like a dysfunctional family that starts to communicate and work together to see each other as valuable members that contribute to the whole, you will help your parts shift out of their extreme roles in your life, and back into a space that allows their natural talents to shine.
IFS therapy can help with
Anxiety and Depression
PTSD and cPTSD
Difficulty with parenting
Rebuilding trust within yourself
Trouble in relationships
Attachment disruptions in childhood
Difficulty with motivation or communication
Low self-esteem or negative self-perception
Disconnection from your body or your feelings
Why do parts become burdened? How can we unburden them?
Different parts will become clouded with burdens as you go through challenges in life. Often our families are our first sources of burdens, especially when we are raised by abusive, neglectful, or emotionally immature parents. Their immaturities mean we aren’t as safe or connected as we need to be as children, and so some parts rush in to try to help us, and other parts get banished for being too wounded to be safely helped.
These parts extend these traits into adulthood, so parts of you have spent a great deal of your life hiding and hurt, or rushing in to save the day as they did when you were a small child. As an adult, you can help your parts by unburdening them. Reconciling with exiled wounded parts, and helping protector parts to recognize they don’t need to cloud over your Self and take charge or treat triggers as emergencies, are both integral to IFS helping you heal.
IFS and EMDR
Internal Family Systems (IFS) is a therapy modality that can combine well with EMDR. When you and I work together, we can incorporate EMDR into our IFS process.
When incorporating EMDR into your IFS therapy, I will guide you to connect with your protector parts at the beginning of the EMDR process. These protectors may try to come to your rescue as you process memories, so letting them know what you’re doing, and asking their permission to move forward, can help you go further in your EMDR work.
IFS can be incorporated in phase 4 of EMDR as well, as you connect to your protective and wounded parts. We can help you process the impact of your trauma using EMDR, and use IFS to further connect how trauma has been stored in your body, and how it spurs your parts into actions that keep you trapped in cycles.
Using EMDR to deepen your processing of trauma can help reconnect you to yourself, so you can find your parts that need the most love and support.
Developing the 8 C’s of IFS Self-leadership
Alongside unburdening parts—so they can work for you instead of clouding your Self—strengthening the Self through practicing the 8 C’s of IFS can help you become more comfortable and confident in your own self-leadership.
Calmness
Curiosity
Clarity
Compassion
Confidence
Creativity
Courage
Connectedness
These parts extend these traits into adulthood, so parts of you have spent a great deal of your life hiding and hurt, or rushing in to save the day as they did when you were a small child. As an adult, you can help your parts by unburdening them. Reconciling with exiled wounded parts, and helping protector parts to recognize they don’t need to cloud over your Self and take charge or treat triggers as emergencies, are both integral to IFS helping you heal.
As you work to embody the deceptively simple list of the 8 C’s, you’ll find that your ability to approach your parts and work with them expands. You create space to let your parts communicate, and to let your Self lead.
You will also find that this shift extends to how you relate to those around you as well. IFS is an inner systems therapy, but the goal is always to extend that inner healing to a calmer, more enjoyable outer life, a life that aligns with your values instead of aligning with external pressures and expectations.
Questions about starting IFS therapy?
Connect with me for a free consultation, we can further discuss how IFS works and what it can do to help you.
Frequently Asked Questions
IFS is a transformative therapy that connects you to the ways your past experiences have shaped your current actions. With that connection, you’ll develop a self-understanding that allows you to make real, lasting change.
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I find that clients have the greatest success when they are open to seeing where past experiences manifest in their lives today.
When you are raised by parents who are absent, harsh, highly critical, or simply nonexistent, your core attachments in childhood are disrupted. Your various parts tried to take care of you as best they could, protecting you from the hard parts of life.
IFS gives you space to understand how your parts still carry wounds, or they had to step in when your parents failed you as a child. They are often still working to try to protect you as an adult.
Looking at your past and your present, and tracing those connections with IFS, can help you truly resolve your current challenges.
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Our therapy sessions together will be flexible enough to have space for talk therapy that does not involve IFS technique, if big life events come up that you want to address.
That said, IFS will likely be useful in the processing of these big life events, alongside the support of talk therapy.
We can also integrate EMDR into our IFS sessions. I will walk you through the full EMDR process, so you can benefit from both modalities on a deeper level.
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IFS is a very different mode of therapy than most other psychotherapies because it asks you to look at your mind as a system with multiple parts, instead of a single entity.
Connecting with your parts to understand and unburden them, while accessing your overarching Self so you can shift how you move through the world, is a proven way to help heal from underlying trauma that can help those who haven’t benefited from traditional talk therapy.
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In an IFS session, I will start by getting to know you and your goals in therapy, so we can develop mutual trust.
At the start of a session, I will ask you questions to help you choose a feeling or action to explore. I will guide you as you identify what part is responsible for the underlying emotions, and you will start communicating with that part, to understand it better.
Throughout the process, I will help you better understand the roles of your different parts, their motivations, and how to help them unburden themselves and thrive.
At the end of each session, we will discuss what has happened and your impressions of the experience. We will wrap up your session by tapping into your creativity. I'll ask you to imagine an enjoyable place and leave your part there for now. I’ll also ask you to check in with your part throughout the week. This is a chance to offer part of yourself some safety and joy and to maintain your connection to yourself at the same time.
As thoughts and feelings come up for you between sessions and you check in with your parts, try to remember or write down your experiences. We will discuss in the next session how to work through those experiences and tie them into your overarching process in IFS.