Are You a Therapist Looking to Learn Internal Family Systems?

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If you are a mental-health professional – psychotherapist, psychologist, psychiatrist or counsellor – interested in Internal Family Systems therapy, one of the best ways to learn this highly experiential model is to have some IFS therapy. As a Level 3-trained Internal Family Systems Therapist, I have opened up a few spaces in my online private practice for clinicians interested in learning this groundbreaking model from the inside out.

You may be completely new to IFS or have done some training in the model. I am happy to work either long or short-term, if there is a particular problem you would like help with. I’m also a highly experienced supervisor, drawing on a range of trauma-informed, parts-based models, so I can also help with consultations if you would like to view stuck points or countertransference issues through the lens of parts and internal systems – your own or your client’s.

If you are a clinician and would like to experience IFS therapy with me, email me at dan@danroberts.com

Warmly,

Dan

Come to My Overcoming Addiction Workshop in London on 26th November 2022

How Can Trauma-Focused CBT Help You Overcome Trauma Symptoms?

PTSD is estimated to affect one in three people after a traumatic event. If you are struggling with trauma symptoms it can be useful to begin considering your support options. There are many different therapies available to support trauma and one of those is Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, or TF-CBT for short, but what is this type of therapy, and what does it involve? 

Psychologists Ehlers and Clark (2000), in their Cognitive Model of PTSD, propose that there are certain factors that keep the vicious cycle of trauma going, and these factors essentially prevent the trauma memory/memories from being processed. These factors include:

1. Poorly elaborated memory of the trauma and that the memory has not been contextualised (the memory does not equal the situation within which it existed or happened).

2. Excessive negative beliefs and meanings attached to the trauma memory.

3. Behavioural and cognitive strategies. Cognitive strategies include pushing thoughts away (suppression) and dwelling on events (rumination). Behavioural strategies may include withdrawing socially, avoiding internal and external reminders of the event/s, little or no engagement in previous hobbies or interests, use of drugs and alcohol. There can be many more strategies people may use, we recognise every individual has different coping strategies to try to minimise or eliminate their suffering.

Goals in Trauma-Focused CBT

Therefore together our goals in TF-CBT are to:

1. Reduce flashbacks and nightmares by opening up the memory and being able to discriminate with reminders of the trauma what is then (at the time of the trauma) and what is now (in the present moment). We may recall the memory spoken out loud or by use of writing in session using the present tense. Some people may revisit the site of trauma in this part of the work to aid adding context to the trauma memory.

2. Modify excessive negative beliefs of the trauma, changing perspectives to create new more helpful beliefs. For example ‘it was my fault X happened’ becomes ‘it was not my fault X happened’ we may develop a more compassionate response towards the self. In therapy we may do this through careful and gentle questioning to explore different perspectives. We then incorporate the more helpful belief into the trauma memory.

3. Remove unhelpful behavioural and cognitive strategies that maintain intrusions and the current sense of threat and danger. We may do this in therapy by exploring the advantages and disadvantages of each strategy both in the short and long term.

As we come towards the end of treatment we often hear people we support reporting a reduction or ceasing of intrusions, a decreased sense of danger in the present moment and an improvement in mood as the person begins regaining and rebuilding their life after after the traumatic event/s.

Please see the video below if you would like to learn more about the different stages of the therapeutic journey when we work with trauma using TF-CBT. 

Emma McDonald, CBT & EMDR Therapist

•If you are looking for a Trauma Focused-CBT specialist we have a team of therapists who can offer this support face to face or online – further information can be found on our website www.thepsychotherapyclinic.co.uk

What is Internal Family Systems Therapy?

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If you have a trauma history and are looking for a therapist to help, it can be bewildering. There are so many counsellors and therapists out there, offering a smorgasbord of therapy models, each claiming to be the best. As a specialist in treating complex trauma, I would advise you to find someone who knows what they’re talking about – ask them whether they have trained in trauma therapy and exactly how they would help you with your trauma history. If they don’t have a convincing answer, please find someone else.

