Using IFS to Treat Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents
Date: Friday, August 29, 2025 | Time: 2:00PM – 5:00PM EDT, 11:00PM – 2:00PM PDT
100% Online
HOST: Lauren Bartholomew, PsyD & Ellen Sharp, PhD
Join Drs. Lauren Bartholomew and Ellen Sharp as they apply an IFS lens to healing from the long-term effects of emotionally immature and otherwise mis-attuned parenting.
This lively masterclass interweaves didactic and experiential activities as we discuss:
- The strategic use of psychoeducation
- Naming and working with the parts typical of survivors’ systems
- How to make sure “retelling the story” is done therapeutically
- Creating safe spaces for witnessing grief
- The crucial work of Self-led reparenting
We’re looking forward to sharing our insights as we create community around this tender topic that touches the lives of so many therapists, practitioners, and clients.
WHO WE ARE
Lauren and Ellen first met on the day after Derek Scott’s passing. Lauren, who was working as IFSCA practice support staff, had the difficult job of sharing the news with Ellen’s Stepping Deeper cohort. Later they encountered each other again in an IFSI Level One training, where they got to know each other in practice groups as well as in an affinity group for Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents. Since then they’ve continued the conversation about how to best support recovery from this insidious, sometimes subtle form of trauma. Like many survivors of conditional love, Lauren and Ellen are both connoisseurs of the unconditional love of companion animals.
Lauren Batholomew, PsyD
Dr. Bartholomew is an IFS-trained psychologist and the owner of Perceptive Insights Psychological Services, LLC in Pennsylvania. She specializes in therapy for childfree individuals, highly sensitive people, LGBTQ+ folx and their families and women recovering from narcissistic abuse. She also enjoys working with people who are no or low contact with family, people who remain covid-conscious, and equestrians. Her style is warm, collaborative and direct. In her work, she operates from the perspective that we are all doing our best and want to live our lives with contentment and joy, but that the path in getting there is often difficult and full of unexpected surprises.
To learn more about Dr. Bartholomew, check out her website at https://www.perceptivepsych.io/
Ellen Sharp, PhD
Dr. Sharp is an IFS-trained practitioner who works online and in person at her practice in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. Prior to that, she studied trauma and suffering in postwar Guatemala for her PhD in cultural anthropology from UCLA. A moving encounter with Mexico’s monarch butterfly migration changed the course of her career. Subsequently she spent a decade fighting to protect this imperiled natural wonder through ecotourism and forest conservation projects. While Sharp loved anthropology and the butterflies, a mid-life epiphany showed her how her personal and professional lives kept repeating the painful patterns of her family of origin.
During this dark night of the soul, Sharp discovered IFS and rededicated her life to its practice. IFS taught her how to welcome grief rather than avoiding it, allowing her to open her heart more fully to joy. Last fall she co-taught a masterclass on Self-led Grieving with Mel Galbraith. On February 18, 2025 she organized an online memorial to honor IFSCA founder Derek Scott’s first death anniversary. In June, she took over facilitating the IFSCA’s , Second Saturday Share, a free online IFS-informed hang-out space.
In her practice, Sharp loves holding space for grief, helping people recover from narcissistic abuse as well as working with creatives to befriend blocks to creativity. You can read more about her at ellensharp.com and find her writing on substack.