IFS (Internal Family Systems) Health Therapy

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Nancy Sowell, LICSW Related seminars and products

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Nancy Sowell LICSW, is an Internal Family Systems lead trainer and consultant in private practice on Cape Cod and in Newton, Massachusetts. She is a teaching associate at Harvard Medical School in the Department of Psychiatry at the Cambridge Health Alliance, where she has been a clinical supervisor for many years. Nancy has been a psychotherapist since 1992, working with individuals, couples, and groups. She has pursued training from many therapeutic schools of thought and in various therapeutic techniques, such as hypnosis, biofeedback, EMDR (Eye-Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) and meditation. She integrates mindful awareness of the body, emotions, thoughts, and deeply held beliefs, as they influence our mood, behavior, health, and relationships. Specializing in behavioral medicine and IFS-based treatment for pain and illness, Nancy co-created an IFS treatment program for rheumatoid arthritis patients in a pioneering research study at Brigham and Womens Hospital in Boston. She knows both personally and professionally the power of Self compassion in healing and restoring health.

Speaker Disclosures:
Financial: Nancy Sowell maintains a private practice and has an employment relationship with Harvard Medical School. She is an IFS Trainer and Presenter with the IFS Association of Paris, the IFS Institute of Barcelona and Madrid, and the IFS Institute. She receives a speaking honorarium and recording royalties from PESI, Inc. She has no relevant financial relationships with ineligible organizations.
Non-financial: Nancy Sowell is a member of the Society of Behavioral Medicine, the National Association of Social Workers, and the New England Society for the Treatment of Trauma and Dissociation.

 

Martha Sweezy, PhD Related seminars and products

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Martha Sweezy, PhD, is a part-time assistant professor in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, a research and training consultant at the Center for Mindfulness and Compassion at the Cambridge Health Alliance, and a psychotherapist at a private practice in Northampton, Massachusetts. She has published articles on IFS in peer-reviewed journals, co-edited two books on various applications of IFS, and co-authored three treatment manuals on IFS (on trauma, couple therapy, and now addictions), as well as the second edition of Internal Family Systems Therapy with Richard Schwartz. Her next book, which explores shame and guilt in the context of psychic multiplicity, will be published by Guilford Press in 2023.

 

Speaker Disclosures:
Financial: Martha Sweezy maintains a private practice and has employment relationships with Harvard Medical School and Cambridge Health Alliance. She receives royalties as a published author. Martha Sweezy receives book royalties from Psychotherapy Networker and PESI, Inc. She has no relevant financial relationships with ineligible organizations.
Non-financial: Martha Sweezy has no relevant non-financial relationships.

Richard C. Schwartz, PhD Related seminars and products

IFS Institute

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Richard Schwartz, PhD began his career as a family therapist and an academic at the University of Illinois at Chicago. There he discovered that family therapy alone did not achieve full symptom relief, and in asking patients why, he learned that they were plagued by what they called "parts." These patients became his teachers as they described how their parts formed networks of inner relationship that resembled the families he had been working with. He also found that as they focused on and, thereby, separated from their parts, they would shift into a state characterized by qualities like curiosity, calm, confidence and compassion. He called that inner essence the Self and was amazed to find it even in severely diagnosed and traumatized patients. From these explorations, the Internal Family Systems (IFS) model was born in the early 1980s.

IFS is now evidence-based and has become a widely-used form of psychotherapy, particularly with trauma. It provides a non-pathologizing, optimistic, and empowering perspective and a practical and effective set of techniques for working with individuals, couples, families, and more recently, corporations and classrooms.

In 2013, Schwartz left the Chicago area and now lives in Brookline, MA where he is on the faculty of the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.

Speaker Disclosures:
Financial: Dr. Richard Schwartz is the Founder and President of the IFS Institute and maintains a private practice. He is a consultant with Portage-Cragin Mental Health and has a employment relationship with Harvard Medical School. He receives royalties as a published author. Dr. Schwartz receives a speaking honorarium, recording, and book royalties from Psychotherapy Networker and PESI, Inc. He has no relevant financial relationships with ineligible organizations.
Non-financial: Dr. Richard Schwartz is a fellow of Meadows Behavioral Healthcare and is a member of the American Family Therapy Academy and the American Association for Marital and Family Therapy. He is a contributing editor for Family Therapy Networker. Dr. Schwartz serves on the editorial boards for the Journal of Feminist Family Therapy, the Contemporary Family Therapy, the Journal of Family Psychotherapy, and the Family Therapy Collections.

Additional Info

“For those living with chronic illness who ever wondered whether they possessed any real agency over the course of their condition, this book is for you. Written by three experts in their fields, it guides the reader through a well-researched and explained path toward healing. This is an essential addition to any thoughtful bookshelf.”

—Nancy A. Shadick, MD, MPH, Division of Rheumatology, Inflammation & Immunity, Brigham & Women’s Hospital; associate professor of medicine, Harvard Medical School

“As the first book describing the intersection of IFS therapy and health and illness, this is a must-read for clinicians but also serves as a compassionate and hopeful companion for those suffering with pain and chronic illnesses. Nancy Sowell picks up the thread from her collaboration in the groundbreaking IFS research study demonstrating improved outcomes for patients with rheumatoid arthritis. Readers are walked thoroughly through the compassionate process of IFS health therapy to show us how well-being is possible for those with chronic illness.”