I would also recommend finding a trauma-informed therapy, such as EMDR, trauma-focused CBT, compassion-focused therapy, sensorimotor psychotherapy, somatic experiencing therapy, schema therapy or internal family systems (IFS) therapy. As an Advanced Accredited Schema Therapist, Trainer & Supervisor and Internal Family Systems-Trained Therapist, I specialise in these two approaches, which are both excellent, trauma-informed therapy models.

In this post I would like to focus on the last one, IFS, because it offers a wonderful way to heal your trauma, whatever you might have been through and however bad your symptoms are today. IFS was developed by Dr Richard Schwartz in the 1980s and, unlike most therapy models, emerged from the things his clients were telling him. Dick (as he likes to be called) Schwartz tells the story of his clients saying, over and over, ‘A part of me wants to date this guy but another part really doesn’t like him,’ or, ’Part of me wants to binge-eat cake, but a big part of me knows that’s not a good idea.’

We all have parts

Dick came to realise that his clients were giving him a glimpse into their internal world – and the many different parts of them who lived there. This idea, ‘multiplicity of self’, is at the heart of IFS. Because even though we feel like we’re just us – I am Dan, or you are Carol – that’s not how the brain constructs our personality. Instead, we all have different parts, who think differently, want different things and often have conflicting impulses. (Date the guy/don’t date the guy; binge/don’t binge).

This isn’t weird, or the sign of deep psychological issues, it’s just how we all are. And in the IFS model, we have two different kinds of parts: exiles and protectors. Exiles are the (usually) young, wounded parts of us, who carry all the painful thoughts, memories, feelings and experiences from key times in our life. They are called exiles because they are often exiled in your internal system – meaning shut away, because their feelings are deemed too powerful and overwhelming for us.

Managers and firefighters

And the parts that shut them away are called protectors – they help protect those young parts from being hurt, but also keep them shut away so they don’t overwhelm you. And there are two types of protector: managers and firefighters. Managers do a job, like be perfectionistic, worry obsessively or people-please. Their job is to be proactive – anticipating threats or painful triggers to help you avoid them.

Firefighters are reactive. So the part that drinks, or binge-eats, or cuts, or smokes weed, or gambles is a firefighter. They use any tactic available to quickly extinguish the pain felt by young, wounded parts.

Who you are, deep down

Finally, we all have a Self. This is not a part, but you, deep down – a good metaphor is the sun (Self) behind the clouds (parts). Always there, but sometimes obscured by activated parts, thinking, feeling and doing stuff frantically all the time.

So the goal of IFS therapy is to find and heal the exiles; free the protectors from their tiring, stressful jobs; and help you access ‘Self-energy’ so you can feel calmer, stronger, happier and more at peace.

I use IFS with all my clients and they love it. There is something about the model and this way of working that just resonates with people on a deep level. And it works! Even with the most stubborn, hard-to-treat problems like complex trauma.

I will be writing more about this and other models in this Heal Your Trauma Blog – and you can sign up for the HYT newsletter below, to make sure you never miss a post or one of our events.

I really hope that helps – and wishing you strength, courage and perseverance on your healing journey.

Warm wishes,

Dan

Can Your Trauma Really Be Healed?

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In the UK alone, we know that millions of people have experienced some kind of trauma in their lives. I think about trauma as being on a spectrum, from mild at one end to severe at the other. So for many of these people, the trauma they experienced is probably at the milder end of the spectrum. This doesn’t mean it wasn’t painful, of course, or that it doesn’t have an effect on their daily life now. But they are still able to function, be mums and dads, have jobs and friends and do all the normal stuff of life.

If your experiences were more severe, then I’m afraid the impact on you will also be much worse. The thoughts, beliefs, emotions and physical symptoms you experience might be so intense that it’s hard to live a normal, enjoyable life. If this is true for you, I am deeply sorry – whatever you experienced was categorically not your fault, so it’s completely unfair that it is affecting you so much today.

It’s never too much and never too late

But whether your experiences were milder, more severe, or somewhere in the middle, I passionately believe that all trauma can be healed. And this belief sustains me in all that I do, from founding my Heal Your Trauma project, to writing blog posts like this, teaching webinars and workshops, recording guided meditations and in my day-to-day clinical work with clients, most of whom come to see me precisely because they have a trauma history.

