Self-Therapy, 2nd Edition

Well....first of all, before I say anything, a 5-Star rating just has to be awarded to this book. Wow, Jay has really covered the subject masterfully, you couldn’t really ask for more of an author. So thank you Jay for working through the writing of this, it seems as though it must have taken a lot of careful effort to do so.And so on to my personal reflections....first, I’d like to say that IFS is paradoxically amazing. Why paradoxically? Because the model could so easily be accused of being a big placebo, silliness really, no science, make believe, etc. And yet, no - it really does have a power and an efficacy like nothing else I’ve ever encountered in the world of psychological therapy. For a as yet mysterious reason, it really does work. But yes, if you’re a logical scientific skeptic you may feel yourself needing to just give in to the imagery and allow your rational mind to step back from analysis...which will in return allow you to experience a much different and more effective form of understanding your internal and even external problems. So this is really something powerful and fascinating.First of all, one begins with the puzzling question of the ontology of sub-personalities. As if reading Jung, one can doubt that any collective unconscious exists doubt that there is any validity whatsoever to archetypes....and yet it does seem to give us a model to make sense of the inner mysteries of the mind....since there really is no firmly established theory of mind nor of the nature of consciousness, one may as well go ahead and give room for a Jungian landscape of animate entities within.From here, through several generations of psychological theory, we get to IFS. Your feelings and drives and opinions and emotions are not merely neural firings of electrons but rather cohesive sub-personalities with each it’s own intentionality and agency, affecting you in myriad ways. One might understand this in parallel with studies of the ego structures, which have powerful influence over the reality we presume ourselves to be immersed in. And yet these are no more than provisional mental structures, beyond a Self can conceivably exist.Take this to a more literal level and you arrive at IFS. Your inner family is quasi-literal, a community of protectors and injured exiles hiding within who mean well but cause us constant strife and pain until they are re-educated by the loving non judgemental true Self of Buddhism (or Hinduism - the Altman). Once this unfettered and healthy seat of consciousness is identified and made the central orchestrator of your life the parts gradually “unblend” (step back) and allow healing to occur by the very proactive leadership of this wise and loving Self.Still with me....it’s really quite something, but I must say this: I was never able to experience a moment of higher consciousness in my half century life until I had an IFS session with a therapist...and then I did. And it really is indescribably good. There really is a non-troubled, seemingly external untainted Self in there. I felt it. Honest. Really. I experienced it. It happened.So, if you just read this and never experienced it it can seem like silly talk, but give in to it, try it yourself of with a therapist, and watch how immensely useful it becomes to you.Now, finally, just like my review, the words go on and on and on. It is a giant model and will take a lot of time and work to internalize and gain traction with. There are steps and processes and intuitions and meditations and and and .....huh. It can get really tiring. But I would just have to say, it’s worth the effort.If you’ve been plowing though self help and psychological spiritual readings for years and feeling still somehow stuck...Turn to this. Really. Try it. It’s different because it really does work. And by the way the language is all common every day easy to understand. No obscure Pali scriptures or lofty abstractions.Done.

I think the book is excellent - I've already recommended it to numerous people. Internal Family Systems is the best thing I'm come across in the psych world in the course of reading a fair number of psych books in my 44 years, and this book by Earley does a great job of explaining it.IFS is not the simplest thing in the world to explain in writing, yet the book nails it by combining clear illustrations, good organization and thoughtful writing. It also has numerous exercises you can do yourself. And a section of tips on doing IFS with a partner, and on working with a therapist.The book is written to be accessible to the general public, which is the only broad-based introductory IFS book I know of yet that is in good measure written for the public (i.e. not written for therapists). It's largely written for the person who will be going through therapy or wants to practice IFS on their own or with a partner. I think even having the awareness of the concepts and info will help most people, even if they don't do the exercises.The great thing about the above is it gives IFS a better chance of making a bigger impact on the world than is possible simply through therapists. There are only so many therapists, and only some know much IFS and relatively few have been trained in it, or are now slated to be trained.Besides letting more people do it on their own, I think IFS therapists in general will benefit from it because I think a good number of people who read it and find IFS appealing will at some point in the upcoming years of their life will go to an IFS therapist to experience the added benefits of therapy or tackle harder things that need a therapist. Kind of like how the Grateful Dead became the highest grossing tour band in the U.S. because they let people record their concerts and share copies for free. More people got copies of the music, liked it and then went to concerts, bought t-shirts and bought CDs. The more people who are introduced to IFS through books like this, the more the average IFS therapist will have people knocking on their door looking to do it.One small note is that while the tagline of the book mentions "healing your inner child," my impression is that according to IFS and to the author (Earley) and my own experience of myself, most people are healing several inner parts of themselves, including some adult parts that are not serving them well. While I don't care about sub-titles, I thought I would mention the above to clarify in case it's needed for anyone that this is not some half-baked new age book talking only about healing an inner child. As the first half of the tagline conveys, IFS works with all parts of our personality, and tries to get all aspects of who we are more healthy to better serve us. Healing the childish parts of us that are often unconscious is certainly an important part of the process, and the book is a multi-dimensional approach to those parts and other parts of who we are.In case you haven't heard of IFS, it is a respected psychological system and is used primarily by licensed therapists and clinics, and recommended by many respected leaders in the field. The founder of it was the co-author of one of the best selling textbooks on marriage and family therapy used by universities, and who taught at one of the top schools in the country. It's not a passing fad and not a new-age gimmick with the aim of selling books. IFS is not family therapy - Schwartz used the systematic thinking common in family therapy to discover that we have our own internal set of sub-personalities or parts that combine to form who we are. Often some of the parts are on track and some are not, and need some assistance from us in coming to serve us better.The book focuses on how you can learn what the parts of yourself are, how they operate, and how you can help them learn and mature to become better at serving you. Doing so takes time. Don't expect to read this book or any book, and have easy answers or have most things figured out just like that. It takes ongoing time and attention. My guess is that most people will need to read the book again in a year and delve deeper in the second time.Overall, the writing in Self-Therapy is lucid and understandable, without dumbing down. I think the book would also be helpful to therapists looking for a strong intro to IFS, or to therapists who know some about IFS and want to know more. When you consider that the founder Richard Schwartz was able to help a lot of people when he first started doing IFS, and it was only part-way developed when he first started doing it and he had no book with lots of details explaining it to help him, I would assume that a high quality therapist could read this book and begin using some of the concepts in their practice.If you click on my profile, you'll see that I'm a real person, and that I give things poor ratings as well as good ones, and that I don't often give something such a strong review.If you stumbled across this book while surfing the net, I strongly recommend you plop down the small cost to get it. It might well change your life. And at the least, I think almost all people will get at least $15 of value from it, enough to be worth the cost. It's very rare that I find a book I can say that about.

