Special 10th Edition Insert: Stories of Transformation
In celebration of OUTLOOK magazine’s tenth-issue anniversary, the Foundation for Self Leadership is pleased to publish this special compilation of Stories of Transformation. It is a collection of stories written or shared by individuals or couples who have experienced a significant shift in their lives, driven by a new awareness or understanding of sorts...
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Conventionally-Trained Doctor Embraces IFS for Holistic Healing
For many years now, individuals have been finding the uses of the Model to be nearly unlimited outside of psychotherapy. The connections of mind, body, and soul are intricate, and at the same time can be worked with by simple means—a perfect set of larger systems for the applications of IFS. It’s no surprise then, that many have been using the Model to address any ailment they have—be they emotional, spiritual, intellectual, or physical...
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Towards IFS Model Schools: Expanding Emotional Awareness and Learning among School Teachers and Students
Schools are designed as places of learning. They are meant to nurture students and help cultivate their gifts, inspiring them to contribute their best to the world. Instead, so many of our school communities are struggling in the face of growing external pressures and internal climates that feel unsafe, with experiences of disconnection, fear, and anxiety becoming areas of concern among students and adults alike. In these schools, students’ nervous systems are not optimally responding to effective learning and healthy relationships with others...
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IFS and the Journey of Parenting
Frank Anderson, MD, is well known to the IFS community through his presence in the IFS Online Circle, being the first author of the IFS Skills Training Manual, and his Level 2 trainings on IFS, Trauma, and Neuroscience. Using his work as a trauma clinician for over 25 years as a platform, Frank is now directing his attention to the important topic of IFS and parenting. As the father of two boys, Frank has identified that therapist skills and parenting skills are different and require specialized and nuanced attention to maximize the chances of success in a child’s life...
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Children's Self-Led Peace Table Talks
After having taken a Level 1 training and while a head of school in a Montessori-hybrid school in Michigan, Seth found an immediate need for the Model with his students. In his mixed-grade class, the classroom social dynamics had become untenable at times with a group of girls. The conflicts interfered with learning and created unease and frustration, not only with the students but also among parents. Fortunately, the Montessori tradition of Peace Table Talks provided a vehicle to address the matter: when a child has a concern or issue, she/he invites a fellow student to the table to be heard using a talking stick to share the floor. The students were talking to each other, yet the problems remained. Seth decided to introduce IFS to the class in order to help the students build connection and understand each other more deeply...
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The Gifts of Our Exiles
With over 40 years of experience working with clients in the field of mental health, Paul Neustadt, MSS, LICSW, has learned a few tricks along the way. One of these is to listen deeply with a keen, still ear to all aspects of all parts. When he does that, he regularly receives important information from the exiles with whom he has worked—information about gifts they have to offer to the system as a whole...
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From Your Board
Dear IFS Community,

Welcome to the September 2019 Foundation OUTLOOK! Remarkably, this is our 10th edition, and it marks a turn of cycles for us in a number of significant ways. The Foundation was revived in 2013 to enhance the validity of IFS through the development and support of research as well as broadening the accessibility of IFS. The Foundation Board immediately infused into our mission advocacy of IFS in meaningful arenas, as well as serving the needs of the IFS community...
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How are CSL and the Foundation Related?
This is a very common question we get from our IFS community. Many people think they are the same organization. However, The Foundation and The Center are two distinct organizations, with different organizational types.

The Foundation, as an example, is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. The two organizations have separate and independent legal, fiscal, and governance systems. Yet they work together, as they must. After all, they share a similar name, a common vision, and a joint determination to facilitating Self-discovery and promoting Self leadership across the world...
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To Dietitians, Therapists, and Beyond...
Three dedicated therapists are joining forces to bridge the world of eating disorders and IFS, combining a deep knowledge of IFS with their respective therapeutic backgrounds, which include dietetics, social work, and psychology. Their mission statement is to bring IFS to the world of dietitians, therapists, and beyond...
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It Takes a Village: An Interview with Ann Sinko
Ann Sinko, LMFT has been a Lead Trainer for many years and is known for her legacy and cultural unburdening protocol. In this conversation, Ann shares with us how she was hooked by IFS along with some of her thoughts about how the Model can help with healing people and the planet...
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A CSL Update
EDITORS’ NOTE: The Foundation continues to be grateful for our joint collaboration with The Center for Self Leadership. To that end, OUTLOOK will present regular updates from CSL. The dedicated labor of each has a tremendous impact toward global Self leadership when harnessed together. Join us in learning what is new from CSL...
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Growing Communities and the Model: International Peer-Support Groups
The North Shore IFS Peer Group in Sydney Australia aims to support increasing members’ confidence and competence to apply the Model through practice and exchanging useful information about insights, events, and resources. The group was started by Dave Williams (Grad Dip Counselling, Reg. Psych.) shortly after being a program assistant at the inaugural IFS Level 1 training in Australia, which was initiated by Simon d’Orsogna, MA. Dave’s approach is to focus on what each member wants so that each peer gets value, tells colleagues, and thus helps grow the IFS community on the North Shore of Sydney...
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Dream with Us
to have compassion
     ... for ourselves at times of our own failings
     ... and for others when they’re agitated or acting out, knowing that life can be challenging