Something I often tell my clients – and a useful mantra if you have a trauma history – is that it’s never too much and never too late to be healed. Whatever you have been through, whether it happened once or many times; however bad it was; and however long you have been living with the impact of those events. We now have a whole range of cutting-edge, evidence-based therapies that are proven to help.

Alongside trauma-informed therapies such as schema therapy, internal family systems therapy, EMDR, trauma-focused CBT, compassion-focused therapy and sensorimotor psychotherapy, we also have a whole range of techniques and strategies that are research-backed to help with your healing process. Some of these are thousands of years old, but have been adapted to help with the specific problems that trauma survivors face, such as trauma-informed yoga and trauma-sensitive mindfulness.

Breathing yourself better

Breathing techniques can also be incredibly powerful and helpful for reducing stress and anxiety, as well as soothing and stabilising dysregulated nervous systems (one of the hallmarks of trauma). I teach a few of these techniques to my clients, in webinars and on the Insight Timer app, such as Compassionate Breathing and Box Breathing. Again, some of these techniques (such as pranayama breathing) have been around for thousands of years, but we are incorporating them into evidence-based Western psychology and finding them highly effective and helpful for hard-to-treat problems like trauma.

It’s important to note that, especially if your experiences were up the higher end of that spectrum, you will definitely need the help of a kind, skilled, trauma-informed therapist. Programmes like Heal Your Trauma will be helpful, but cannot replace the systematic, step-by-step healing of warm, compassionate, effective psychotherapy. But attending webinars and workshops like mine, reading self-help books, meditating, listening to podcasts, doing yoga and other exercise you enjoy, having a loving partner, supportive friends and meaningful work is all part of your healing journey.

And I will do all I can to help – starting with the first of my bi-monthly Heal Your Trauma webinars on Saturday 26th February, from 3-5pm, which you can find out about in the video and book using the button below. I hope to see you there.

Warm wishes,

Dan

Completing My Level 1 Training in Internal Family Systems Therapy

I am very pleased and proud to have completed my Level 1 training in internal family systems therapy – I’m now an Internal Family Systems-Trained Therapist. It's been an intense, but hugely rewarding four months. I absolutely love this model and have integrated it with my other training to help my clients, most of whom are struggling with complex trauma.

I will, I think, always be training as long as I am a psychotherapist. And I’m always looking for cutting-edge, trauma-informed therapies to be able to help my clients with their often complex problems.

IFS is widely regarded as one of the most effective treatments for complex trauma, as working with both wounded young parts and their protectors is key to healing the wounds caused by a trauma history. I will be integrating IFS theories and techniques into my Heal Your Trauma webinars and workshops, as well as adding IFS guided meditations to my collection on Insight Timer.

Warm wishes,

Dan

The Revolution in Trauma Therapy – and Why Your Trauma Can Be Healed

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Over the last 30 years, there has been a revolution in the treatment of mental health problems. Gone are the days when some stern, unsympathetic psychiatrist would give you a scary diagnosis and tell you, ‘Sorry, but there’s nothing more we can do for you,’ before showing you out of his office.

We now understand so much more about how the mind, brain, nervous system and body are involved in any kind of mental health problem, whether that’s an anxiety disorder like OCD, a mood disorder like depression, or the deep wounds caused by traumatic experiences in childhood. We also understand how to treat these problems – even the most complex problems people can experience, like dissociative disorders or so-called personality disorders such as Borderline Personality Disorder.

There are now a number of trauma-informed therapies such as trauma-focused CBT, schema therapy, internal family systems therapy, compassion-focused therapy, sensorimotor psychotherapy and somatic experiencing therapy. All, in their different ways, are highly effective at understanding and treating the effects of traumatic experiences on the human mind and body.

The impact of trauma

As an Advanced Accredited Schema Therapist, Trainer & Supervisor, helping people with their mental health is my life’s mission. That’s why I specialise in treating complex trauma, because I believe that the experience of trauma, usually in childhood, is at the root of most psychological problems.

We increasingly understand this, because of research like the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) study in the US, which found that traumatic experiences in childhood (like having a parent with a mental health problem or addiction, or witnessing domestic violence in the family) made people vulnerable to both mental and physical illness in later life.

There are 10 ACEs covering all aspects of childhood trauma, abuse and neglect, including socioeconomic issues like growing up in poverty – we know that these can also have a profound impact on young people’s mental health.

