Hey Everyone,
It has been almost four months since my introductory post. I have been fully occupied by family, summer projects, and over the last two weeks, a new semester of school (taking Archaeology, Anthropology of Religion, Elementary Statistics, and General Psychology). While I have been tracking my symptoms and have read Internal Family Systems Therapy, 2nd Edition & The Body Keeps the Score in that time, I have not been devoting any real time to self-care other than a few minutes of autogenics sporadically.
In mid-July, I did find a new therapist because I felt that I needed support while I was working out how to proceed with IFS on my own. He has some limited IFS training but uses it only in a family therapy setting. While he seems to have quite a bit greater understanding of trauma than any of my previous therapists, he says that he "sees therapy through the lens of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy." I think that CBT is fatally flawed, both in general and more specifically for treating anyone with trauma in their past. I see his help as being temporary while I get a secure footing with self-guided IFS.
Today, for the first time, I searched for IFS-related guided mediations and used a short one for meeting protectors and then I journaled my experience. It was the first entry in my mental health journal since June. I am hoping that some of you may have experience in self-guided IFS and can point me toward methods that worked for you.
As an aside, I am a Christian and while I have used Buddhist or other guided meditations, I strongly prefer guided meditations that are more in the vein of being "dogma-free." I have previously seen "The Mindful Movement" as mostly generic, but I am trying to work on developing an IFS orientation right now. I am not a visual person, so I have a little bit of a handicap, I think.
Sláinte Mhath,
Reboot
It has been almost four months since my introductory post. I have been fully occupied by family, summer projects, and over the last two weeks, a new semester of school (taking Archaeology, Anthropology of Religion, Elementary Statistics, and General Psychology). While I have been tracking my symptoms and have read Internal Family Systems Therapy, 2nd Edition & The Body Keeps the Score in that time, I have not been devoting any real time to self-care other than a few minutes of autogenics sporadically.
In mid-July, I did find a new therapist because I felt that I needed support while I was working out how to proceed with IFS on my own. He has some limited IFS training but uses it only in a family therapy setting. While he seems to have quite a bit greater understanding of trauma than any of my previous therapists, he says that he "sees therapy through the lens of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy." I think that CBT is fatally flawed, both in general and more specifically for treating anyone with trauma in their past. I see his help as being temporary while I get a secure footing with self-guided IFS.
Today, for the first time, I searched for IFS-related guided mediations and used a short one for meeting protectors and then I journaled my experience. It was the first entry in my mental health journal since June. I am hoping that some of you may have experience in self-guided IFS and can point me toward methods that worked for you.
As an aside, I am a Christian and while I have used Buddhist or other guided meditations, I strongly prefer guided meditations that are more in the vein of being "dogma-free." I have previously seen "The Mindful Movement" as mostly generic, but I am trying to work on developing an IFS orientation right now. I am not a visual person, so I have a little bit of a handicap, I think.
Sláinte Mhath,
Reboot