The IFS Café Meetup - Internal Family Systems

This meetup is for learning and practice of IFS, Internal Family Systems.

With the recent explosive demand for access to IFS expertise, I am embarking on a lifelong desire to be of service. An IFS practitioner since 2006, with much relevant supportive additional practices, I will offer individual and group instruction and practice, informed by my personal experience and the guidance of an experienced teacher and therapist.

Now I have announced initiation of an IFS study circle. The focus of the group is technical study of the method and exposure to other people's questions. There is a substantial learning curve to proficiency with IFS and a group format is most efficient for knowledge transfer. Then, either in homework, exercises or individual sessions you can maintain your focus on your process.

Through consistent participation we will create a trustworthy circle of friends. Significant attention will be paid to the manner in which you conduct yourself as a support for the other person. We will necessarily address sensitive and difficult issues, and you must be, for others, the safe and competent person everyone needs.

I also offer semi-regular zooms for those that are not ready to commit to a study group.

Watch this space, or email and suggest a time that works for you.

[email protected] **

The study text for the group is Self Therapy, 3rd edition, by Jay Earley.

https://www.selfcapacities.com/self-therapy

IFS has emerged as the most effective method for the practice of Inquiry. The central feature of IFS is the True Self, or simply capitalized Self. It is Self that has the power to transform us from struggling personalities/parts burdened by the inevitable suffering of life, into vehicles of a spiritual destiny that can travel any path we find. Without the leadership of Self, inquiry is at best a conversation among the very 'parts' (the personality) that resort to their problematic behavior (defenses) specifically due to the absence of Self.

I have 3 fundamental aims:

1. To maintain a rigorous standard of practice intended to remedy the misunderstandings and mistakes that I observe to be common among both therapy clients and do-it-yourself practitioners; IFS is NOT a lightweight method, and the importance of its central concept, the True "Self", is frequently underappreciated, .and this drastically limits effectiveness. IFS includes a significant Theory of Mind, and mental health, omissions in the understanding of which will cripple its effectiveness.
2. To expand and enhance the implications of the assertion that "Self is not a part;" this is a bold, metaphysical proposition which can be amplified by incorporating the received wisdom of established spiritual teachings.
3. To curate the potential formation of a learning community around the interest in the IFS skillset, with on-line and in-person activities, and application of IFS to Special Interest subject areas, such as the Inner Critic, and personality typologies.

My recent experience facilitating psychedelic-assisted therapy has renewed my long term appreciation for the power of working within a group container. If you are hesitant to commit to a group, especially if you have had negative experiences, I urge you to attend my drop-in activities. I am well aware of the pitfalls but also the incomparable advantages of successfully finding the others. Initially the meeting content will include how to be, for others, the reliable, safe and present person you need for yourself.

Here is a de facto c.v. for my qualification:

About your host -
Michael Nowacki has been practicing IFS since 2006 under the guidance of one of the well known therapists who focuses on training and facilitation of practice groups. Michael gravitated to it enthusiastically because his life-long practices, in both spiritual work and therapy, integrate synergistically with IFS. Recently he has offered introductions to IFS practice with psychonauts, now offering it to a wider audience, in the context of life coaching and peer counseling. In fact, most IFS has been practiced as peer counseling, where it is possible, with the requisite discipline, to accomplish a great deal of healing and transformation outside of the formal therapy hour.
Michael offers the following set of credentials:

• 45+ years of mindfulness meditation practice
• SOMA Breath teacher instructor certification
• 1-year Coaching To Excellence program, New Ventures West
• B.S. Psychology, Linfield University

To expand on the above:

• I was initiated into the orientation and practice of intentional mindful presence through formal Transcendental Meditation initiation in 1975. I struggled with mental and emotional distraction and sleepiness and did not consider myself to be an authentic practitioner. Later under the guidance of a Vipassana teacher I understood that the intention and persistence, and not the experience, determine the meditation. From that I conclude that the way I practiced classical guitar, for 2 to 6 hours a day over a period of 4 years, constituted meditation, just as yoga or walking meditation depend upon the intention of presence. In 1978 I committed to the 4th Way Work which emphasizes continual informal meditation in all circumstances, in lieu of sitting, which relies upon what is currently termed “radical acceptance.” Further, that teaching, based on G.I. Gurdjieff, includes a spiritually oriented psychology (and Theory of Mind) derived from ancient Eastern spiritual teachings that is identical in important aspects to the model used in IFS, especially in the distinction between Self and parts. This also constituted an immersion into the dynamics between Self and parts, including the obstacles presented by the Inner Critic, fear, social engagement and conditioning. This is the origin of my understanding that it is tragically possible for the personality to acquire a conditioned fear and avoidance association to the somatic experiential aspect of awakened presence that often arises from adverse or traumatic shock. My personal “brand” of IFS therefore emphasizes both the profound significance of the discovery of Self, and the autobiographical estrangement between Self and parts that I have observed in everyone I have witnessed engaging in inner work. To address this difficulty I add this step to the IFS dictum that all parts have a positive intent (“no bad parts”) and that Self Leadership is the outcome of successful work: If you know what presence of Self and its capacities is, why would you accept being led by parts?
• In 1984 I was introduced to psychotherapy where I was taught the method of Transactional Analysis. Explicitly influenced by Gurdjieff, T/A presaged several basic insights that Richard Schwartz subsumed (independently) into IFS. The first method purposely meant to be learned and practiced independently of the therapist-client session, known now as peer counseling, this seemingly forgotten method has several principles that I think IFS would benefit from by inclusion.
  Since 2004 I have been a student of the Ridhwan School, a 4th Way teaching founded my a well respected living master. Its main practices include meditation and engagement in the personality in general, but requires addressing difficulties known normally as mental health and development. The practice of doing so is called “inquiry” and importantly is similar enough to IFS that I claim that the several thousand hours that I have practiced are synonymous with IFS, from the perspective of IFS. This is specifically why I will emphasize the IFS Self in my presentation.
  Because 4th Way teachings are synthetic (of multiple ancient teachings) my interest in their sources (Sufism, Taoism, Alchemy and others) allows me to recognize instances where the tenets of IFS are discovery of long known truths, or where such insights can be used to expand the depth of IFS.
• Breathwork as originated by Wilhelm Reich, a student of Freud, is the original re-discovery of ancient wisdom in modern psychology. It is employed by the Ridhwan School, which oriented me to acquire certification in SOMA Breath, which provides an in-depth survey of the intersection between classical pranayama yoga and modern clinical research. Recently, IFS teachers have been bringing the somatic dimension into prominence as a corrective to the widespread tendency of American practitioners to disregard the somatic side of the body-mind. SOMA Breath makes scholarly citations of its sources, which I can incorporate into IFS practice as a foundation rather than a novelty or distraction.
• The Coaching To Excellence program of New Ventures West gives me a framework for working face-to-face with practitioners, based on several decades of professional activity in the new notion of life coaching. It is another case where the importance of access to a learning community, engaged in cultivation of a coherent body of knowledge, is irreplaceable as a support.
• I completed a B.S. degree in my age 40s decade. I organized my studies around the premise that the insights I had been guided to in the spiritual teachings might be recognizable in scientific research to one knowing what and how to see them. My hypothesis was correct and many scientific observations have shaped my understanding of psychology, spiritual insights and IFS.