Sadly, the more ACEs you experience as a child, the more likely you are to develop mental health problems, have issues with substance abuse, or develop illnesses like multiple sclerosis, stroke, diabetes or cardiovascular disease. That’s because the highly stressful experience of trauma – especially ‘developmental trauma’, which happens at a key developmental stage in your childhood – has a profound and long-lasting effect on every part of your mind-body system.

Reasons to be hopeful

When I explain this to my clients – most of whom have experienced a number of ACEs in childhood – I know it sounds really depressing. So I quickly follow it up with the good news. I passionately believe that, whatever you have been through in your life, however bad it was and whatever wounds it has left you with, you can always heal. It’s never too late to start (I have worked with elderly people and seen them make deep and long-lasting changes) and, however daunting it may seem, you can always heal, change and grow.

One reason for my cast-iron hopefulness is understanding the theory of neuroplasticity. This tells us that your brain is ‘plastic’ (which means it is malleable, like clay). So when you learn anything new, your brain has to create new wiring and even new grey matter to accommodate that knowledge.

The famous example is of London’s black-cab drivers, who have to take an incredibly arduous test called the Knowledge. This means that they have to study around 320 routes and 25,000 London streets and get to know them all by heart.

This is seriously hard! So the would-be cabbies have to store a huge amount of new information their brain. And, when they do this, a part of the brain called the hippocampus, which has a major role in learning and memory, actually increases in size. New wiring. New grey matter.

How the brain heals itself

And exactly the same thing happens when your brain heals from whatever trauma you may have experienced. Whether that is through a trauma-informed therapy like schema therapy, reading self-help books or blogs like this one, or enjoying a loving, supportive relationship with your partner, as you heal from trauma your brain is literally rewiring itself.

This helps you replace negative self-beliefs with more positive and helpful ones. It increases your ability to regulate painful or overwhelming emotions. And it helps you process old trauma memories, so they don’t plague you in the present and can be consigned to history, where they belong.

My desire to help you with this journey is why I created my Heal Your Trauma project and why I write this blog. I aim to share all of my knowledge and experience with you, distilling my 10-plus years of clinical experience, during which I have helped hundreds of people overcome their mental health problems. Pass on everything I have learned from studying with some of the world’s foremost trauma experts. Share with you the incredibly powerful theory and techniques I have learned from cognitive therapy, schema therapy and many more trauma-informed therapy models currently available.

And give you powerful, effective techniques you can start using, right away, to regulate your nervous system, soothe the hurt little boy or girl inside, develop greater self-compassion, and start feeling calmer, happier and more peaceful day by day – do sign up using the form below to read my latest blog posts, hot off the press.

Helping you heal your trauma

When healing any kind of psychological problem, I strongly believe that knowledge is power. So do read my blog posts, where you will find a huge amount of information, available for free, forever. In the future I will be offering a whole host of other resources, like guided meditations, workshops and self-help books. But you should start with my blog, which will be updated regularly and is packed with a wealth of resources to help you on your healing journey.

Whether you experienced trauma as a child or some other painful experience, such as emotional neglect, I look forward to helping you with the most important project of your life – freeing yourself from the painful shackles of your past and embracing a kinder, more compassionate, more meaningful present and future. I will be with you every step of the way.

Warm wishes,

Dan

Do You Struggle With Self-Compassion? If So, You Are Not Alone

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As a psychotherapist, I know there are all sorts of things that will help improve my clients’ mental health. Some of these are just common sense, like not taking recreational drugs or drinking too much; going easy on the caffeine if they are stressed or anxious; eating healthily; engaging in daily exercise; and getting enough sleep (one of the most important things you can do for both your mental and physical health).

Others are not so obvious, but still things they will have read about in self-help books, or heard mentioned in their favourite podcasts. Practising yoga is one – there is a growing body of evidence to support yoga’s healing capacities for body, mind, nervous and hormonal systems. Mindfulness meditation is another – you would have to have been living on the Moon for the past 10 years to have missed the mindfulness revolution! Most of us now know that mindfulness is highly beneficial, in all sorts of ways.

