IFS Advanced Workshop: Working with Extreme Parts - with Dr. Frank Anderson
Event date: 11/20/2020
Event type: Single day (a day or less)
Workshop Description
** This is an interactive live-stream event**
Many clinicians have been introduced to the core concepts of Internal Family Systems (IFS), a scientifically validated approach that has been gaining traction rapidly as more and more therapists attest to its’ transformative and lasting effects. In this advanced workshop led by Dr. Frank Anderson, one of the most respected and world renowned IFS trainers, participants will further their skills in IFS to develop more sophisticated and targeted interventions for working with “extreme parts” of their clients including:
- Suicidal parts
- Substance Abusing parts
- Self-Harming parts
- Shame-based parts
- Dissociative parts
These extreme parts - often found in clients with complex trauma, attachment trauma and/or relational trauma - were originally developed to protect the client from emotional pain. Unfortunately, they can also serve as roadblocks to therapy and present some of the biggest challenges that clinicians face.
When encountering these extreme reactions, it’s common for clinicians to become overwhelmed or frustrated, lose confidence, and at times even find some of their own “parts” becoming activated. As a result, therapy can get stuck and clients can begin to feel unsafe, causing a vicious cycle that can be hard to get out of.
In this workshop, Dr. Anderson will provide a clear roadmap for how to quickly get to the root of your client's extreme reactions and determine which neuroscience-informed and attachment-informed IFS interventions will best help your client get beyond these reactions — leading to faster, long-lasting healing outcomes.
The workshop will combine didactic and interactive elements including meditation, didactic lecture, experiential exercises and video demonstrations.**Please note that this advanced workshop assumes prior training in IFS; it is not designed to introduce the clinical method itself.
Topics Covered:
- The neuroscience behind extreme parts – and how to explain this to your clients
- How to determine if extreme reactions are rooted in sympathetic activation or parasympathetic withdrawal to help inform the treatment process
- IFS specific therapeutic techniques that shift arousal and withdrawal, allowing quicker access to clients’ traumatic vulnerabilities
- When to take over and “be the auxiliary brain” for your client
- When to speak up and be bigger than the strongest symptom
- When to slow it down, hand over control and trust your client
- When to access the cognitive or work with the body
- Therapist parts – How to stay clear and calm while working with clients in extreme states
- A range of different IFS treatment interventions that include attachment informed and neuroscience informed interventions
- How neuroscience can inform why, how and what IFS techniques should be used to maximize your clinical outcomes
Who Should Attend?
Helping professionals who have had prior training in IFS and who wish to further their skills.
You will receive:
An electronic handout package emailed prior to the workshop and a workshop certificate afterwards. Login details and instructions will be emailed in advance of the workshop.
About The Presenter
Frank Anderson, MD, completed his residency and was a clinical instructor in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. He is both a psychiatrist and psychotherapist and specializes in the treatment of trauma and dissociation. He is passionate about teaching brain-based psychotherapy and integrating current neuroscience knowledge with the IFS model of therapy.
Dr. Anderson is a Lead Trainer at the IFS Institute with Richard Schwartz and maintains a long affiliation with, and trains for, Bessel van der Kolk’s Trauma Center. He serves as an advisor to the International Association of Trauma Professionals (IATP) and was the former chair and director of the Foundation for Self Leadership.
Dr. Anderson has lectured extensively on the Neurobiology of PTSD and Dissociation and wrote the chapter “Who’s Taking What” Connecting Neuroscience, Psychopharmacology and Internal Family Systems for Trauma in Internal Family Systems Therapy-New Dimensions. He co-authored a chapter on “What IFS Brings to Trauma Treatment in Innovations and Elaborations in Internal Family Systems Therapy” and recently co-authored Internal Family Systems Skills Training Manual.