My journey with Internal Family Systems began with my own therapy.

I first heard about IFS when the founder, Richard Schwartz, was interviewed on a podcast I followed. It took me a few years before I actually decided to initiate the therapy but I became more and more curious as I started to hear more about it. Well, thank goodness I finally followed up on my instinct because it was and continues to be completely life-changing for me, and I now experience life in a very different way.

I was so inspired by the changes to my own life that I next underwent training myself in how I could use IFS with my own clients. I undertook the 6-month IFS Online Circle as well as other shorter trainings, and was able to start using the model under supervision in my health coaching practice. I also began a Master in Counselling.

I have found that using IFS in my coaching practice has been extremely helpful for my clients to really understand what is driving their behaviours, and to be able to move through the world more lightly and joyfully. It is very effective in managing all types of anxiety, including social anxiety and health anxiety, as well as helping to understand why we have behaviours such as putting others before ourselves, having low self esteem, and feeling 'stuck' in a way of life that may not be serving us.

So, what is IFS, and what makes it so effective?

Internal Family Systems Therapy (IFS) offers a refreshingly non-pathologizing perspective on healing. Rather than viewing your struggles as issues to be fixed or eliminated, it sees them as parts of you doing their best to help, even if their methods are imperfect. Instead of battling against the protective patterns you developed in the past, IFS encourages you to connect with these parts. Through curiosity, understanding, and self-compassion—not force—you can foster healing and transformation.

Also at the heart of Internal Family Systems is the belief that there is a core ‘Self’ within each of us, which has been untouched by any trauma we may have experienced. Self energy is characterised by a relationship we have with ourselves, others and the world that has curiosity, calm, compassion, connectedness, creativity, courage, clarity and confidence.

The aim of IFS is to connect and amplify our experience of Self, and then to help build a relationship between this self quality and all of our parts. In this way, we get to know, understand and appreciate their positive intentions for us. The Self can then connect with each part and heal it. This allows the parts to let go of their extreme or destructive roles and enter into a more harmonious collaboration, led by the Self.

Online or in person, these sessions will offer you a supportive environment to examine, unravel, and transform the core patterns that influence your life.