The age of self-compassion

Now mindfulness programmes have blossomed in meditation centres, schools, corporations and even prisons, another revolution is quietly brewing: the self-compassion movement. Spearheaded by Dr Kristin Neff – the world’s leading academic researcher into self-compassion – this builds on the skills and theory embedded in mindfulness programmes like mindfulness-based stress reduction. Kristin Neff’s mindful self-compassion programme, developed with her colleague Dr Christopher Germer, adds a powerful and structured method for relieving human suffering (if you want to find out more, check out centerformsc.org).

Full disclosure: I love self-compassion. I have long enjoyed Kristin Neff’s guided meditations (they are wonderful – and you can find them, for free, on the Insight Timer app at insighttimer.com), read her books and attended her workshops. I also use many of her techniques with my clients, who find them hugely powerful and beneficial.

And self-compassion is a key part of the schema therapy model, as we teach our clients’ Healthy Adult mode to offer kindness, soothing, reassurance and compassion to their Vulnerable Child. It’s a beautiful thing to teach people self-compassion and watch as, step by step, they incorporate it into their daily lives. Where once they were harsh and mean to themselves, now they are (mostly) kind, supportive, encouraging and understanding.

What gets in the way

But here’s the thing: self-compassion is hard. Even the kindest and most compassionate people often struggle to treat themselves as they would a friend, colleague or family member who was struggling. Being more compassionate, to yourself and others, is one of those things that is easy to talk about, and get intellectually, but can be incredibly tough to do on a daily basis (‘I know, rationally, that self-compassion is a good idea, but I forget to do it/don’t feel the impact of it/don’t think I deserve it,’ many of my clients tell me).

Here is an example:

*Trevor is a middle-aged business owner. He is comfortably off, with a lovely home, supportive wife and two young children. On paper, Trevor has it all. But he has struggled with cyclical periods of depression his whole adult life. In our first session, Trevor tells me that his depression seems to come out of the blue. ‘One day I’m fine, then it starts creeping up on me. I feel more and more depressed, everything starts to seem miserable and bleak, then I end up staying in bed for days,’ he explains.

One of the first things I explain to Trevor is that depression never comes out of the blue – there is always a reason. When we start exploring his life in detail, he tells me that he works incredibly long hours – at least 12 hours a day, seven days a week. And in the build-up to a depressive episode, he works even harder, until he crashes.

I hypothesise that a part of Trevor makes him depressed to give him a break from the grinding schedule of his working life. This makes sense to Trevor. I also notice that he has an especially vicious Critical Part, which tells Trevor he is ‘worthless’ and ‘pathetic’ unless he works like a dog.

I teach him my four-part self-compassion practice (you can read all about that in this post), so we can quieten the critical voice in his head and allow him to treat himself more kindly. But he really struggles with the compassionate self-talk step, in which I coach him in speaking to himself with kindness and understanding. ‘Something in me just says it’s bullshit,’ he says. ‘It tells me I don’t deserve kindness because I am worthless and deserve to be miserable.’

Breaking the cycle

So where did these painful, self-negating beliefs come from? As so often, from Trevor’s parents, who taught him that he was stupid and a failure, unless he excelled at school. Then he got some (grudging) praise and affection. This taught Trevor that his intrinsic self had no worth or value – the only thing to be liked, valued or respected was his work and achievements. So as an adult, he worked himself into the ground until he got depressed, recovered, then the cycle started all over again.

Does any of this sound familiar? If so, please remember that you are not alone. Learning to treat yourself with kindness, care and compassion is not easy – far from it. Many of us have negative beliefs like Trevor’s, often learned in childhood. We don’t feel like we deserve to be happy. We are taught that we’re only lovable when we achieve highly. We may even see self-compassion as self-indulgent, weak, or a waste of time.

None of this is true. As the Dalai Lama teaches us, you are worthy of love, compassion and freedom from suffering – as much as any other living being on this planet. So keep reading my posts and any other blogs/articles/self-help books that teach you how to develop greater self-compassion. Check out my video, below, for a step-by-step self-compassion practice. And if necessary, see a skilled mental-health professional to help you with that – you deserve it.

Warm wishes,

Dan

*All of the case studies in my blog are composites of actual people – I would never reveal any personal or identifying information about my clients.