Introduction to the Internal Family Systems Model

Internal Family Systems Family Therapy is one of the fastest growing approaches to psychotherapy. It has developed over the past twenty years into a way of understanding and treating human problems that is empowering, effective, and nonpathologizing. IFS involves helping people heal by listening inside themselves in a new way to different parts -- feelings or thoughts and, in the process, unburdening themselves of extreme beliefs, emotions, sensations, and urges that constrain their lives. As they unburden, people have no more access to Self, our most precious human resource, and are better able to lead their lives from that centered, confident, compassionate place. In these books, Richard Schwartz, the developer of the Internal Family Systems Model, introduces its basic concepts and methods in an engaging, understandable, and personal style. Therapists will find that the book deepens their appreciation of the IFS Model and helps their clients understand what they are experiencing in therapy. Also includes user-friendly exercises to facilitate learning. One of the most innovative psychotherapeutic approaches to emerge in recent years. - Froma Walsh, Ph.D