to exhibit courage
     ... and, when faced with difficult conversations, stand up for what’s right
     ... or be silent when it’s necessary to do so, staying ever true to our core values...
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Executive Search Process Update
The Foundation’s Board of Directors commissioned an ad-hoc search committee in February 2019 to assist in the search for the next executive director. The committee was comprised of board and community members (Harley Goldberg, DO, Chair; Requina Barnes, LICSW; Saul Kerpelman, JD, MSW; Pam Krause, MSW, LCSW; and Vicki McCoy, MA; supported by Toufic Hakim, PhD, serving as staff). Its charge was to provide the board, after screening and initial interviews, a short list of qualified candidates for final interview and selection...
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Introducing Our New Board Member
Requina Barnes, LICSW, recently joined the Foundation’s Board of Directors. We are thrilled to have her as part of our team. She is the owner of Strength, Inc., a private practice where she provides outpatient therapy services to individuals and couples, primarily with people of color focusing on relationship challenges, work obstacles, and trauma in Boston, MA. Requina has worked across populations from young children, adolescents, adults and families, in school settings, court settings, residential settings and mental health clinics for over ten years...
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Introducing Our New Staff
Ilanit Tal, PhD, joined our team at the Foundation this spring as Senior Research Manager. In this new role, she provides leadership, management, coordination, and support regarding IFS research activities stimulated through the Foundation. After completing her PhD in Evolutionary Psychology in 2009, she worked in clinical research at the Department of Veterans Affairs with a focus on burnout, depression, suicide, and bereavement. While at the San Diego VA, she also chaired the hospital’s Complementary and Integrative Health committee and led efforts to connect a community of VA clinicians using IFS, collaborating with them and the Foundation to develop a proposed pilot research program for the VA...
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A Good Grief
A Good Grief, which was produced in Fall of 2018, represents a dynamic exploration of minds and bodies after enduring trauma, through dance, videography, and storytelling. According to the Everett press release, “The artists used therapeutic approaches such as Internal Family Systems, EMDR, and dioramas to explore healing for their own life experiences. Onstage, they dive inward, uncover parts, slip into the unconscious, and look at the body made foreign and disconnected—all in search of a true self. In A Good Grief, Everett presents a journey of fragmented memories, exiled parts, and the hope that dwells in a thriving imagination.”...
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JOIN THE MOVEMENT!

WE ARE YOUR FOUNDATION. THE FOUNDATION IS YOURS.
Be counted as an active member of our growing caring global community. Foster compassionate Self-leadership with your support. Impart the wisdom of IFS and advance the work of the Foundation to those in your circles. It takes a village...it takes you. Please join our efforts!...
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Why Do You Donate to the Foundation?
"As a retired assistant trainer of the IFS Model, I have recently had the opportunity to help the Foundation through the Cornerstone Partners’ program continue its outreach by giving to one of its new programs, enhancing the incredible work of teachers in the classroom.

I am touched by the knowledge that my contributions increase the impact of IFS, taking it from the privacy of the therapy couch to the larger world, with the help of the Foundation. Giving today is my way of thanking the IFS family for its support over many years of working together and offers me a way to remain engaged as the Model evolves." ~ Joy Shivas, LCSW...
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Plan Your Long-Term Gift to the Foundation
Leave a good legacy for a better future. Please remember the Foundation for Self Leadership in your will or estate planning. Help sustain its global mission of research, service, and advocacy into the next generation. All it takes is a quick phone call to your attorney to add a charitable gift to your will...
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Have You Moved in the Last Year or Have a New Email Address?
Don’t miss out on important Foundation updates and latest editions of OUTLOOK. Please update your address and email address so that you can receive the latest from your Foundation here or OUTLOOK@FoundationIFS.org…
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From the Editor
The equinox marks a time, twice a year, of the position of balance of our planet. It provides an opportunity to pause and reflect on the momentum of our lives and our inner harmony; offering a place to integrate mind, body, and spirit—where the whole is always greater than the sum of the parts. In that reflection we become aware of the transformations either just beginning, in progress, or nearing completion. Some of these transformations are short and quick, while others require a much longer and more complex process. Each one significant in the larger scheme of things. You will find counterbalanced in the middle of this, our Special 10th Edition, a special insert containing Stories of Transformation. The special insert has been a labor of love encompassing a many-year gestation...
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OUTLOOK is an occasional bulletin that the Foundation for Self Leadership will publish to share news relevant to IFS, the IFS community, and developments relating to the Foundation. The ultimate purpose of OUTLOOK is to support the Foundation's mission of promoting the notion and agency of Self-leadership.

Do you know of any IFS-related news our community would like to know? Please share with us such developments or happenings within one of these categories: IFS research, IFS within psychotherapy or programming, and IFS applications beyond psychotherapy. Please complete the form on our website or send general information in a short email to Michelle Glass at OUTLOOK@FoundationIFS.org.

If you have any questions, comments, or concerns please reach us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..