IN THIS ISSUE:
From the Board
From the Editor
Inward & Outward
     Research News
     In Psychotherapy & Counseling
     Beyond Psychotherapy & Counseling
     Community Connections
Operational Update
     Contributors’ Circle
About OUTLOOK
About IFS
About the Foundation

From the Board

Dear IFS Friends and Colleagues:

In these remarkably polarizing times, the need for Self-led people and systems is dramatically clear. Discovering appropriate action on our path forward can be challenging. I certainly have parts that want to react to this state of affairs in compelling ways. Getting them to step back, and listening to them, requires time and attention, and can produce remarkable insight. Not surprisingly, Self-led action arises in relationship and in community. Directly engaging in political discourse is one action; acting to help the lives of others is another. Understanding and using the principles of IFS is uniquely valuable, even more so in these times.

As an independent nonprofit organization, the Foundation for Self Leadership has engaged in this work since 2013 in partnership with you and in collaboration with CSL. We formed to help establish the validity of IFS as a therapeutic approach and to support the integration of IFS principles both within and beyond the therapeutic sphere. The need for this expanded application has grown since then, and the opportunities have grown simultaneously. The successful response to these needs requires all who are able and willing to join in the effort, each in his or her own way.

Building on our initial successes, the Foundation Board has now focused our efforts to support the expanded strength of research validation and to develop opportunities to bring the fundamental principles of IFS to communities that would not necessarily have access to them—specifically focusing on youth and marginalized communities. In this edition of Outlook, you’ll learn about these important, exciting, and inspiring developments.

The need to create and expand these opportunities is more urgent than ever. Our success will be dependent upon the number of people helping. On behalf of the Foundation Board, we invite you to join us in any/every way that is right for you as we bring notions of IFS and Self-leadership to our world in this time of need. We look forward to growing with you and successfully lending a Self-led hand in these compelling times.

Sincerely,

Harley Goldberg, D.O.
Chair, Board of Directors

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From the Editor

It is comforting that our very own community, with ever-growing Self leadership, continues to bring hope to those desperately searching for deeper connection and healing. Each member of our community is valuable and plays an important role in his/her world.

Here in these pages of OUTLOOK, we bring you glimpses of the varied ways in which members of our community are serving as hope merchants to the masses and securing continued validation of the Model through empirical research. Stories of IFS within schools, spiritual organizations, and on screen are sure to captivate your interest.

As the illusion that we are separate steadily crumbles, each day more people realize just how inextricably we are all connected. When one begins to have a palpable sense of this internally, it is much easier to feel it within one’s family, community, and even our world at large. We thank each of you for doing your part to catalyze deeper healing and connection in our world. __MLG

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A German study published in May 2017 (see https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s41465-017-0023-6) reveals the positive impact of knowing one’s own system of parts. The study, conducted by Tania Singer, PhD; Lukas Hermann; Anne Böckler; and Fynn-Mathis Trautwein of Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Berlin, and Tom Holmes, PhD, of Western Michigan University in Kalama- zoo, examined the effects of 141 individuals who took part in a contemplative training course over a nine-month period. Subjects participated in three types of training modules, each lasting three months: (1) basic mindfulness training based on Jon Kabat-Zinn’s practice; (2) self-compassion training based on the work of Kristin Neff and Chris Germer; and (3) a perspectives module based on IFS.

Results of the study conclude that the number of inner parts that subjects were able to identify in themselves, particularly negative parts, positively correlated with their ability to understand the intentions and beliefs of others. “This insight could prove important in an increasingly complex and interconnected world where taking the view of others, especially those from different cultures or with different religious backgrounds, becomes ever more difficult and ever more necessary,” say the study’s authors. Though the study did not speak of the impact of compassion, the study validates what many of us in IFS have known—the positive impact we can have in our world when we know (and heal) our parts.

