Self-Therapy: A Step-By-Step Guide to Creating Inner Wholeness Using Ifs, a New, Cutting-Edge Therapy [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

If you're wanting to learn IFS, GET THIS BOOK. I couldn't repeat that too much.

I took the official IFS Level I trainings, 6 long weekends and many thousand dollars. On the very last weekend I dove into "Self Therapy." It was only then that I got the practical how to of IFS. Jay Earley's writing made it click.

The author made what seemed so vague and impractical during the training come alive. His straight forward writing and descriptive images communicate the practical side. His introduction makes sense to my clients. His condensed version of an IFS session at the back of the book is worth the price several times over. Need I say more? If you want to learn IFS, GET THIS BOOK.

EDIT: One year on, this is still a good book but I now see the market is crowded with parts/ego states therapies and they are all good. I personally am coming to prefer some of the original stuff from the stream of the Watkinses, especially the work of Emmerson which I find technically superior to IFS and more comfortable for me -- in particular, I now don't agree with the parts typology of IFS which I think creates parts unnecessarily. (Yes I do think parts are created or anyway re-created by means of therapy; to observe something alters it.) There is also too much focus on the reality of imagined images in IFS and not enough on their malleability and ultimate unreality or virtuality.

I am docking a star but will let the original review stand below for reference -- I do try to do "longitudinal reviewing" for books of this type, updating after a period of time, because experience is the only real arbiter. (Many reviews here will be from people who haven't tried the techniques at length). One should also explore the parts therapy of Hunter if interested in hypnosis, which I am, and there is a new book by Noricks from last year that I haven't got to yet. Finally I think Schmidt's The Developmental Needs Meeting Strategy is also excellent.

So I recommend shopping around when it comes to ego states therapies. TA and Psychosynthesis still also have much to recommend them. In any therapy based off ego states where trauma resolution is the aim, I believe the typologies need to create freedom and improvisational possibilities for the synthesis of new patterns and in the end IFS didn't allow me to be so creative as I'd like. Personally I develop Self on a different model now too and my transpersonal experience suggests one should be very careful how one defines systemic connections with others -- still, we are all different which is why options are good. I don't dismiss this book but would now be less glowing. Best wishes and good luck! (April 29 2012)

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IFS seems to be expanding now, lots of practitioners and trainings and a certain "hey this works" buzz gathering around it. I can't remember how I heard about it, but I'm very glad I did. I've always been interested in therapies which employ the concept of "parts"/"subpersonalities"/"ego states", but have never felt I got beyond a certain point with the concept. IFS has, so far, proven to be the missing key I needed. It takes parts therapy past anything else I've tried for dynamic psychological self discovery and healing.

Jay Earley's book is for the beginner who wants to practice IFS, including completely alone, which is highly feasible. As such it goes slowly, explains carefully, and contains a lot of encouragement for the initially unsure. It is however far from lacking in experienced wisdom, and I will testify you can do wonderful stuff with it and nothing else.

So what is IFS? Essentially it's a method of healing the psyche that treats 'parts' of the personality as existing in an inner system, with each part playing a certain role. In particular, parts can be seen as broadly divided into two types (at least in Earley's rendition): Protectors, which are open to meet the outside world, but playing a defensive and not fully authentic role; and Exiles, whom the Protectors hide from the world, which are authentic but in pain and dissociated. The basic IFS method, as Earley lays it out, is to get to know Protectors, ask their permission to meet the Exiles they protect, and then heal those Exiles of the burden of trauma or difficult experience they carry.

Another way to talk about how IFS works... Earley says on p. 234: "IFS uses the term _exile_ to refer to what has often been called the _inner child_. However, people often talk about _the_ inner child as if there were only one. In IFS we recognize that there are many inner child parts or exiles, each carrying its own burden. Every exile must be healed in a way that is unique to it..." In practice, it suddenly seems incredible that this idea, which is absolutely correct, has never been seen before. If psychodynamicists had been speaking of 'many superego-style parts' and 'many id-style parts', who knows what rigidities of interpretation would have been avoided these many decades? One could certainly see many other psychotherapeutic models as single instances of the far more flexible internal family systems approach. (Terence Watts' interesting Warriors, Settlers & Nomads model corresponds well with the Managers, Exiles and Firefighters of IFS, as taught more orthodoxly by Richard Schwartz.) IFS gets pretty much by all rigid models, though, with its crafty looseness, developed from many hours' work with real suffering human beings, none of whom needed an imposed framework because we all come with our own that is constantly evolving.

"Self" is the other important concept -- it has a close relative in the "I" concept of Psychosynthesis (see for example Psychosynthesis: A Psychology of the Spirit, and means the core aspect of present-moment awareness in the person which is not a 'part'. Self is a central, grounded, open, spirit-connected aspect of any human being when unblended from *all* parts (and just as Psychosynthesis offers 'disidentification', so IFS gives 'unblending' sequences to remove the influence of all parts from Self). Self is the absolute key to the healing process, since the parts will have become separated from awareness of it for various reasons, and it needs to win back their trust, heal their burdens, and co-ordinate them in a process of gradually increasing self-leadership.