ユニークな絵とたくさんの事例を使ってIFSについて解説してくれています。絵があることで、IFSを直感的に理解しやすくなっており、肩肘張らずに読むことができます。一般向けのIFSといったところでしょうか。

I bought this book for my partner who is in prison and who suffers from psychosis, major depression and anxiety. One of the biggest problems with the prison system (among many) is their lack of mental health services for their highly mentally ill population. My partner gets to see a therapist once a month for an hour if he's lucky, and is given medication, but it did very little to help.I finally bought him this book when his prison was in the middle of a COVID lockdown for an outbreak. He was in solitary confinement on a mental health hold (normally mental health holds are very short but due to the lockdown occurring while he was there, he wasn't able to leave due to quarantine reasons for two months), unable to call me, with very few distractions except for books and a pen and paper. A situation that could make even a sane person go mad.IFS became a real lifeline for him, and he now practices it every day. He sent me all the conversations with his "parts" and was able to uncover past traumas and unburden himself. Now he says "all my demons are on the same side" and when lockdown ended, he was able to actually socialise with other inmates rather than hide in his cell, was able to feel positivity about the world, was able to feel that he could HELP others during his time inside rather than feel that this part of his life is utterly wasted. I honestly have never seen him in such a good mental place, even BEFORE his incarceration. It's incredible. He's not totally cured, but he's MUCH MUCH better. And I think he'll get even better with further practice.Thank you IFS! I am eternally grateful for what you have been able to achieve for my loved one. I would recommend this for anyone, especially anyone who cannot access traditional therapy (for financial reasons, because they're incarcerated, or because traditional therapy hasn't worked).

While this book is an excellent resource—and probably the best book I’m come across that explores Internal Family Systems (IFS) for those that are suffering—I find it a bit difficult to work with.Firstly, since it’s pretty long-winded, some people (especially those that struggle to read or concentrate) will probably prefer to start with the “Self-Therapy Workbook” which is structured almost identically, but is a much lighter summary. I found the workbook much more approachable, especially when I was triggered and in distress—times when a mountain of words would have just been more overwhelming. For those who’ve been through the workbook and want some extra detail and background information, this book will help fill in those gaps.Secondly, and what I struggled with the most about this book, was the predominantly left-brain, logical, “male” perspective that it presented on the process. At times it felt a little too process-oriented, almost formulaic, with its numbered steps. I kept feeling like I was dealing with my parts like patients in a clinic rather than children worthy of love and nurture. Thankfully my experience in IFS psychotherapy sessions gave me a much more warm and loving experience when relating to my inner parts, and I was able to draw on that while doing some of the exercises in this book. But I wish the book was written with a little more warmth, empathy, compassion, tenderness and love, so that I could draw on that during the exercises. Perhaps it’s because I’m a sensitive, empathic male, but I suspect many women (especially those with angry or neglectful mothers) will yearn for a more relational and emotionally-sensitive approach.So for the reasons above, I struggle with the book. There’s a lot of good information within for my brain to absorb, but less of the warmth and love my broken heart needs to really thrive.

Loved Jays detailed style, this is a great resource for anyone learning IFS or wanting to deepen their self healing abilities

I liked the theory and the case studies but this is really just one way out of many that are out there for self healing. It reads straight forward but in practice to do this alone is near impossible. It's the difference between reading about yoga and trying to do it yourself vs having a yogi teach you. I think the author truly has something here but communicating that to a wide audience through a book while also trying to teach people how to do this themselves weakens the book overall. I read this a couple of years ago so I'm going on how it impacted me since then. I think about it occasionally so I wouldn't say it wasn't worth reading, but it is just another tool to help people reflect on themselves.