Tania will discuss the study in depth and present Training Your Mind, Heart and Brain: Effects of a Nine-Month Contemplative Mental Training Program on Brain Plasticity, Well-Being, Compassion, the Self, and Health on Saturday afternoon at this year’s IFS Conference.

In addition to funding a pilot study that examined the efficacy of IFS in treating complex trauma, which showed promising results and is now in the process of being published, the Foundation has also granted a research award through an independent review to a study assessing physiological effects of IFS on clients and therapists.

This study is led by the Computational Behavioral Lab at Northeastern University (Rick Palumbo, PhD, co-PI) and the Trauma Center at JRI (Hilary Hodgdon, PhD, co-PI). The study, which started in May 2016, involves additionally four research investigators, four clinicians, a clinical supervisor, and a project coordinator.

Approach: Electrodermal activity (a measure of sympathetic nervous system activity through a two-unit system strapped to the wrist and

chest), motor movement, body temperature, and cardiac activity are measured for both client and therapist during one IFS session. Patterns and relationships between subjective, behavioral, physiological, and client-therapist dyadic processes associated with IFS are then statistically analyzed.

Progress: Assessment codes and study procedures have been finalized, IRB approvals secured, and monitoring equipment acquired and calibrated. The study has entered its second phase. Eleven subjects were determined eligible (from 36 screened), five of whom sat for their IFS session and completed the study. Additionally, scales have been adopted for both client and therapist to provide, as they watch the session’s video following the session, their self-reports on their own physiological arousals and their psychosocial states, including the therapist’s assessment of their access to a Self-state during the session.

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BEYOND INTIMACY FROM THE INSIDE OUT

Toni Herbine-Blank, MS, RN, C-SP needs little introduction these days, but for those of you who have not yet heard of her, she is an IFS Lead Trainer, developer of Intimacy from the Inside Out© (IFIO), and Clinical Specialist Psychotherapist in Durango, Colorado. It’s a pleasure to bring to you a conversation with her about her evolution and of her contributions to IFS.

OUTLOOK: Welcome, Toni. Thank you for taking some time to sit down with me and our IFS community. Because different individuals have their own story of how they came to IFS, I’d like to begin by asking you: What drew you to IFS?

Toni: Good to be here, Michelle. Mine was a unique story. One, because I didn’t know anything about IFS when I signed up for my Level One in 1999/2000, though it came highly recommended from a very good friend of mine. And two, I was not immediately enamored with the Model and had quite a bit of resistance to it. But one day it clicked, when one of my trainers, Michi Rose, spoke about the relationship between protectors and exiles, and that’s when my curiosity piqued. Equally important was watching Dick work, which was very profound.

O: You have come a long way since then. Now, after having used IFS for many years, what do you like most about it?

TH-B: The thing that was most moving to me, back when I started working with my individual clients with IFS, was being part of this very gentle, respectful way of helping people understand and learn to love themselves in a new way. You know, assisting with all parts making meaning of their system and loving and appreciating who they are through unblending—that was extremely moving to me. Sometimes that blows people away, but this idea that you can witness yourself so profoundly and change your feeling toward yourself and even more over time, is one of the things I like so much about the Model.

O: I agree, while unburdening brings such amazing healing, unblending is incredibly profound and often easily overlooked. As you grew with IFS, at some point you became a trainer and contributor of training curricula. What inspired you to become a trainer and how has it been for you?

TH-B: I had no ambition to become a trainer when I was in my L1. It was Dick Schwartz really; he approached me pretty early in my training and asked if I would be interested. I asked if that entailed doing demos in front of groups. When his answer was yes, I quickly declined. “You work on that part and I’ll get back to you,” he said, and that’s how that started. I give a lot of credit to him and Mike Elkin for helping me work with my parts who had terrible performance anxiety. I love being a trainer, I really love it! I love inspiring therapists to become better therapists and helping them to work

with their parts to learn what it means to be really present and hold space for someone’s work. It’s the place I feel in Self a lot of the time. It’s a wonderful feeling.

