Self-Therapy: A Step-by-Step Guide to Creating Wholeness Using IFS, A Cutting-Edge Psychotherapy, 3rd Edition

For anyone interested in making the world a better place, (all of you, I hope) shadow work is a must. To date, one of the most effective forms of shadow work I have encountered is Internal Family Systems therapy, otherwise known as parts work. This is the most well-designed and comprehensive form of shadow work I have encountered; being an amalgamation of shadow work, inner child work and disindentification. The premise is simple yet paradigm-shifting; the human ego is not one solid mass, as we had previously been led to believe, but rather, is a composite of parts. Inititally, in the early stages of the formation of the ego a person's ego-self is intact, but through repeated exposure to trauma, it becomes fragmented, parts of it section off, forming multiple selves or 'parts'. This is where, for many people, this form of inner work requires a leap of faith, since most people's understanding of trauma is fairly rudimentary. There are still a great many people whom believe that trauma encompasses only things like fighting in a war, being in an accident, or rape, and although those things do definitely constitute severe trauma, it is simply the case that trauma exists on a spectrum, and those of us whom are more attuned to certain things, like myself, will pick up on the fact that children are in fact many thousands of times more sensitive than the average adult. In other words, children can be traumatized by things that most adults would not even stop to consider, such as being emotionally neglected or abused, being lost in a public place, losing a friend, experiencing a divorce, moving home, being taken into hospital, losing a pet or loved one, being laughed at or ridiculed, being misunderstood or having chronically unmet needs, to name just a few.Naturally, this leads to a few of us ending up with accumulated trauma, and as a result, various psychological and emotional issues in adulthood, which, if not addressed can manifest as addictions, coping mechanisms and defence mechanisms. That being said, this book will be useful to literally anyone. It actually forced disidentification from ego through the way the therapy itself is conceptualised: that every thought, perception and feeling you experience can be attributed to a 'part' and your true, authentic, spiritual self is that which observes all of that inner world. The crux of parts work is that a person works with all of these parts compassionately and with love and understanding; in fact the credo of parts work, a term coined by it's creator, Dick Schwartz is "no bad parts".The system and methodology Schwartz has created, and which is desrcibed here by the author, Jay Earley, is nothing short of genius. To give a very brief and simplified version, your psyche is split into various types of parts, broadly speaking, the two main types of which are 1) "exiles" the suppressed traumas you carry, usually related towards "negative" emotional states and negative core beliefs and 2) "protectors" the parts of you which have been tasked with "protecting" you from having to experience the negative effects of early traumas. These are the parts which contain anger, defence mechanisms and coping mechanisms. During the process, a person undertaking parts work first gets to know the protector aspects of them, who will then, after being worked with, understood, validated and appreciated, grant access to more trauma-based and vulnerable parts, which are often children.I will give an example: lets say that a person has a Mother who is an alcoholic. This may cause very extreme trauma within that person during their childhood and cause longstanding grief for the childhood they never had, guilt because they blame themselves, shame because their Mother verbally abused them and powerlessness because they felt they could not escape. However, people cannot deal with these kinds of emotions as a small child so a part of their self fragments off, creating both exiled parts corresponding to the emotions above, and a protector part which may become very tough, angry or aggressive to keep the trauma related feelings under control. This is a brief and rather oversimplified overview but will give you some idea of what I am talking about. The takeaway from this review, and the overall point that I would like all of you to get is that based on the efficacy of this modality in my own experience, there is literally nobody this form of therapy will not benefit.The creator has even had great success in helping many criminals reform and work through issues which created their criminality in the first place, i.e. neglect, abuse etc, but you don't have to have that kind of background in order to benefit from it. In my own personal experience it has, in many respects, given me a new lease of life and has deepened my capacity for disidentification, even when dealing with overwhelming despair. This is key to the whole practice; parts work (internal family systems) literally forces disidentification because it is built into the design of it that you see all of these aspects of you as separate 'selves' with their own set of wants, needs, likes, dislikes. I would posit that everyone will experience the process differently, and in my own case I do the process slightly differently from instructed. The instruction is to dialogue with these parts without allowing them to overwhelm you (a process called 'blending'), but in my case I allow the parts to blend with me just enough that I get a direct insight into the beliefs, perceptions and feelings of that part but with enough of my authentic self to be fully present with the feelings of the part. The book is incredibly simply written and in fact, that is the key to it's success. It can be utilized by anyone, appreciated by anyone and can, I believe, work wonders in anyone's life. The author has set out a highly detailed set of processes and insights, plus there are also illustrations which can often be highly amusing.I will reiterate again; if you are interested in making the world a better place, everything starts on the inside. Buy this book, do your shadow work, heal, learn about yourself and help deepen your self understanding. This book will be absolutely life-transforming if you allow it to be, although I will write this review with a disclaimed that parts work can often be challenging and I did go through a period when a lot of very challenging stuff came to the surface.

IFS is a great practice and this book gives those of us who dont want to train as therapists more insight on how to DIY at home

Very Informative! A great tool to use while having therapy!Good purchase : )

I've tried any learned so much about therapy methods, trauma, etc. This is by far the best approach and it just resonates deeply. Honestly, especially CBT is a joke compared to IFS.For survivors of complex PTSD I highly recommend to additionally use the 13 steps for flashback management of Pete Walker when your do the exercises in this book. This angel of a man has them freely accessable on his website.

Excellent- so helpful and informative

I purchased this book at my therapists suggestion. IFP therapy has been working for me and I'm only partially through the book. Now, my whole family is looking into purchasing this book also and we will all be working together to heal family trauma. I highly recommend this book!

I am not done reading it, but have applied some of the techniques with some clients and the results are impressive. I would definitely recommend it