Description

Despite the diversity of content that brings clients to therapy, difficulty regulating their emotional experience is at the heart of their struggles. Clients can feel hijacked by extreme emotional states, uncomfortable in their own skin, or think or behave in ways they wish they wouldn’t. Polyvagal Theory (PVT) helps us understand what is happening on a biological level when our clients are emotionally dysregulated or stuck in adaptive survival states, such as fight, flight, freeze, or numb. Internal Family Systems Therapy (IFS) offers a compassionate, non-pathologizing approach to healing the wounded, burdened, and traumatized parts of clients’ systems and increasing internal harmony and connection. This workshop explores the integration of IFS therapy and Polyvagal Theory to help clinicians more safely and effectively use the IFS model in treatment. 

Objective 1: Discuss how understanding Polyvagal Theory can help therapists implement Internal Family Systems (IFS) more safely and effectively, especially in the systems of clients with complex trauma. 

Objective 2: Utilize IFS strategies to shift clients’ nervous systems towards regulation and help them access their own capacity for healing. 

Objective 3: Describe the impact of the therapist’s internal state on clinical work and how clinicians can use this awareness to facilitate client regulation and healing.