O: That’s a great story and what a wonderful impact you are having on so many people, both directly and indirectly. Was the curriculum specific to IFIO or was that before IFIO was developed?

TH-B: It was before IFIO and actually before the Level Two advanced training existed. While being part of an advisory group with Dick and IFS becoming more organized, I along with other trainers developed a long weekend for couples’ work. I wrote the curriculum for this training. This, along with three other weekends, became L2.

O: Is this how IFIO came to be?

TH-B: Yes! People would get to the end of that weekend frustrated because there was not enough time to delve into basic protocols, let alone more complex situations. I took Dick’s protocol for couples and developed a way to teach it in a way IFS therapists could apply it and then began to add to it. In 2010, at my suggestion, we did a pilot training, which was filled instantly with a huge waiting list. This gave the message that people were interested in learning how to move from individuals to systems, which entails a different skill set, as we work with a lot more parts. [Both laugh.]

O: Very true! It sounds like it was an organic unfolding. To me, IFIO is an exquisite and beautiful process, both to witness and to be part of. How would you best capture what IFIO is about?

TH-B: It’s the belief that your ability to attach, connect, and love externally is only going to be exponentially greater if you can do that with yourself. This has been said many times before. It’s a spiritual focus, but it’s not what’s current in couples therapy. This is a differentiation model, as opposed to the popular attachment models, which are beautiful. What we are asking people to be able to do is differentiate internally, which is Self-to-part, before they look to their partner as their primary resource. Then to bring that as a resource to change the conversation and to do healing internally and within

their relationship with the Self-parts model. This is a paradigm shift and is different for a lot of couples therapists. To unblend and regulate and understand yourself and how you think about yourself, is what Dick calls a U-turn. I talk about that we do the U-turn so that we can Re-turn in a different state of mind. We are not asking them to go in and meet all their own needs, but to wait and unblend and have stability, Self, and kindness toward themselves to be able to change their conversations.

O: This is such a beautiful way of being both with ourselves and one another. It brings hope for a vastly different world. I have only heard positives about the IFIO training, that they are very popular, and one needs to commit immediately when a training opens up. Why do you believe IFIO has become such a big influence, at least within IFS?

TH-B: I think that it’s one of many offerings that is coming out of the IFS model. I do believe that, in this world of ours, people are desperately looking for something to change their relationships, whether they are intimate or global relationships. People are really struggling. Therapists are also struggling to find ways that really work to help people in relationships, change their conversations, and deepen their ability for relating and loving. It’s a desperate need, universally. Also, I have a core staff of twelve highly skilled IFS/IFIO therapists and this makes a huge difference. They are very dedicated and have helped me to develop it. We are all so very bonded as a team; relationally, that profoundly affects the training. Their feet are solidly in the mud with me. I am so blessed!

O: This is so true, especially given IFIO is about relationships, both inner and outer. You and your team are modeling this with your trainees. Last year, along with Dick and Pam Krause, LCSW, you put together the first online IFS Circle training and now this year have expanded the online learning with the IFS Continuity program, how has this been for you?

TH-B: Pam Krause and I put together the teaching of the Model for the Circle program, which is now in its second year. We had a blast with each other and did it in record time, it was a lot of fun! It’s really a great contribution and Dick’s pieces add a lot. It’s a real hoot and is a lively hour. My portion of the

Continuity program runs from September through December. I’m assuming it’s going to be the same thing. I don’t believe these are anything to replace the training. They are a taste. We created twelve one-hour modules in the Circle, whereas the L1 is 120 hours of training, so, it’s really not a replacement. It’s a huge invitation for people to understand the Model and see what the process is like.

O: The fun and camaraderie you and Pam shared was obvious and it made it all the more inviting. It may be too early to tell, but are those who took the Circle grasping the Model more thoroughly when they begin their L1?

