Ongoing IFS Groups

Ongoing IFS groups provide an opportunity to work on personal and spiritual transformation using both IFS and the power of the group. We apply this inner work to a variety of real-life issues and situations.

Everyone works on similar issues at the same time. For example, for a few weeks or a month, each person willwork with an exile who feels inadequate. At another time everyone will work with exiles who feel lonely or abandoned. Another period will be devoted to the inner critic, or defiant parts, or intellectual parts. People learn an enormous amount from observing and participating in each other’s work. And in addition, your parts really feel seen and understood. It is especially important for exiles to be understood, and it is very powerful for each exile to be seen by a whole group of people who are working on similar issues as that exile and so really know from the inside what it feels like.

We will spend time focusing on specific life issues such as speaking in groups, procrastination, intimacy, power dynamics at work, and so on. This gives us a chance to work on integrating the internal healing that happens with IFS into how we actually live our lives. This includes real-time practice, where you focus on noticing and working with your parts as they arise in your daily life. For example, you might focus for a time on noticing when your inner critic is triggered and what exile is being hurt by it.

At times we will also focus on specific spiritual issues, such as opening your heart, being peaceful, living from presence, or finding your life purpose. This involves both cultivating these qualities through exercises and working through the parts that block them from manifesting in our lives.  

The work includes concentrated attention to developing the positive feelings and qualities that are the resolution of these issues. For example, the resolution of abandonment is connectedness, the resolution of workaholism is relaxation and flow, the resolution for the inner critic is self-acceptance and self-encouragement. And so on. In the group, we have exercises for the embodiment and integration of each of these positive qualities and attitudes, many of which use the support of the group.

The choice of the specific parts and issues we focus on will be informed by the needs of the group. This work is organized according to the Pattern System, which is a system I have developed for understanding types of parts. This involves understanding the clusters of parts that arise around each specific issue, how they interact with each other, what their origins are, and how to help them transform. For example, when working with inner critic parts, the cluster also includes the criticized exile, the protected exile, the rebellious part, the part that wants to get rid of the critic, and four different kinds of healthy parts to develop--self-acceptance, self-appreciation, constructive self-criticism, and the inner mentor.

We use guided meditations, group interaction exercises, group sharing exercises, demonstration sessions, practice sessions in pairs, and also homework practice in groups of three or four that involve role playing each other’s parts. People have been very excited about these role-playing subgroups.

We also focus on issues that come up directly in the group, such as interpersonal communication, speaking out, community building, friendship, and assertiveness. We work on these issues in two ways—individual IFS work and group interaction among the members.

This group will is restricted to people who have taken my Basic and Exiles IFS classes. And most people will also have taken the Polarization Class and the Inner Critic Class.