In support of Internal Family Systems (IFS) #1

Written for IFS therapists and self-healers

(may be too advanced for clients and public)

I consider IFS timely and “appropriate technology” in psychology now. This is what excites Cultural Creatives who come across it.

IFS excites people. Why? It supports their understanding of their own internal experience of their psyche. IFS reflects clients’ internal experiences. What else? There are no big words to learn. IFS ideas about “structure” are proving surprisingly accessible and workable to therapists, self-healers and clients.

I’ve learned to be very careful using the phrase, “structure of the human psyche” around people with their own ideas about this. Seems to me, partial, incomplete ideas about “the structure of our psyche” was the root cause of the “psychology wars” of the 1900s. Male academics, some of them talented, with meaningful contributions to make, each tried to be King of the Hill, on a moving sand dune called ‘conceptions of our invisible psyche.’ Each partial view tended to define itself; either, in opposition to other partial theories; or, define itself in a vacuum, oblivious to other relevant literature. More heat than light was often the result. The man-splaining was also off the charts.

Thankfully, since 2000, a more cooperative-collaborative spirit infuses mainstream psychology. Could this be connected with the fact reported in 2017, 51% or more of all…