TH-B: Yes, I think people are. Without some investigation, we won’t know for sure. I do think that people are coming into their L1 with a better understanding. Plus, they have all the lessons and videos to go back to for life, which is a great resource.

O: That’s right. Well, with so much you’ve already done with and for IFS, where do you anticipate IFS going in the future and its impact within our world?

TH-B: I believe, and it is my impression, that all of a sudden, things have exploded. For a while along the way, those of us who love the Model asked, “Why are we not more visible?” But for a variety of reasons, including research, IFS is getting on the map in the mainstream now. I only see that developing, not only in the psychotherapeutic community, but I know there are people very interested in working with people in business and executive coaching, for example. It seems as though it’s beginning to spread into different modalities more quickly now. So, I imagine that is the trajectory and it’s going to keep going that way. I’m very happy for us all, especially Dick, that IFS is being noticed more.

O: Yes, it certainly has a lot momentum now. These are exciting times for the growth, validation, and expansion of this healing model. Thank you so much for all you have done and continue to do and for your time in sharing yourself with the community.

TH-B: You’re welcome, it’s been my pleasure. I love this community.

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Research Validated IFS Scale

In 2003, Lia DeLand, MS, created the IFS Scale, an IFS-based personality scale that allows therapists an advantageous overview of a client’s internal system. The 57-item questionnaire asks individuals to report how often they experience different feelings and thoughts. Their answers are then organized into ten subscales (Self; parts: Pleasing/Abandoned, Addictive/Impulsive, Anxious/Pessimistic, Dissociating, Exiles, Raging, Self-Critical, Self-Harming; and Total Parts). This classification assists therapists in determining the following about a client’s system: (1) what types of parts dominate; (2) how extreme the parts are; (3) the present degree of access to Self-leadership; (4) the type of manager and firefighter parts protecting; and (5) upon retest, the progress made with IFS therapy. This overview of how a client’s system is organized may assist therapists in determining how long it might take to engender inner harmony and balance. While very useful for clinical purposes, it also has merit for use in research protocols.

The scale, studied in 2001–2002 by Lia as part of her master’s program, along with Dawn L. Strongin, PhD, and Richard C. Schwartz, PhD, yielded very strong reliability (Cronbach’s alpha, a = .98). The scale was tested on 1,174 American and Canadian subjects who did not represent a random population, with 46% identifying as having experienced “more or much more” trauma than most people and the majority being female and Caucasian. Despite the population sampled, the very strong reliability was anticipated to be representative of a wider population, and doctoral students have been curious about completing follow-up randomized studies.

Already translated into French and Spanish, the scale has translation interest for Norwegian and South Korean as well. It is available for a small fee for clinicians. Clients take the test online while in the therapist’s office; it takes less than 10 minutes to complete, and profile results are immediately available for therapist interpretation.

“The Model is so elegant, so important and powerful. It changed my life! I love using it with my clients, and I want to support any further research that anyone wants to do with it,” reports Lia.

IFS researchers receive the scale gratis, with Lia’s request that they work with and make a donation to the Foundation for Self Leadership because, as she shares, “I believe in the Model and want to support anyone using the Model to strengthen and disseminate it, so it becomes more frequently used. I love what the Foundation is doing!” For more information, contact Lia at liadeland5@gmail.com.

[Note: Lia’s IFS Scale is different from the IFS adherence scale developed for research purposes to ensure fidelity to the IFS protocol. The latter, whose inter-rater reliability study was funded by the Foundation, can be found here.]

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Beyond Psychotherapy
& Counseling

Teaching Teachers: IFS in Inner-City Schools, a Pilot Program

Strengths & Balance Inside Out: IFS in Coaching

The application of IFS in the field of life and executive coaching is rapidly developing. “Multiplicity of mind” is gaining acceptance as a viable lens for enhancing client self-awareness and growth. Getting to know the strengths of the subpersonalities (i.e., parts) is still a relatively novel approach to helping clients engage and balance their strengths. Coaches can use Self energy to help clients bring Self to their parts, enhancing inner collaboration in service of reaching their goals. The increasing traction of multiplicity-of-the-mind approaches in coaching is leading to publications, articles and books on IFS in coaching.

