Healing The Past - Using Parts Work

Service Description

Parts Work is part of Internal Family Systems, a therapeutic approach developed by Richard C. Schwartz, Ph.D, in the 1990’s. As a family therapist, he discovered his clients had a kind of internal family and inner parts which had to be worked with to bring about real healing and transformation. He called it “Internal Family Systems Therapy” now known as IFS. Schwartz teaches in the Harvard Psychiatry Department and has many researchers and therapists working with him to develop the field further. IFS is now registered as an evidence-based therapy. IFS builds on the work of Psychologist Carl Jung and his theory of sub-personalities. The concept of Self (capital S) is accessed in Jung’s theory through dreams, intuition, synchronicity and numinous feeling. Think of the Self as your essential being - that best version of you when you are not caught in self-defeating behaviors and thought patterns. In the past year, I have engaged in IFS therapy. It has helped me get to the root of some of my defenses and blocks, through its very careful steps of attention. It has changed me and opened me and I am grateful. In the past months, I have studied to become “IFS Informed.” While I am not a certified therapist, I am now able to offer IFS work, combining it with the healing methods I have learned in my shamanic studies. A typical session allows the client to “go inside” as we follow something that is desired or something that is bothersome to the client. We gently meet “protectors” who have helped us through our life, but now we want to get to the heart of an issue, so we have to explore that defense system - all with compassion and curiosity If all goes well, we are able to meet a wounded exile who needs to be unburdened and retrieved. This is all done with great care. This work allows us to release the burdens and begin imagining a new way. It helps our centered best Self be more engaged in the world. When an event or relationship “triggers” us, we are more able to see our defenses and work to release them. I am honored and excited to be able to share this process.