Internal Family Systems Therapy 

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I offer Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy to support psychological and emotional healing, growth and integration.

What is Internal Family Systems therapy?

Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy bridges the gap between spiritual understanding and psychological healing, offering a compassionate map for integrating your whole being. 

IFS is a therapeutic approach that recognizes you contain what spiritual traditions have always known: you are not a single, solid personality (or ego, or little self), but a multiplicity of energies, voices, and perspectives held within an all-expansive being.

IFS calls this core, essential being Self and describes it with qualities you may already recognize from your spiritual practice:

  • Clarity — seeing without distortion

  • Compassion — tender presence with all that arises

  • Curiosity — meeting experience without judgment

  • Calm — an unshakeable ground beneath the waves

  • Confidence — trusting in your essential nature

  • Courage — willingness to turn toward difficulty

  • Creativity — fresh response rather than old patterns

  • Connectedness — sensing your belonging to the larger whole

This Self is not something you need to create, earn, or achieve through practice. In IFS understanding, it is your essential nature. Some traditions call Buddha nature, Christ consciousness, I Am, the witness, pure awareness, or the soul.

Within the field of Self, you also have parts: these include reactive or protective strategies, wounded younger aspects, and functioning managers who carry you through daily life (and often carrying old pain). These parts are not obstacles to your spiritual path. They are not evidence of failure or lack of progress. They are the very territory of embodied awakening.

How IFS supports awakening

IFS makes "presence" practical and relational

Many spiritual traditions teach presence, mindfulness, or witnessing awareness. IFS gives you a practical, relational way to embody that teaching.

Instead of trying to be present with "everything," you learn to be present with specific parts: the anxious part, the perfectionist, the one who shuts down. You discover that presence isn't an abstract state. Rather, it's Self meeting a part with curiosity and compassion.

This is the difference between:

  • "I should be more present" (a manager part trying to improve you)

  • "I notice a part of me that feels anxious right now" (Self awareness).

IFS supports embodied realization

Classical non-dual teachings point to the truth that there is no separate self. IFS offers what some call a "relative non-dual" approach: at the ultimate level, all parts are expressions of one Self-energy, yet at the relative level, we work with the apparent multiplicity.

This paradox is familiar to anyone who practices:

  • There is no doer, and yet you still show up to meditate

  • All is Self, and yet you still need to set boundaries

  • Everything is already perfect, and yet healing happens

IFS holds both these truths: your essential nature is whole and undamaged (ultimate reality), and your parts need care, witnessing, and unburdening (relative reality). This integration allows for awakening that doesn't dissociate from the body, feelings, relationships, or the messy, beautiful human experience.

Who is IFS therapy for?

IFS therapy may be supportive if you:

  • Have regular spiritual practice but notice certain emotional patterns or wounds don't seem to shift

  • Feel torn between knowing your true nature and parts of you that feel reactive, stuck or "unawakened"

  • Are navigating a spiritual emergence or awakening and need support integrating the process

  • Carry wounds from spiritual communities, teachers, or practices that caused harm

  • Want to deepen your capacity for embodied presence and compassionate self-relationship

  • Are a spiritual teacher, facilitator, or practitioner wanting to integrate your own shadow and projections

  • Feel called to work with your own inner multiplicity as a spiritual practice itself

You don't need to identify with any particular tradition. What matters is that you're curious about the relationship between awakening to who and what you are (Self) and your human psychology, and willing to bring presence to both.

What happens in an IFS therapy session?

IFS sessions are usually 75-90 minutes to allow enough time for deeper inner work. Unlike traditional talk therapy where we analyze your life from the outside, IFS involves going inward while I guide and witness your process.

  • We begin by checking in about what feels most present or important today. This might be:

    • A recent situation that triggered a strong reaction

    • A pattern you've noticed repeating

    • Something that came up in meditation or practice

    • A decision you're struggling with

    • Simply a feeling state you woke up with

    Unlike advice-giving therapy, we're not trying to solve the situation. We're curious about which part of you is activated by it.

  • Once we've chosen a focus, I'll invite you to notice: Is there a part of you that's present around this?

    You might become aware of:

    • A felt sense in your body (tightness, heaviness, heat, constriction)

    • An inner voice or commentary

    • An impulse or urge (to withdraw, to perform, to fix)

    • An emotion (anxiety, shame, anger, numbness)

    • An image or younger version of yourself

    I'll guide you to notice this part without merging with it — creating just enough separation to be in relationship with it rather than becoming it. This is a key skill: recognizing when you're in Self (observing with curiosity) versus blended with a part (seeing through its eyes, feeling its feelings as if they're the whole truth).

  • From compassionate awareness, we gently explore the part. I facilitate this process by asking questions to understand more about the role this part plays in your life. In IFS therapy we enter into compassionate dialogue to form a new relationship with the part. Over time, and as we build up inner trust, we also work to relieve parts of the heavy burdens they carry so that Self leads instead.

  • Toward the end, we return to present time. We notice:

    • How do you feel now?

    • What's different?

    • What do any parts need before we finish?

    • What might be important to remember this week?

The path is not to transcend the pain, but to meet it with presence, compassion and openness. In IFS therapy we gently meet the walls that parts of you created with the love they have always yearned for.

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What makes IFS different from other forms of psychotherapy?

You access your inner world, I guide

I guide, witness, and help you stay in Self, but you're having the actual conversation with your inner world. This builds your capacity to access Self on your own.

Sessions are experiential, not analytical

We're not talking about your parts from the outside. You're turning inward and experiencing them directly. I will help you notice sensations, images, feelings, and messages as they arise in real time.

The pace is collaborative

I follow your lead. If a protective part doesn't trust me yet, we honor that. We go slowly and gently, particularly where there is trauma. We don't push, we develop compassion and trust.

We work with what arises spontaneously

While you might come in with a topic, we stay open to whatever part actually shows up. Sometimes a session takes an unexpected turn because a part that really needs attention makes itself known..

There's space for spiritual experience

If you have a vision, receive intuitive knowing, or experience your parts as energies or archetypes, we honor that. IFS doesn't impose a purely psychological framework if your experience is more expansive.

Integration continues between-and-after sessions

The cultivation of new relationships with parts within you continue between sessions.The goal of IFS therapy is not to make you dependent on the therapist, but to strengthen your Self so you can lead your own inner world with compassion, and presence.

What you need for online IFS sessions

You do not need any prior experience with therapy or IFS.

I recommend that you have a private, quiet space where you won't be interrupted for the duration of each 75-90 minute session. I also recommend that you have:

  • Secure video connection (you will be provided a link when booking)

  • Willingness to close your eyes and turn inward at times

How do I make a booking?

You are welcome to book a session by using the link below. There you will be able to see session times available displayed in your own local timezone.

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Answers to Practical Questions about IFS therapy

How long does IFS therapy take?

This varies widely based on:

  • What you're working with

  • How much protective layering your system has built up

  • How quickly your parts learn to trust Self

  • Whether you're in active spiritual emergence or crisis

Some people work with me for a series of weekly or fortnightly sessions over several months and experience significant shifts. Others stay for longer, going deeper into layers. We can talk about what feels right for you.

What are your fees?

The fee for a standard session is USD140. Sessions normally are between 75 and 90 minutes. Please note that I do not provide a video recording of IFS sessions, but I do provide a written summary of key moments.

Payment via debit or credit card is kindly requested at the time of booking, with a full refund available if a minimum of 24 hours notice is provided.

As I am a registered Australian psychotherapist, I do not work directly with American insurance providers. However I am happy to provide receipts and invoices upon request.