IFS-enthusiast, executive coach, coach trainer and prolific writer, Margaret Moore, MBA, has written numerous peer-reviewed papers, articles, and books. Her 2016 Harvard Health book, Organize Your Emotions, Optimize Your Life: Decode Your Emotional DNA-and Thrive, is steeped in IFS theory. Aimed at getting to know one’s emotions to bring harmony to one’s Inner Family, discover unknown strengths, and improve self-mastery, Margaret, also known as Coach Meg, inspires readers to tune inside to improve their outer lives. One of her peer-reviewed articles, Coaching the Multiplicity of Mind: A Strengths-based Model, published in 2013 in the Global Advances in Health and Medicine journal, features a strengths-based model of IFS and anticipates that it “...may be used as a tool for training coaches to bring their whole selves to coaching engagements, in addition to leading to coaching processes that help clients better access, understand, and balance the inner voices and forces that drive their emotions, thoughts, beliefs, and behaviors.”

Having been a coach trainer and coach since 2002, it wasn’t until five years ago when Margaret took her first IFS workshop that she began to uncover some of her own hidden strengths: introverted and extraverted parts that had many gifts to offer, which had been eclipsed by her protectors. This important realization inspired her to explore her own inner system intimately, investing an hour a day to interview her parts and settle their agitations. From her inner work, she developed a two-pronged coaching approach: (1) she helps people see that we all have a collection of parts that form our ego identity while eclipsing quieter parts;

and (2) she teaches a quick technique, known as the “declipse habit,” aimed at settling a part’s agitation, where individuals bring appreciation and acceptance to an agitated part before asking it to step aside to enable Self leadership and access to higher wisdom. Sound familiar?

Moore has just written the first coaching book chapter on IFS in Coaching, to be published by Springer (2018) in The Professional Coach’s Desk Reference. The chapter describes four models of IFS in Coaching, including models from collaborators Toufic Hakim, Ph.D., Laura Crandall, Ed.M., Mark Hurwich, MBA, and Isabel D’Arenberg, along with Moore’s model.

Now Margaret is connecting her strengths-based IFS model to personality frameworks used by coaches such as the Enneagram, Meyers-Briggs, Jung cognitive processes, and the Big Five Factor model, to help clients see their dominant and less-dominant parts. “My introverted intuitive part (aka Meaning Maker) wonders daily about a unified theory of the personality, “Margaret remarks about synchronizing the personality frameworks with IFS. “It’s like each personality model sees one piece of the same elephant,” continues Margaret; “I want to help everyone see more of the elephant and appreciate a common scaffolding for all the personality frameworks.” Coaches can now help their clients increase their impact in the outside world by growing understanding of their inside world. For more information on Margaret and links to her many publications, visit her website.

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Award winning filmmaker and IFS coach Jen Kleiner, MFA, CPLC has partnered with CSL to make a documentary about multiplicity for mainstream audiences. It follows several subjects from all walks of life exploring how people deal with and embrace their multiplicity, as well as provides historical context with supporting research on how parts awareness transforms the way humans interact, develop and heal. “We want to look deeply at humanity, explore and shed light on polarizations, both internal and external, and bring awareness to the notion of inner diversity and Self leadership,” explains Jen.

The inspiration for the documentary arises from a life-long journey of wanting to understand how good people do bad things, why cultural icons mirror shadow aspects of us in the meta-story, and explore the polarized aftermath of last year’s election. In the film, singer songwriter Alanis Morissette shares her struggles with addictions and polarizations around being an activist and a mom. With warmth and self-effacing depth, she brings candor to her own experiences of ascertaining the dream of fame only to realize that, behind the curtain, it doesn’t do anything to fulfill parts unless Self can be present for them. The film will spend a lot of time exploring how embracing multiplicity brings about physical, emotional and

spiritual transformation, even for people considered hopeless or unredeemable. “In order to accept outer diversity, we need to embrace inner diversity,” Jen says.

