We are excited to introduce Marshall Huggins, a Licensed Therapist who integrates Internal Family Systems (IFS), existentialism, and mindfulness into his work. Marshall creates a warm, safe, and down-to-earth space, helping clients explore their inner world and align with their values.

Learn more about Marshall’s unique approach and see if he’s the right fit for your journey!

Learn how Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy can deepen friendships, heal attachment wounds, and foster authentic, fulfilling connections.

We are delighted to welcome Kristina, a Licensed Therapist with a passion for Internal Family Systems (IFS), to our team. Kristina’s approach is warm, open, and collaborative, providing clients with a structured, secure space to explore their inner and outer systems.

Learn more about Kristina and find out if she’s the right therapist for you!

Working with Halloween costumes in an intentional way can help us recognize and remember that it’s okay to bring out different parts of ourselves

Explore the surprising role anger plays in protecting vulnerable parts of yourself through the lens of Internal Family Systems (IFS). Discover how this often misunderstood emotion can be a pathway to healing and self-awareness.

We are thrilled to welcome Ashley Thompson, a California Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor, to our team. Ashley specializes in working with individuals who identify as Highly Sensitive Persons, perfectionists, people-pleasers, or planners, helping them navigate life’s challenges with compassion and insight.

Learn more to discover if Ashley is an ideal fit for your therapy needs!

We are thrilled to welcome Peggy, Clinical Social Worker licensed in the state of Oregon, to our clinical team. Peggy brings a deep passion for helping individuals reconnect with themselves and navigate life’s challenges with authenticity and compassion.

Learn more to find out if Peggy is an ideal fit for your therapy needs!

The transition from the spaciousness of long summer days to the busyness of fall can trigger a range of feelings: from anxious parts that emerge to ones concerned with grief and loss. Working with a skilled IFS therapist can help you generate the Self energy that will help you access and communicate with parts from a place of compassion and ease.

As the election season approaches, you might be more aware of feeling stress and anxiety. The polarized political climate, and the very real political outcomes on the line, can generate turmoil in the inner system. It is of course natural to feel concerned about the outcome of an important election. But excessive worry without a supportive framework or practice to act as an antidote can take its toll.

Common experiences of butterflies in your stomach or a gut-wrenching experience along with a growing body of research make it clear: the gut is sensitive to emotion, and emotions are sensitive to the gut. Our bodies and minds are inseparable, and in a constant feedback loop of communication. It makes sense, then, that your parts are inevitably affected by what’s going on in the belly and digestive system.

We know that finding a therapist you feel comfortable with and who is effective at helping you can feel like a daunting search. It’s one thing to decide that you want or need therapy. But from there, how do you wade through the countless treatment types, credentials, and specializations, let alone determine the qualities and ineffable chemistry that makes a therapist a good fit?

One of the most powerful synergies in therapy today is the combination of IFS and EMDR. These two approaches compliment each other. You might have parts that are more comfortable processing the charge of traumatic memories using EMDR before exploring parts in more depth through IFS. On the other hand, the foundation of IFS might make EMDR feel safer and more approachable as you do that work.

We’re excited to introduce you to Friend of the Collective Peter Legård Nielsen. As an IFS therapist, he helps clients get in direct contact with their sub-personalities and free them from incorrect notions, burdens, burdensome emotions, and misplaced roles. Often, these sub-personalities have completely different perceptions of past events than the clients do, leading to the resolution of apparently insoluble mental conflicts in particularly surprising ways through the body.

Learn more about our friend, Peter Legård Nielsen, in this interview!

The IFS model can shed light on what's happening inside us during trauma. IFS recognizes that we all have an inborn, core essence of spiritual intelligence, perspective, confidence and compassion—our Self energy. However, we also have parts that unconsciously take on different protective roles and survival strategies in response to life experiences, particularly traumatic ones.

The Self serves as a guiding light, able to communicate with parts from a place of acceptance and compassion, which facilitates healing among burdened or challenging parts. And, it exists in everyone. In contrast to CBT’s focus on challenging and replacing distorted thoughts, IFS focuses on fostering a depth of understanding that comes from the core of the person—their Self.

Meet Shelly, an LMHC from Des Moines, Iowa, and our next IFS-TC Friend of the month! Shelly runs Compassionate Hearts Therapy, where she passionately uses the Internal Family Systems (IFS) model with her clients, specializing in areas like depression, anxiety, addiction, and trauma. Introduced to IFS during graduate school in Chicago, she fell in love with the model's elegant approach to unpacking feelings.

Read more to learn about Shelly's IFS-inspired resource, "The Parts Inside of Me."

We're thrilled to introduce Ciara McGriskin, the visionary behind Souliology, as our featured IFS friend of the collective! Ciara's journey into the world of Internal Family Systems (IFS) began from her experience as a clinical hypnotherapist seeking to enrich her practice with a complementary modality. Upon discovering IFS, she recognized it as the missing piece she had been searching for.

Driven by her transformative experiences with IFS, Ciara founded Souliology, offering IFS retreats in Europe and the USA. These retreats, predominantly led by Senior IFS Lead trainers, cater to IFS therapists, practitioners, and those interested in IFS from around the globe.

Click to learn more about Ciara and Souliology!

Learn more about our friend, Tammy Sollenberger, in this interview!

We are excited to welcome David Polidi, a Licensed Independent Social Worker, as the newest clinician on our Massachusetts IFS Telehealth Collective clinical team. With a passion for connecting with individuals and helping them feel empowered throughout their healing journey, he has a strong interest in helping those who have experienced trauma.

David believes that counseling is only as good as the connection you have with someone, therefore building authentic relationships, where people feel safe to express all of their emotions without feeling any judgment.

Learn more about IFS clinician David Polidi to see if she seems like a right fit for you!

Whether stress accumulates gradually or hits us suddenly, it can lead to a cascade of effects, from physical illness to burnout. Both mindfulness and the IFS model offer unique pathways toward regaining equilibrium and reclaiming our sense of equanimity. While mindfulness provides a powerful approach to staying present and cultivating inner calm, IFS offers a structured method for processing the past and fostering deep healing in the present.

We're excited to introduce Tammy Sollenberger as our featured IFS Friend of the Month! Tammy is a podcast host and author, and her work offers accessible insights into IFS for both clinicians and individuals seeking personal growth. Tammy's work is driven by her belief in the transformative power of IFS to heal and deepen understanding of oneself and others, and we’re proud to call her this month’s friend of the collective.

Learn more about our friend, Tammy Sollenberger, in this interview!