Internal Family Systems Therapy for Shame and Guilt

"Human beings create and participate in interdependent external systems like families, work environments, schools, and places of worship. In addition to these physiological and external systems, our psyche hosts a complex social system. The premise of this book is that the psyche's social system includes numerous separate centers of motivation with different points of view who communicate by way of feelings, sensations, and thoughts. In this light, we can understand the aftermath of trauma as a systemic response that brings many perspectives to the overriding goal of safety. While others have written about internal family systems therapy with children, in this book we'll be looking at the child parts of adults. In the chapters to come, I show how we can heal from shame-related identity injuries and release young parts from burdened bonds using treatment strategies that any mental health practitioner can learn to use. You need not be trained in IFS to understand my examples or follow my argument"--