The film is being produced by veteran filmmaker Tani Cohen (No Pay Nudity, and HBO’s Mr. Conservative: Goldwater on Goldwater) with the Center for Self Leadership as Executive Producer. Full funding for the documentary is still needed for completion.

If you would like to contribute, please contact jen@intuitiveartists.org.

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Searchable Online IFS Resource Database Going Live

We announced the IFS Annotation Project back in the October 2015 edition of OUTLOOK. The Project, led by Jenn Matheson, PhD, LMFT, and funded by the Foundation, consisted of a comprehensive review and “annotation” of published IFS articles of relevance to researchers who wish to study IFS. Developing this important resource supports the Foundation’s priority of expanding empirical evidence for IFS, deepening its recognition as an evidence-based clinical practice.

The annotation of all publications on IFS is a large undertaking, and the work is ongoing with the help of volunteers. While the database currently comprises only a fraction of all IFS publications that were completed in Phase I, we plan to have every publication on IFS annotated and listed in this

database. The Annotation Project volunteers continue to review and annotate every clinical article and book that includes IFS.

This list of annotated published IFS articles will be accessible through the Foundation’s website, as a component of a new Resources section being developed, as a searchable Resource Database that will go live at the end of October. The programming for the database was made possible through the work of Joshua Lisojo, MS, and our own volunteer website developer Grant Leitheiser, LMFT.

Conforming to copyright laws, this online database provides a listing of the publications, along with information highlighting the research applicability of each piece. Other searchable variables help users determine the appropriateness of each document for their own needs. Each entry also contains source information to help locate the original document. Some of the content articles may be found on Open Access platforms; others may be accessed through university or public library systems.

The Annotation Team is always looking for new volunteers. New volunteers will be trained and given a list of articles to review and annotate. Please contact Jenn Matheson at research@FoundationIFS.org to inquire further.

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How Can IFS Help Soothe the
Immigrant Experience?

Much of the last year has seen a renewed social and political dialogue
on issues of immigration and the plight of immigrants seeking refuge
in the US and around our world. Many immigrants come to our shores
not only with their own recent experience of trauma and dislocation but also
with family and cultural histories that carry many legacy burdens.

The effects of these experiences shape narratives, and “parts” expression, in both the immigrant communities and elements of the host society. They have profound implications for who we are as nations and present a challenge to our very identities. Will the self-protective forces that are triggered by immigration be the last word, or will we find the resources to welcome newcomers to our shores in a spirit of safety and openness to their stories? How we collectively address the opportunity that immigration presents will not only define the experience of those who seek refuge on our shores, but will also define the very nature of the refuge that we have to offer.

Through the IFS Model, we assert that all parts are welcome. A healthy personal system cannot emerge without that affirmation. Like individuals, social groups operate as a system in which the affirmation that all parts are welcome is equally important to a harmonious and depolarized society. Rejection of immigrant communities is a rejection of critical parts of our collective Self. Such rejection has the inevitable effect of feeding the very fears that rejectionists seek to protect.

As a child of immigrants who grew up in Poland and survived the horrors of Plaszow, Grossrosen, and Auschwitz, I am keenly aware of the emotional burdens and history of trauma that many of these immigrants bring to

our shores. In my own personal history, IFS has been an incredibly effective tool to enable me to gain perspective on the inherited effects of trauma and dislocation. It has helped me reorient my worldview, albeit 70 years after World War II. How different would the journey of immigrant survivors and their descendants be if they had the opportunity to experience IFS shortly after their arrival on our shores? How different would the experience of the host communities be if they were able to understand how their own stories shaped their attitude toward strangers?

