Jay Earley - Self-Therapy, Vol. 3: A Step-by-Step Guide to Using IFS for Eating Issues, Procrastination, the Inner Critic, Depression, Perfectionism, Anger, Communication, and More

If you are familiar with the basic concepts of IFS and want to learn how to apply it to some common psychological issues, this book is for you. My first IFS book, Self-Therapy , is a basic manual for IFS (Internal Family Systems Therapy). It has helped countless people resolve and heal from troubling psychological issues, as I have discovered from the many emails I receive from people all over the world telling me what a difference the book (and IFS) has made in their lives.

Self-Therapy teaches you how to work on yourself using IFS and how to do IFS peer counseling with a friend. It also gives therapists a thorough grounding in the basics of IFS and how to use it effectively with their clients.

IFS is a powerful form of individual therapy developed by Richard Schwartz, PhD, that has been spreading rapidly around the United States and the world, especially since 2005. It is user-friendly, spiritually oriented, and very effective in working with trauma as well as a wide variety of other psychological issues. IFS has been declared an evidence-based practice by the federal agency that is in charge of such designations. This means that it has been shown to be effective by peer-reviewed research.

Richard Schwartz is the founder of the Center for Self-Leadership, which offers professional trainings in IFS. See www.selfleadership.org for information about these trainings and other aspects of IFS.

Since Self-Therapy only covers the basics of IFS, I am publishing a series of sequels that include intermediate and advanced techniques and insights. Self-Therapy, Vol. 2 (2016) describes advanced techniques for working with protectors. This book, Self-Therapy, Vol. 3 , shows how to apply IFS to a variety of common psychological issues. I have chosen to include psychological issue in this book that (1) many people struggle with, (2) I have studied in some detail, and (3) have some complexity to them, so you will benefit from learning specialized ways of applying IFS to them. More volumes will follow.

Chapter 1 discusses how to work with Inner Critic parts. Chapter 2 deals with procrastination. Chapter 3 covers eating issues and food addiction. Chapters 4 and 5 deal with perfectionism and depression. Chapter 6 discusses how to work with anger and disowned anger using IFS. Chapter 7 shows how to recognize and work with the Passive-Aggressive Pattern. Chapters 8 and 9 deal with conflicts in love relationships; Chapter 8 shows how to understand the sequences of protectors and exiles that get triggered in an argument, and Chapter 9 explains how to communicate in a skillful manner during a conflict using IFS.

Self-Therapy, Vol. 3 will be useful to both professionals and the general public. In order to reach both audiences, I have taken the following approach. The book is written for the nonprofessional who wants to work on him- or herself using IFS. This material is also useful to therapists who want to use IFS with their clients. In addition, I have added comments that are directed specifically to therapists in sidebars titled Therapist Note .

Since this book is a sequel to Self-Therapy , it assumes that you have either read Self-Therapy or you have learned the basic IFS material in another way, perhaps by taking the IFS Level 1 professional training. Therefore, this book doesnt present the basics of IFS. To refresh your understanding of IFS before reading this book, review the Help Sheet in Appendix A or review Self-Therapy .

You dont need to have read Self-Therapy, Vol. 2 in order to understand this book. There are a few discussions in this book that you will understand better if you are familiar with Vol. 2 , but not many.

Experiential exercises throughout this book help you practice the IFS techniques that you are learning. I recommend that you do them, preferably with a friend, so the concepts in this book become grounded in your lived experience.

In this book, I use the Pattern System to show the relationships between types of parts. The Pattern System is a systematic, comprehensive way of understanding personality (see Appendix C).