The focus of this weekend is on becoming more aware of and befriending your own parts. We will explore the protective system in greater detail including exploring common concerns of protective manager parts. The teaching will focus on how to address these concerns so that the client’s protective system feels assured as to the safety of the work.

There will be the opportunity to participate in/witness and support a demonstration and you will again be practicing in supervised practice groups of three or four.

A demonstration with Q&A and supervised small group practice will form part of the weekend.

This weekend will be dedicated to helping you to become clear about the parts of you that show up in the work (your “therapist parts”). Through a variety of exercises you will be encouraged to get to know them as they get to know you. The more your therapist parts can get to know and trust your Self; the easier it will be for them to stand down in session and allow you to do the work of an IFS therapist, i.e. to hold as much Self-energy as possible (curiousity and compassion) by inviting our own parts to soften back so that we can be a “parts detector” for our clients and thereby help their own Self to facilitate their healing. For many of us this involves unlearning much of what we have been taught.

You will learn how to identify these parts so they can soften back, recognise where you get triggered and learn an efficient way to attend to that in session as well as developing your skills to better identify what is going on for the client.
A demonstration with Q&A and supervised small group practice will form part of the weekend.

This is a time to integrate what we have learned. In addition to the demonstration there will be opportunities to practice and receive peer and staff feedback. We can focus on more specific groups or subjects: Grief, Trauma, Addiction, Spirituality, LGBTQ etc. as determined by the needs of group members.

We may explore the applicability of the model to working with children, grief, sexuality and gender identity and/or other identified areas of interest.

You will receive your certificate on Sunday.

*Please note in order to receive your certificate and be eligible for listing on the IFSCA site you must have attended all four teaching weekends. You may still graduate if you have missed no more than one day.

Each participant will be provided with a training manual with handouts for each session, as well as a DVD set of didactic teachings. A list of approved IFS therapists available to work with participants will be provided should you wish to deepen your own work.

Required reading for the course is Internal Family Systems 2nd Edition by Richard C. Schwartz and Martha Sweezy available from the Center for Self-Leadership store, and Internal Family Systems Skills Training Manual: Trauma-Informed Treatment for Anxiety, Depression, PTSD & Substance Abuse. Both are available from Caversham Booksellers in Toronto.

Recommended reading includes: “Many minds, One Self” by Richard Schwartz and Robert Falconer ,“Introduction to Internal Family Systems” also by Dick Schwartz and “Parts Work: an Illustrated Guide top your Inner Life” – Tom Holmes.

In addition to reading I have developed annotated training videos: I hour sessions which have been edited to highlight choice points and illustrate where therapist parts have wanted to intervene.

There are many interesting articles on the resources page of my site and several will be recommended during the course.