In my role as a member of the Foundation’s Board, and on behalf of the Foundation, I would like to issue an invitation to the IFS community to explore with us ways in which IFS might be brought to immigrant communities. The Board is considering how to serve communities in need through the IFS worldview and practice. Might it be a survival package or a helping hand during a challenging transition? Might it be a way for communities to reconcile and create a greater sense of Self?

We welcome your ideas and look forward to supporting strategies and programs to help immigrant communities feel welcome as they adjust effectively and peacefully to their new environment. Please feel free to reach out to me with your insights around this theme. I can be reached at Lester@FoundationIFS.org. __Les Fagen, MA, JD

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Inspiring Self-leadership: An Update on Mount-Hike

In April, OUTLOOK featured Ray Mount, PhD, who had just set about on a six-month, 2,200-mile pilgrimage along the Appalachian Trail to access more Self leadership as he prepared for retirement and as a fundraiser for the Foundation. Extreme winds kept him from finishing the summit of Mt. Katahdin on September 28th, his expected completion date. At the time of this publication he anticipates having crossing the finish line the first week of October. Along the way, he raised a total of $7,305, to date, toward bringing more Self leadership into our world. Having only just crossed the finish line, OULTOOK invited Ray to share some of his insights.

Although he felt he had received what he had sought—connection with nature, spiritual renewal, and time to work out new philosophies to take into retirement—when he reached Harper’s Ferry, the half-way point, he kept going. Why? “I completed this hike, because I started it. It’s as simple as that,” Ray shared. While pushing himself to finish may have initially felt self-abusive to some of his parts, he learned how to deeply be with himself in a very nurturing way. This led to many insights, one of which was of self-critical parts releasing judgment.

“I learned to look back down the mountain and revel over what I’d just done, rather than look up and ahead with apprehension and self-doubt.”

Ray reflects, “I learned to look back down the mountain and revel over what I’d just done, rather than look up and ahead with apprehension and self-doubt. And I rediscovered and enabled one of the huge missing “c-words” (i.e., qualities of Self) —confidence. Confidence that my loyal and, at times, extreme protectors could stand down and let Me (Self) handle it. When I climbed slippery rocks and my parts were scared, I’d sit down and hold the fearful parts until their fears subsided, promising that we didn’t need to keep climbing until those parts were comfortable.”

Looking back on the six-month “retreat from life” along the Appalachian Trail, Ray realized his initial generalized intentions had solidified. The fact he learned to hike in Self-energy ignited a strong desire to bring those lessons learned along the trail of living in Self-energy forward, as he transitions back into “normal life.” This means being an active and intimate part of the IFS community, including a commitment to further fundraise for the Foundation and by introducing IFS to environments with veterans, in schools, and with adolescents in wilderness therapy programs.

He envisions creating opportunities for people to not only witness their parts, but to “hang out” with them. “To me, this was key: I spent so much time with my parts, that it gave me an opportunity to coordinate (harmonize) their efforts in a way that we now feel like a team or tribe. Each part making a valuable contribution, rather than each vying for an opportunity to be heard or creating a void of Self where they could take over,” he reports. To assist others in having similar experiences within their own systems brings him much excitement and joy. Ray continues, “The Model, with parts (protectors and exiles) and Self, has become so very real for me. My parts became my hiking buddies, to the degree that I have not felt alone, insecure, or vulnerable for a long time; yet, I have spent most of the last 6 months alone with very little contact with the outside world.” Having taken over 5,000 photos, Ray also intends to create slide-show presentations specifically about this hike as it pertains to the Model and Self-leadership. He invites you to connect with him to bring this to your area.

The Foundation extends congratulations and appreciation for both his success in his personal endeavors with this hike, for the funds he brought in to continue to advance IFS through our missions, and for his continued desire to be an integral part of the community moving forward—one step at a time. His many adventures along the trail were captured in his blog.

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