Trauma Training
Foundations of Internal Family Systems Therapy
A Beginner's IFS Training for Therapists and Helping Professionals
Trainer: Crystal Hines, LPC
On-Demand: Available with lifetime access for asynchronous learning. | This course was recorded on November 22nd, 2024.
Foundations of Internal Family Systems Therapy is a beginner-level on-demand training with Crystal Hines, LPC, designed for therapists who want a comprehensive, experiential introduction to the IFS model. You will learn the core theory, essential skills, and clinical application of IFS, including how to build access to Self-energy, work with protective parts, and begin the healing process with exiled parts.
No prior IFS experience is required. This course includes lecture, live and recorded IFS demonstrations, mindfulness experientials, and skills practice in dyads. Walk away with a grounded understanding of the model and concrete tools to begin integrating IFS into your existing clinical approach.
Practical Interventions You Will Learn
In this foundation of IFS training, you'll learn how to:
- Understand the IFS model from the ground up, including its theoretical framework, the concept of the mind as a system of parts, and how that lens changes the way you read your clients' presentations
- Distinguish Self-energy from parts and apply that distinction clinically, using polyvagal theory to help clients and yourself understand what self-energy actually feels like in the body
- Build rapport with protective parts using essential IFS skills, including how to interview protectors, understand their positive intentions, and help clients develop a compassionate relationship with the parts that have been protecting them
- Work with exiles through the IFS unburdening process, supporting clients in accessing and healing the young, vulnerable parts that protectors have been keeping out of awareness
- Recognize and work with your own therapist parts that show up in session, so your internal system supports the therapeutic process rather than complicating it
- Integrate IFS into your existing clinical approach ethically and practically, including how to navigate the limitations of the model and differentiate it from other treatment modalities
What You’ll Learn in This Advanced Training
This training gives you a comprehensive foundation in the IFS model and the core skills needed to begin integrating it into your clinical practice.
By the end of this training, you will be able to:
- Integrate IFS therapy skills into your current therapeutic practice, regardless of your primary modality
- Assess clinical mental health symptoms through the lens of protective parts of self, shifting from symptom-focused diagnosis toward a parts-informed understanding of your clients' internal systems
- Distinguish between parts of self and self-energy, and apply that distinction in session to guide clients toward greater access to their compassionate core
- Develop IFS strategies for getting to know and building safety with protective parts, so clients feel met rather than managed
- Analyze the concept of self-energy through a polyvagal lens, helping clients understand their nervous system's role in accessing calm, curiosity, and connection
- Differentiate the IFS model from other treatment modalities and articulate how and when to draw on it within an integrative clinical approach
Who Is This Course For
This course was designed for mental health therapists who want to learn the IFS model, and it is open to any professional who works with people and wants to understand how parts work to shape human experience. No prior IFS knowledge is required.
Foundations of IFS is a strong fit if you are:
- A therapist who has heard about IFS or seen its impact in consultation and is ready to learn the model properly from the ground up
- Clinically trained but finding that traditional CBT or insight-oriented approaches are not getting to the parts of your clients that most need attention
- An EMDR therapist wanting foundational IFS knowledge before pursuing TTI's EMDR and IFS Practitioner Program
- A helping professional, educator, first responder, or healthcare worker who wants to understand parts work and apply it in your own context
- A therapist looking to deepen your own Self-energy as part of your clinical development, not just add a new technique to your toolkit
- Seeking NBCC or ASWB/ACE continuing education in IFS therapy in a flexible, on-demand format that includes experiential practice
About Your Trainer, Crystal Hines, LPC
Crystal Hines is a licensed professional counselor, TTI trainer, and founder of Align Therapy and Consultation in Firestone, CO. Her clinical work focuses on complex trauma, and she brings expertise in both EMDR and IFS to her practice, consultation, and training.
Through Align Therapy, Crystal and her team support therapists moving from surviving to thriving, offering EMDR consultation, IFS consultation, LPCC supervision, therapy for therapists, and process groups for therapists. She brings a brain-body-heart approach to her clinical work, grounded in her own lived experience as a complex trauma survivor and her commitment to doing her own healing alongside her clients.
Crystal is known for her direct, compassionate facilitation style and her gift for connecting with the parts of people that do not often feel seen. She teaches IFS not just as a model to apply, but as a way of being with clients.
Additional Information
Agenda
Learning Objectives
Pre-requisites
Continuing Education
Course Completion
Cancellation Policy
Free resource from Crystal Hines
This meditation is designed to help you be with parts!
