Reaching the Inner Child: Using Integrated, Brain-based Internal Family Systems Therapy to Treat Trauma and Personality Disorders

Presented by: Hannah Smith, MA, LMHC, CGP (she/her)

When: Monday, April 21st, 2025 | 9am – 4:30pm Pacific Time

Where: In-Person at the Shoreline Center

Continuing Education Credit Hours: 6 CEs | Cost: $190.00

Modern neuroscience has provided us with valuable and targeted information to help in understanding and healing the traumatized brain, including those with severe developmental trauma who later end up with “personality disorder” diagnoses.

Unfortunately, much of this valuable information remains abstract and out-of-reach to those doing the actual work of trauma treatment.

This workshop will address these issues by combining insights from neuroscience with an evidence-based treatment approach known as Internal Family Systems.

Internal Family Systems is a treatment modality created in the 1980s by Dr. Richard C. Schwartz. Trained as a couples and family therapist, Dr. Schwartz realized the same dynamics he found in family systems also presented within individuals. His work reveals the brain’s natural ability to create different parts, known as Managers, Firefighters, and Exiles, in order to protect the core, undamaged self. His theory is non-pathologizing, allowing us to see “diagnoses” as “strategies” and recognizes the protective nature of the “Internal Family.” Using modern brain science along with these well-established concepts, we can isolate and treat the “Inner Child” – those parts that carry traumatic memory – in more effective ways.

In this dynamic and experiential session, you will learn the underlying framework of Internal Family Systems both from traditional and neuroscience-informed perspectives, allowing for greater understanding of yourself and your client and providing for higher precision in therapeutic work. By applying narrative and imagery-based techniques in real time, you will incorporate what is known about brain processing into your work, thus enabling you to more efficiently and safely reach “the Inner Child.” Attendees will grow in their practical understanding and application of neuroscience to aid in reducing shame, increasing client engagement, improving outcomes, and – as an added bonus – reducing clinician burnout!

OBJECTIVES: 

• Consider Internal Family Systems (IFS) structure and techniques from both traditional and neuroscience-informed perspectives
• Apply a non-pathologizing model of treatment to reduce shame and increase client ability to grow and change.
• Use “Externalization of Parts” and other somatic, imagery- and analogy-based techniques to develop the concept of the “Inner Child” to promote experiences that create new neural connections that lead to lasting change and healing
• Learn techniques to teach internal communication, self-compassion, and define and measure success in more effective ways
• Communicate modern neuroscience principles of neuroplasticity, mentalization, and somatic responding as it relates to IFS and the “Inner Child,” in a user-friendly manner
• Apply newly learned skills in real-time to build competency and confidence as practitioner