The system is incredibly user-friendly but it's also extremely deep. It gets you right inside the issues and, unlike so many of the more cognitively-based therapies that are popular now, it really does surprise. You know you are dealing with the real stuff of the psyche -- the sudden shifts, the realizations, the sheer off-the-cuff creativity, the insights given by each part painting a truly personal and dynamic picture, yet fully in control. I soon realized that I had been attempting to do similar things to this many times before, and that when I had succeeded in healing trauma in myself, the method had been similar to this, but lacking the overall concept. I'm sure other people will be similarly struck; check out pages 147-8 of Glenn Morris' classic meditation guide, Path Notes of an American Ninja Master, for instance, to see a perfect description of an IFS healing before IFS even existed, triggered by a session of Rubenfeld Synergy (touch therapy). Yes, I really would say IFS has managed to come up with the right systems-based, loose-but-accurate formula to induce such experiences deliberately, yet organically, without any hint of being mechanical or stiff. Something I particularly appreciate is the complete lack of any *combat*. You never *overcome* resistance -- you *honour* it. (None of this 'breaking down the ego' crap.)

I do have some caveats though, and they mostly relate to the fact that this book is for beginners. First, the presentation is a little cutesy-poo, cartoons and all -- you can get the style from the Amazon reader. This doesn't bother me, since I like cartoons, and as a matter of fact I found these, by Karen Donnelly, to be extremely well-done. They even moved me deeply in one particular instance (pp. 210-212). But check it out before you buy if you think this could put you off.

Secondly, and more importantly, Earley only has the space to present part of the system, and unfortunately, I've since realized that what he left out is not really an optional extra! There are important distinctions between different types of Protectors to which he doesn't really give full space, and he doesn't make it clear that Exiles are not always hidden, but break out at times. More crucially, he doesn't mention the topic of Polarization until his 'conclusion' in Chapter 17, where it occupies just a single page... Being experienced and the jump-in type, I started experimenting with IFS before finishing the book, and found myself instantly in a massively-leveraged polarization situation (that is, a situation where different parts pull or push against one another) and had no idea this was normal and to be expected... I persevered, found ways forward, then in the last chapter saw I was just reinventing the wheel, but had to wait until I looked over the original IFS book by Schwartz (review soon) before I got just how central polarization is to the system, and what to do about it. Surely there will be others who experience this.

Schwartz's original inspiration came partly from systems theory -- he opens his book with a quote from Gregory Bateson -- and he really does want to bring true systems theory to therapy, and has succeeded. So there is much more in his original concept having to do with seeing the entire system of parts as working in concert, of which polarization is a necessary concomitant, but this gets a little lost in Earley's more linear set of procedures. Schwartz's model of healing includes much more mediation between antagonistic parts, whereas Earley thinks transformation of parts and lifting of burdens is more primary. However, and this is the central issue, Earley's approach does work as an intro, and is so user-friendly that I still would recommend it primarily if you want to practice by yourself. You will get the idea and you will do good work, if you are slow, careful, and sensitive. Then get Schwartz for the important systems viewpoint.

The only other irritant to me was at the very end of the book. Since IFS works with Self, like Psychosynthesis, it sees a spiritual aspect to what it does -- and I'm all for that, as anyone who's read my other reviews will know. I also think it goes very well with the systems aspect of the therapy, since systems thinking does naturally lead into spiritual considerations and quite rightly. (Lao-Tzu would be with me here!). The problem is that this is presented in the book's conclusion, in a very jejune way, the Self being said to be 'connected to the deeper ground of being... referred to in different traditions as God, Essence, Buddha Nature, Atman, Inner Light or Christ Consciousness." You get the idea. I'd have less problem if it was stated that these concepts had "something in common" with each other and Self, but no, it's simply taken for granted that they're all 'the same', and all the numerous distinctions from millennia of tradition ignored... this is a misuse of terms that's all too common in transpersonal psychology. There is other, more new age stuff too, about 'a new culture emerging' which will heal our industrial diseases, and so forth. Still, all of this occupies relatively little space, and from the psychological point of view isn't too bad. Personally, I'd be very interested in the correlation between a many-parts ecosystem view of mind and polytheism as opposed to a monotheism of divinity and mind, but I don't know if anyone is having that conversation. (If you want to know about where our culture is headed, meanwhile, I'd recommend reading this too, to balance out.)

The main thing about IFS is that it works, and works by honouring systemic processes and knowing just what to do with them, after having plainly worked very hard to arrive at this ingenious and soulful understanding. I really do recommend it to anyone who wants to work on themselves in a deep yet safe manner, because I think you'll find it effective, and fascinating. This excellent book will form a great gateway.

This text is invaluable for clinicians as well as for individuals who want to do internal psychological healing work on their own. Dr. Earley explains each concept in several different ways to ensure clarity and the illustrations are a great visual look at how our 'Parts' interact with each other. He had supplied comprehensive, exciting and 'do-able homework' that walks us through each concept. This methodology brings compassion and deep respect for client's and their 'Parts', while offering an experiential way for us to get to know our Selves.

I am on my second read and still catching nuances that I missed the first time. This will be a book that I will re-read many times and will consult frequently.