IFS Training On-demand

Are you stumped when clients can't unblend from their parts with the standard prompts, or if they look at you blankly when you suggest they 'Go inside'? This 3-hour class is a chance to learn new ways to help clients get some workable distance from their highly protective parts. Using inexpensive objects and materials ready to hand, I will help you get your creative juices flowing with pictures, case examples, and live demos. Visual, somatic, and spatial examples are included. You will leave with a new tool kit and more confidence in your system as well.

Designed for therapists and practitioners who are trained in IFS, IFS-informed, or who work in any parts model.

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This 3-class series picks up where Level 1, Stepping Stones, and the Online Circle leave off, for clients whose systems won’t let them ‘go inside’ because it’s just too scary or they don’t know how. 

Included in Session 1:

• Reading the room

• How to lend Self-energy: Do’s and don’ts

• How to build a ‘we’ container, where the therapist is ‘in’ the room

• How to work with your confused, fraudulent, and overwhelmed therapist parts

• Targeted psychoeducation: Support for clients’ thinking managers

• 5 Parts to Start: Fight, flight, freeze, attach/submit, inner critic

• When more skills are needed: DDNOS and DID

• Lecture, experiential

Session 2:

Implicit and Explicit Direct Access: Essential Skills

This class will cover implicit and explicit direct access, both essential skills for the IFS therapist, but skills which many clinicians have trouble with. When to use them, how to use them effectively, as well as the common therapist parts that interfere with their use.
Lecture, live demos

Session 3:

Implicit and Explicit Direct Access: Final Thoughts
This final class offers a high-level review of the previous two classes, things to remember and practice, as well as question and answer.

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Trauma, Dissociation, and Stabilization the IFS Way — Part 1 contains six three-hour classes on the following topics: assessment and the frame, the IFS way; attuned psychoeducation; attachment styles of parts; orienting complex clients to their parts; methods of parts mapping and other creative ways to externalize parts; using the Meeting Place for Parts; session six is sweeping review of Part 1 content and a chance to integrate.

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Resolving Complex Trauma: Going Deeper with IFS — Part 2 contains six three-hour classes on the following topics: going deeper with fierce protectors; understanding and treating developmental trauma and emotional neglect; critics and other extreme parts; strategies for addictive systems; working with legacy burdens; the course of treatment of challenging cases, using everything you have learned in Part 1 and Part 2.

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Are you curious? Join Colleen for a LIVE Q & A session to ask questions about any clinical topic of your choice within the Trauma-Informed IFS lens. You may sign up for one session or all 5. Your questions, your parts, your cases, all WELCOME!

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6-Hour Survey Course — If you have clients who have trouble doing IFS, this may be the course for you. This course covers IFS-informed ways to assess, stabilize reactive neurobiology, address early attachment rupture, as well as parts mapping, The Kitchen Table, and therapist parts. The course is designed to bridge the gap between a working knowledge of IFS and working with Complex Trauma in your office.

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Every single one of us and every one of our clients carry Legacy Burdens! That’s why I started the series with this one. It has a beautiful session that features the release of Holocaust burdens from parents as well as the client’s children. Try it and see if you like my teaching style.

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Insomnia is one of the most common symptoms of PTSD, Complex PTSD, anxiety, and depression, yet it doesn’t get much attention from psychotherapists! This class has a fascinating session that is a sort of an IFS/EMDR hybrid that resolved a longstanding problem with insomnia. It’s packed with a lot of help for insomniacs too.

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Somatic symptoms are sometimes solely physical, sometimes a part trying to protect or communicate that they need help, and sometimes they are a combination of both. This class is packed with information to help you approach somatic complaints in your clients, with mainly an IFS focus.

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This 3-hour class introduces the major concepts of this HUGE topic. It includes a ton of information about this tender topic which so often gets overlooked in therapy, with clients who wonder, “What’s wrong with me, my childhood was fine?” This class includes a brief introduction to Relational IFS (Francois Le Doze), a way to work with the autonomic nervous system in real time to get connected with your client, so they can connect with their parts.

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This class starts out with a case that features emotional neglect that I didn’t get to in the class on that topic. (Think of it as a bonus!) It also includes an interesting demo featuring your truly (Colleen West) in a demo I did with Dick Schwartz, which covers a lot of ground and is a great chance to see Dick work.

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