SEAN CUTHBERT 

Grief is one of the most profound and universal experiences of being human. Yes, if you're reading this you have either grieved or you will grieve. Yet, particularly in Western cultures, grief is often met with discomfort, avoidance, or an urgency to “move on.” Western culture values productivity, achievement, and emotional control, which leaves little room for the slow, unpredictable, and sacred process of grieving. From an Internal Family Systems (IFS) perspective, our d

In Internal Family Systems (IFS) Therapy (and trauma therapy in general), dissociation is a protective strategy to understand, rather than one to try and eradicate, or get rid of. When a client zones out, becomes foggy, goes blank, loses track of the conversation, or suddenly feels disconnected from themselves, something very intelligent is happening in their internal system. The client is showing how they survived overwhelming circumstances, or their childhood as a whole.

Providing options between keeping the eyes open versus keeping the closed in IFS can add depth to the Internal Family Systems process by adding choice.

Forgiveness is one of those words that sounds great, but can hide a mess of complexity underneath. Sometimes, clients often talk about wanting to forgive or be forgiven. Whether it be a parent to child, child to parent, partner to partner, or protective part to Self, forgiveness is sometimes the final step in healing. Sometimes, it is. But in Internal Family Systems (IFS) Therapy, what looks like forgiveness can sometimes be a protective maneuver, or in IFS language, a ma

Working with shame requires working with the somatic experience of shame. In IFS protective parts generate body constriction, tension and tightness to keep younger parts holding shame hidden and small. This post explores this polarisation in some detail through the IFS Therapy Lens.

A hard truth most people don't get is that people learn to be abused at home. They learn in their family-of-origin through caregiver interactions who has power, who must submit, who is allowed needs, and whose needs are forbidden. Here, we look at victim/perpetrator dynamics through the healing lens of Internal Family Systems (IFS) Therapy.