HOME >> PUBLICATIONS >> INTERNAL FAMILY SYSTEMS SKILLS TRAINING MANUAL: TRAUMA-INFORMED TREATMENT FOR ANXIETY, DEPRESSION, PTSD & SUBSTANCE ABUSE
Internal Family Systems Therapy (IFS) provides a revolutionary treatment plan for PTSD, anxiety, depression, substance abuse, eating disorders and more. Using a non-pathologizing, accelerated approach — rooted in neuroscience — IFS applies inner resources and self-compassion for healing emotional wounding at its core.
This new manual offers straight-forward explanations and illustrates a wide variety of applications. Easy to read and highly practical. Step-by-step techniques, annotated case examples, unique meditations, downloadable exercises, and worksheets. IFS is Evidence-Based.
Thirty years ago, IFS creator Richard Schwartz, PhD, listened to his clients describing the behaviors and fears of their most extreme parts. He found that the inner world of all his clients was characterized by parts who had a positive intent for the client but had taken on extreme roles in an effort to be safe.
He also discovered that these extreme parts would become less disruptive and more cooperative once their concerns were addressed and they felt safer. IFS views psychic multiplicity as the norm: we all have parts. In addition, every part has a good intention for the client, and every part has value. When clients listen to all their parts, they can heal their wounded parts.
Today, IFS, which has established a legacy of efficiency and effectiveness in treating many mental health issues, is being heralded by Dr. Bessel van der Kolk as a treatment that all clinicians should know.
An Excerpt from IFS Skills Training Manual:
ASSESSMENT AND DIAGNOSIS IN IFS
In IFS we welcome the client’s symptoms upfront as an introduction to protective parts and we are always aware that wounded parts have been banished. To assess and diagnose we look at relationships and motives in the internal system. Regardless of the client’s symptoms, we make certain assumptions about a predictable, commonly shared psychic structure in which protectors aim to hide the existence of emotionally vulnerable parts and guard them from being hurt again. Finally, despite protection that is focused on past and future injury, the Self is always available to heal old wounds and take the lead in a dangerous world.
Although we can translate our parts-based observations of the client into DSM diagnoses in order to communicate with other treaters and to bill insurance, in IFS we do not formulate the client’s presenting problem in the pathologizing terms of the DSM. Rather, we explore inner relationships, inquire about motivation and ask about protector fears so we can discover how this particular client’s inner system maps onto our basic template of the psyche (multiplicity consisting of parts and Self, and post-trauma coping that involves protectors and exiles).
Even as we assess the client’s reasons for coming to therapy and her presenting problems, we begin to form relationships with her internal system by asserting the positive intentions of her protective parts and offering to introduce them to her Self. When appropriate, we also offer her a roadmap of our goals:
No part of you needs to be exiled or sacrificed.
You will have the opportunity to offer a new solution to the problems your hardworking inner system is trying to solve with these behaviors.
If your parts take you up on this offer, their emotional pain will eventually be healed and they will feel freer.
WHERE TO BUY
AUDIOBOOK
REVIEWS
A unique and effective roadmap for working with parts of the self to resolve trauma and attachment injury. Concise, accessible, and grounded in an attitude of kindness and respect for the client, the manual includes vivid case transcripts, clear solutions for therapeutic challenges, and engaging exercises for clients to complete. With these practical and accessible interventions, therapists of all persuasions will find this book to be an invaluable addition to their toolbox, one that could revolutionize their clinical work
Without losing the compassionate, gentle essence of the Internal Family Systems model, this workbook helps clients and therapists alike to have a structure and guiding hand through the struggle and pain of trauma treatment. This is a workbook that touches the heart rather than simply managing the symptoms.
My staff and I have been using the exercises and meditations with our clients in our trauma-informed eating disorder group with positive feedback from all! The introduction is so clear for those unfamiliar with the model. Thank you for this wonderful resource.