—Cece Sykes, LCSW, primary author of IFS Therapy for Addictions and senior IFS trainer

“Scientific research increasingly demonstrates that early life trauma and stress contribute to the onset and perpetuation of chronic illness. In IFS Health Therapy, the authors bring decades of combined experience working with clients using the innovative IFS model to alleviate the impacts of trauma and stress among people with chronic health conditions. Nancy Sowell led the experimental intervention for the first randomized controlled trial of IFS at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, which was published in 2013. The study demonstrated reductions in depression and improved quality of life among people with rheumatoid arthritis. Since that time, those of us who treat and research how to support people living with chronic illness have eagerly awaited this book’s publication. Learning how to calmly be with symptoms of chronic illness, how to have compassion for parts reacting to living with the illness, and how to alleviate the toxic stress affecting the mind and body are at the core of not just surviving but thriving. This book lays out a compelling relationally driven approach to help readers learn how to do that themselves.”

—Zev Schuman-Olivier, MD, founding director of the Center for Mindfulness and Compassion, medical director of outpatient addictions, and director of addiction research at Cambridge Health Alliance; associate professor in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School

“Nancy Sowell has written a groundbreaking and humane guide to understanding the indelible relationship between physical and psychological healing. Meticulously researched and lucidly written, this book should be required reading for anyone who suffers from chronic illness, pain, or the symptoms of unhealed trauma. That is, it should be required reading for almost everyone, but especially those interested in taking an active role in their own recovery. Destined to become a modern classic of health literature, it has already become a precious touchstone for me.”

—Melissa Febos, author of The Dry Season and Girlhood, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, and Roy J. Carver professor and director of the Nonfiction Writing Program at the University of Iowa

“This book is a thoughtful and important extension of IFS into the realm of physical health and illness. Nancy Sowell, along with her coauthors, brings a grounded, respectful voice to this work. She writes with clarity and compassion, honoring the protective roles of parts and the innate wisdom within every system. The book offers clinicians and clients a gentle yet impactful way to listen and restore internal balance to parts injured by trauma and other burdens that dysregulate the body and affect health.”

—Toni Herbine-Blank, MSN, developer of Intimacy from the Inside Out (IFS-based relationship therapy) and coauthor of the IFS Couple Therapy Skills Manual

“Nancy Sowell has been one of the most important teachers of my career. The tools she has taught me have transformed my practice and the lives of my patients. Now, in this book, she has made those tools available to everyone. Written with Martha Sweezy and Richard Schwartz, it does what I have searched for across decades of practice: it explains, clearly and scientifically and with deep compassion, why our patients suffer the way they do—and what can actually help. Grounded in solid science and rare clinical wisdom, it traces the path from early adversity through the nervous system to the symptoms that fill our offices, and back out again through IFS-informed tools that work. The people who encounter these techniques will find not just symptom relief, but a fundamentally different relationship with their own suffering. This is a gift to every healer and to every person who seeks their help. I am deeply grateful to these authors for writing it.”

—Charles Silberstein, MD, medical director, Martha’s Vineyard Community Services; Martha’s Vineyard Hospital, Department of Psychiatry

“IFS Health Therapy is a clear, compassionate, and deeply practical guide to understanding the mind–body system through the lens of IFS. The authors illuminate how trauma, chronic stress, and shame shape internal experience, offering a nuanced explanation of autonomic states, chronic arousal, and allostatic overload. Although written for a broad audience, its insights into chronic stress pathways have powerful implications for understanding the cumulative impact of racial trauma on communities of the global majority. Readers and clinicians working with members of the global majority will find the framework especially helpful for recognizing how protectors adapt to ongoing experiences of discrimination, systemic inequities, and intergenerational stress—and how, through the healing of exiled parts, these burdens can be witnessed, unburdened, and transformed. IFS Health Therapy stands out as a comprehensive, invaluable, and highly relevant resource for clinicians and anyone interested in healing through IFS.”

—Tamala Floyd, LCSW, IFS psychotherapist and author of Listening When Parts Speak: A Practical Guide to Healing with Internal Family Systems Therapy and Ancestor Wisdom

“IFS Health Therapy offers a much-needed map for clinicians entering the complex terrain of chronic stress and illness. Its nuanced case studies will be of considerable value to both experienced clinicians and those new to the model. My physician parts relax in the presence of this depathologizing and compassionate approach and feel hope toward shifting the language of ‘difficult to treat’ to ‘What’s going on here?’ The authors beautifully weave scientific knowledge with their extensive clinical wisdom in a gift to us all.”

—Risa Adams, MD, IFSI trainer and coauthor of It Doesn’t Have to Be This Way: A Physician’s Guide to Radical Self Care

“My experience as a national women’s rugby player who has had multiple injuries and my 30 years as a muscular therapist have shown me that injury and chronic pain are rarely just physical. Pain has a story that’s often accompanied by emotional trauma. This book provides the language for understanding that experience. The IFS-based treatment shows the reader how ‘parts’ live not only in the mind, but in the body, and how their healing can bring physical as well as emotional relief. I’m especially inspired by the potential for interdisciplinary collaboration. When IFS-informed psychotherapists and bodyworkers begin to share a common map, the possibility for client care expands in powerful ways. This book feels like an important step toward that future—one where healing is truly integrated across disciplines.”

—Mary Gail Sullivan, former captain of the US women’s national rugby team (Rugby World Cup winners, 1991); muscular therapist and former instructor at the Muscular Therapy Institute of Cambridge, MA