One of the big benefits to doing this work in a group is that while you’re shifting your relationship to the inner voice, you’re also surrounding yourself with outer voices that are kinder, gentler, and more caring. One of course impacts the other.

Doing this course for yourself will most definitely translate into benefits for the people you serve. As a therapist, it will help you support your client in a more effective exploration of themselves, and their feelings and experiences.

When we are able to help our clients reliably produce a different relationship to these self-states, symptoms lessen.

No, you do not need to have taken IRF courses to take this inner critics course. But for those of you who have taken it, this course will be an opportunity to deepen into a very useful application of what you learned during IRF trainings.

Yes! You will receive the foundational knowledge you need to move forward with confidence and understanding of this work even if this is your first dip.

Here is a good description of the difference from Anne Weiser Cornell: Internal Family Systems is an excellent method that has helped many people. Yes, there are similarities with Inner Relationship Focusing. And of course there are differences.

At a superficial view, we see a lot of similarities. Both work with parts. Both work by enhancing a strong containing self that is not a part. Both see the inner critic as trying to protect, something to be befriended rather than gotten rid of.

And there are differences, both in approach and in philosophy.

Observing demonstrations of the two methods side by side, you will see the IFS practitioner asking questions. In Focusing, we do not ask questions, because we see questions as inviting quick responses rather than a slower mode of sensing. (We invite sensing rather than ask questions, which can lead to cognitive answers).

You will see the IFS practitioner having the client ask parts to “step aside.” That’s a nice way to invite cooperation in the inner constellation. But in Focusing, we don’t move parts around like that. We place a great emphasis on the quality of relationship between Self-in-Presence and the part. Parts don’t have to step aside if the quality of relationship meets their needs.

In IFS there is a releasing process called “unburdening.” In Focusing, we don’t do things “to” the process. Shifts happen because of… that’s right, the quality of relationship.

At the theoretical level, IFS treats parts as entities that have ongoing existence. When their extreme roles release, they get new jobs. In Focusing, parts are temporary, even though they may last for years. When there is a shift, parts flow into the whole, like rivers into the ocean. There aren’t “really” parts.

In focusing, there is the implicit dimension, the sense of “more” always ready to form. There is the felt sense, where what is unclear is exciting and points to further life. There is the “inner sense of rightness.”

I’m very glad that both methods exist! There are many kinds of people, and people may prefer one or the other. And they can be combined! Best of both worlds.

Every critic, no matter how harsh, stems from a place of care. With patience and understanding, even the sternest voice can find peace.