I’m about to launch an IFS Consultation and Practice Group (More My Self), which will include therapists from within our group practice as well as outside therapists. For therapists reading this, and considering joining, I want to beg for a moment of your time to share what I believe is unique and wonderful about IFS consultation groups. My experience throughout the years has been life-changing; these groups tend to be very safe places to reveal all that we don’t know, all that we’re afraid of and our greatest hopes as we engage in our clinical work. We witness our own and each other’s tender, heartfelt work and we benefit immensely from beholding the unfolding of our colleagues' systems. The honest, vulnerable and personal culture of IFS invites profound connectedness, intimacy and authenticity to IFS groups. Here are some magical nuggets to compel you:
The way we teach and learn about the IFS model is through direct experience - that means you will be using me as a parts detector, to help you to notice and unblend from your own parts as you share about your clients. I will explicitly invite you to be in more direct contact with your parts with the goal of helping you develop deeper and more meaningful relationships within YOUR system. In this way, IFS consultation resembles therapy and holds the potential for meaningful personal healing for the participating therapists - all while supporting you in getting unstuck clinically.
All participants, including the consultant (me), the therapists (you) and your clients (who are not present) are considered within the paradigm of recognizing and developing Self-leadership. There’s a kind of equality in this arrangement, where we acknowledge that all of us have parts with multiple competing interests and concerns occurring simultaneously. For us therapists, common parts that show up in our roles include those that are concerned with inadequacy, incompetency, anxiety, feeling overwhelmed and feeling overly responsible. You and I will both be curious about noticing those parts of ourselves, unblending from them and supporting them.
Unblending will be a primary focus! Unblending is “a process of differentiating from one’s parts and getting into relationship with those parts” (Redfern, E. E. (2023). Internal Family Systems therapy: Supervision and consultation. Routledge.) Yes, we will attend to content, but much of what we do will involve U-turns, where I will invite you to bring your attention back into yourself, noticing your own parts, and being with them (versus staying focused on solving your client’s “problem”).
I hope your interest is sparked and you’re feeling excited about the prospect of taking a deep dive into your own process as it pertains to the meaningful work you do with your clients. I am so excited to open this space up and meet you in it, with all of our parts being welcome.
To learn more and to register, click HERE.
Written by Jessica Sorci, LMFT, PMH-C and Certified IFS Therapist
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