Plain talk about the strengths of IFS model therapy

The IFS (Internal Family Systems) model is by no means the first highly developed model that I’ve studied and worked with my clients. I observe here what I believe are some of its strengths.

1. It flows easily and seamlessly from the first appointment with a client. In a first appointment, clients typically describe why they seek assistance. I’ve found that people refer to different approaches they have taken to address problems. These attempts at solutions reflect different parts of their personality. These parts often lead to personal gridlock. People can caught between different ways to solve a problem. Or, they’ve tried several ways without success.
2. It follows the way many people think about themselves, as having different parts of their personality. Therefore, it’s not an unheard of or strange model for people to work with therapeutically. People often know that their attitudes or tendencies reflect specific lived experiences or patterns.
3. It both respects and challenges clients in the way that they hope to have happen in therapy. People want to address problems more effectively. They also welcome a simple framework that they can use independently to solve problems. People also have an underlying and well justified desire to learn how they can better understand who they are.
4. It is completely driven by the client. Client can focus on a particular part of themselves, or expand the map of parts that they perceive, or believe is active at a given time. the therapist does not dictate or try to influence which choice they make. The client may choose not to make either choice, and then respect their curiosity about deciding to proceed differently.
5. It harnesses what a therapist should do best: asking truly curious questions which empower clients to think for themselves, trust what their body tells them and respects & uses what their emotions are telling them. In the process, the therapist learns about the client and that opens new avenues for the therapist to continue empowering the client. IFS is not a method where the therapist provides advice on what is best for the client to do. This therapy process is non-directive and non-prescriptive.
6. It is especially well suited for work with transgender, non-binary and non-monogamous people. These clients are usually quite open to seeing themselves in plural terms. This may seem obvious but worth stating here in no uncertain terms. Non-monogamous people are often attracted to relationships in which they can express and experience different parts of themselves.
7. This work lends itself to clients doing therapeutic personal work on their own, apart from what happens in the therapist’s office. It gives them a simple framework for doing so. The result is that their commitment to the work increases and with that their progress and sense of success with therapy.
8. While it is necessary to submit a diagnosis to a health insurance carrier in order to access benefits and for me to receive reimbursement, IFS does not rely on psychiatric diagnoses in its model. The therapist should be aware of any valid diagnoses (though diagnoses made in the past by others are necessarily valid today). But the therapy respects every person’s humanity first and foremost. Diagnoses are labels based on symptom criteria. A person might have a diagnosis, but nobody is a diagnosis.
9. It operates from a fundamental view of the human self which is based on strengths – call them qualities or even virtues. The self is described as the true “seat of consciousness” which can differentiate from protector parts that accumulate over the course of a lifetime. What are examples of the self’s qualities? Here is a compact, more easily remembered inventory (“the C’s and P’s”)Compassion, Creativity, Curiosity, Confidence, Courage, Calm, Connectedness, Clarity

   Presence, Persistence, Perspective, Playfulness, Patience

To be continued…..