Internal Family Systems

Because there’s no ‘i’ in ‘me’

Neuroscience has finally caught up to what the Buddhists knew thousands of years ago - that’s we’re mosaics; amalgamations of systems and parts rather than a single, homogenous “I.”

We all have different "parts" of ourselves. We all know this intuitively. If we didn’t have different parts, we could never be in conflict with ourselves. No one would ever have failed at a diet, because there would only be one self, and that self wanted to be healthy. No one would ever procrastinate, because there would only be one self, and that self wanted to get stuff done. But of course we know that’s not true. Some part of me wants to be healthy, and some part wants to live on cookies and ice cream. Some part of me wants to get things done, and some part wants to binge watch my favourite show.

We all have parts.

Technically, these are neural networks - interconnected brain pathways that are organized around different biological drives and form different aspects of our personality. While we all have these different parts, how they have developed and the beliefs they have internalized depend on our environment and are different for everyone. 

Internal Family Systems and Ego State Therapy are built on this understanding and provide a way to access and work with not just the adult logical brain, but the deepest parts of ourselves - the ones that hold the key to moving from insight to transformation, from "knowing" to "believing."

Because there's a world of difference between knowing every human has value and believing we are valuable. 

Featured
Conversations with Clients: Invisible Traumas
Conversations with Clients: Invisible Traumas

The first conversation I have with every single client. Why? Because trauma isn’t what a lot of people think it is. And that can lead to invisible traumas - traumas that are left unseen, unacknowledged and untreated.

Deep Dive: EMDR, A Primer for Patients
Deep Dive: EMDR, A Primer for Patients

Imagine our brain as a room with one giant filing cabinet in the centre of it. The filing cabinet is made up of many drawers (representing memory networks), which are filled with many files (representing brain cells). At birth, most of these files are strewn about the room haphazardly, with relatively few being stored in the filing cabinet. During the course of our life, the files in the room are gradually organized into drawers of the filing cabinet.

Stress: The Great Drain on Our Health Account
Stress: The Great Drain on Our Health Account

Our body has two basic operating systems; the “fight or flight” system and the “rest and digest” system.  Both of these systems are vital and we need them both, but we need them in the right balance. And unfortunately, as a society, we are drastically out of balance. Our bodies were never meant to be exposed to a sustained stress response, which is why chronic stress is implicated in obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, autoimmune disease and countless others. 

Deep Dive: Implicit Memories & Our Brain's Automation System
Deep Dive: Implicit Memories & Our Brain's Automation System

Implicit memory governs much of our behaviour. Such memories are like unconscious mental software packages - they quickly compare present events to past experiences, make assessments and predictions about the current situation, and initiate the appropriate reaction. And while for the most part, this is very adaptive, it comes at a cost. 

Shorts: The Window of Tolerance
Shorts: The Window of Tolerance

What makes something traumatic for one person and mildly disturbing for another? Why does the idea of public speaking leave one person exhilarated and another paralyzed with panic? Our nervous system has an ideal climate; a Goldilocks zone in which it operates best. This zone is called the Window of Tolerance, and where we are in relation to it has tremendous impacts on our mood, emotional state, and mental capacity.

The T Word
The T Word

In the realm of mental health, the word “trauma” can invoke a lot of different ideas and associations. There tends to be a general consensus around what is sometime referred to as “Big T” trauma, while there is somewhat less agreement in the realm of “small t” trauma. The difficulty with categorization provides a clue as to how the premise of the question might be flawed.