Somatic Internal Family Systems Therapy

Somatic IFS: Bringing the body into Internal Family Systems therapy through 5 practical, embodied practices Enhance your clinical practice and patient outcomes by skillfully uniting body and mind—endorsed by leaders in the field, including Richard SchwartzInternal Family Systems helps clients get to know their protective parts and the vulnerable parts those protectors guard. But much of what parts carry never gets put into words: it shows up as a tight gut, a held breath, a collapsed posture, or an urge to push away. Susan McConnell wrote the first IFS training manual and brings a background in Rolfing and craniosacral therapy. Here, she shows practitioners how to work directly with that nonverbal layer of experience.Introduced with a foreword by IFS founder Richard Schwartz, Somatic Internal Family Systems Therapy weaves five interrelated practices into the IFS model: Somatic Awareness, Conscious Breathing, Radical Resonance, Mindful Movement, and Attuned Touch. Each chapter connects its practice to the anatomy and physiology behind it. It then shows the practice at work in detailed sessions with clients facing addiction, trauma, depression, eating disorders, and relational ruptures.Inside, you’ll find:The IFS steps for working with protectors, adapted to track sensation, posture, and tensionBreathing techniques, informed by polyvagal theory, for helping clients shift out of fight/flight or shutdownHow the therapist’s own embodied presence supports a client’s regulationDevelopmental movements (yield, push, reach, grasp, and pull) for completing interrupted protective responsesCareful guidance on imaginary touch, self-touch, and consensual therapist touchFor IFS therapists, somatic practitioners, and bodyworkers, this is a grounded guide to helping clients experience Self as something that’s not just understood in the mind, but felt in the body.

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