Clinician Spotlight: Nancy Novak, LMHC
Internal Family Systems (IFS ) is a therapeutic approach with universal appeal. However, every person’s story is unique, and every person’s life can be better understood and navigated with the right tools. An IFS Therapist can help you find a way through whatever is hurting, holding you back, or keeping you from living more authentically.
The IFS Telehealth Collective is pleased to have Nancy Novak, LMHC, on the team and is this month’s featured clinician. Nancy is a Certified IFS Therapist based out of Florida who shares her personal story and how she sees IFS as a tool for navigating life.
Q: What is your professional background?
NN: Currently, I’m licensed as a Mental Health Counselor in Florida and a Certified IFS Therapist. My interest in counseling was renewed when I was introduced to IFS. Prior to that, most of my Mental Health Counseling had been with children, and I had a full career as a teacher and counselor in the public school system. So it’s interesting that my work with children and my training in play therapy now enhance my work using IFS with adults. After all, we all had childhoods and are influenced by our early experiences and circumstances.
Q: How did you discover IFS, and what drew you to it?
NN: It seemed serendipitous that I found IFS at a time in my life when I wanted to engage in meaningful work and dive deeply into a personal life review. During my early years, I witnessed and was impacted by disruptive events and adverse conditions in my family of origin and with others close to me. Even though I had been in therapy, I was still carrying burdens that were causing me pain and anxiety and limiting my quality of life. Then, while attending a workshop on eating disorders, IFS was mentioned as a non-pathologizing method of therapy. My interest was sparked! A short time after that, I attended a Level 1 training near where I lived, and I also began working with an IFS therapist to address my personal issues. That is how my IFS journey started seven years ago.
Q: What do you especially like about the IFS model?
NN: One of the things that I immediately appreciated about IFS is that it focuses on what has happened to a person rather than what is wrong with them. Bringing awareness and understanding to what has happened fosters healing and results in more harmony and ease on the inside. Although we can’t change the past, inner healing changes the impact that the past has on us. IFS is transformational.
Q: Describe your approach to working with clients.
NN: What first comes to mind is how much I respect and appreciate my clients as unique individuals. They each have their own personal, family, and cultural histories and their own set of circumstances, characteristics, beliefs, and ways of being in the world. I deeply love and respect this.
Conditions that foster emotional and psychological healing include safety, acceptance, compassion, curiosity, and freedom to explore and express. It is my job to help create these conditions so that emotional and psychological healing can occur for my clients. I believe that there is inherent wisdom and a healing intelligence inside each of us as humans. In IFS, we use the term Self. I continue to learn, study and work with my own parts so that I can be as Self-led as possible in my sessions with clients.
Q: What do you want for your clients?
NN: First of all, I want my clients to be heard and seen. I want to really “get” what they are experiencing. Secondly, I want the therapeutic relationship that my clients have with me to be as authentic and real as possible. This means that it will have some of the qualities of other relationships – sometimes things will flow, sometimes things will be unclear or hard to talk about, sometimes there will be laughter and sometimes tears. I want our relationship to be productive so that my clients get the support and changes they seek. I want what is hurting them to be eased and for them to take what they learn and gain from therapy and use it to live with greater well-being and fulfillment. Ultimately, I want them to heal.
Q: What is your favorite analogy you use with your clients to describe IFS?
NN: I think of the work I do with clients as akin to an explorer and guide traveling together. In sessions, we move at a pace that feels safe and comfortable, and I honor each client’s insights, intuition, and individuality. Clients bring their experiences and concerns along with hopes and desires. I bring my presence and compassion along with my skills and knowledge of the IFS model. This is the journey of Self-discovery and inner relationship building!
Q: How do you stay grounded in Self energy?
NN: My answer honestly has to be, “I don’t.” I don’t stay Self-led all of the time, and I am not sure anyone can or does. What I can say is that I more readily notice when a part is activated and blocking Self.
As IFS therapists, we’re trained to work with our parts to lessen the likelihood that they will interfere in our sessions with clients. We practice how to come back into a state of Self-leadership as quickly as possible. Doing my own personal work and being in a relationship with my own parts is one of the best things that I can do for my clients.
Self-energy is not something we switch on and off. I think of access to Self as more like a dimmer switch – sometimes it is bright and many qualities of Self are present. At other times, the light is dim yet, courage comes shining through, and we are able to do difficult things, or a ray of compassion is present, and this allows us to open a space for more light to come in.
Q: What brings you joy?
I appreciate music, nature, and good food. I enjoy visiting gardens and am fascinated by the plant world. Gardens, parks, and beaches are pretty much the only places I go since COVID. I am fascinated by places of worship, cathedrals in particular, what man has created, as well as by the sky and how it changes with the weather, sunrises, and sunsets.
I enjoy silence and solitude. I enjoy deep connections and often find this readily with my clients, young children, and the elderly.
I am grateful for my connections within the IFS Community. I enjoy sharing IFS with others.
So, what brings me joy? Joy is like Self - always there, but not always accessible. It resides deep within and is also fed from a Greater Source. There is much suffering in the world right now on various levels. I am grateful for IFS and the "going in and being with."
I feel a sense of joy when a client has found or experienced something of value and expresses this, even better when it comes with a genuine and spontaneous expression of appreciation. This is more of a peaceful, grateful sense of joy.
Q: What else would you like others to know about you or IFS.
NN: Sometimes, people come to IFS therapy after having experienced other types of therapies and recovery programs. Some come to IFS, and it’s their first experience with therapy. Either way is acceptable. I say, “nothing is lost, and much is to be gained.” I think of IFS as a way of fine-tuning because we work with parts and believe that everyone has Self. This is fascinating and wonderful work, and I am grateful to have found it for myself and that I can bring it to others.
Q: Is there a favorite quote that you would like to close with?
NN: It would be impossible for me to pick one favorite quote. I collect quotes and find that different ones apply to different situations. I often remind my parts of a quote by Martin Luther King.
“You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just the next step.”
A quote that came to mind at some point in my IFS training is by Maya Angelou.
“When you learn, teach. When you get, give.”
and then a little voice inside me said, “And when you find something that helps you, use it to help others.” That’s why I’m now an IFS Therapist. That’s why I’m here.
Does Nancy Novak, LMHC, sound like the right fit to help your wounded parts and honor your healing journey? If you are based in Florida, contact our Client Care Coordinator or call 503-447-3244 to schedule a consultation.
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