IFS Intensives
I don’t know about you, but sometimes a 50-minute therapy session just flies by and it feels like we’re just getting to the important stuff by the time we have to wrap things up. Intensive sessions offer a more spacious opportunity to explore your inner landscape and tend to parts of yourself slowly, for meaningful and lasting change.
What is Internal Family Systems (IFS) Therapy?
IFS is a non-pathologizing therapeutic model that places you as the wisdom-keeper of what is needed to facilitate your own healing. At its core, IFS is about relationship building – between you and all the parts of you that make you who you are. This is learning to be in loving relationship with yourself.
IFS believes that we all contain many parts. Some of these parts play important roles in protecting us; other parts have been wounded, or perhaps even left behind. Protective parts might serve us beautifully, allowing us to move through the world in ways that feel aligned and sovereign. Protective parts might also show up in ways that create pain and suffering. Despite these impacts, IFS holds that there are no bad parts. By understanding and entering into relationships with our parts, we can release protective parts from duties that may no longer be necessary, and tend to exiled parts that have been deeply craving our love and attention.
We enter relationships with parts from a place of Self, as IFS calls it. You might more commonly know this place as your High Self, your Center, your Loving Awareness. We all have capacity to access this Self energy and extend gentle care, compassion, and curiosity to our inner world.
These are the relationships we cultivate in IFS Therapy: Self to parts. As we strengthen these relationships, we begin to feel a greater sense of inner trust and safety, allowing us to show up in the world with more agency and authenticity. Less reactivity, more response. Less “What’s wrong with me?” and more “What’s going on, and what do I need?”
To learn more about IFS, visit our FAQs or visit the IFS Institute.
What Makes My Intensives Different
IFS Intensives with me are breathing ceremony – an integrative offering intended to guide you toward deep, sacred connection with yourself and the world around you.
My sessions take place outdoors. In addition to my experience as a clinical counselor, I have backgrounds and training in nature therapy, yoga, mindfulness, somatics, and sound healing. I hold intensive sessions in nature because it helps our nervous systems relax. There are so many studies that show how spending time in nature reduces stress, anxiety, depression, and even cognitive challenges such as memory loss and symptoms of ADHD. But I really think it boils down to this: we are animals. Our nervous systems evolved in connection to the land. There is an undeniable natural homecoming that happens when we feel safely connected to the natural world.
"We often forget that we are nature. Nature is not something separate from us. So when we say we have lost our connection to nature, we have lost our connection to ourselves.” - Andy Goldsworthy.
Note: I also offer virtual sessions when it best supports your needs and comfort.
In intensive sessions, I integrate a variety of modalities to gently guide your system toward safety, with the knowledge that it is only from a regulated nervous system state that we can truly, safely, journey through the deepest parts of your inner world, and meet them with love.
When I think of healing trauma, I think of increasing our capacity to stay in the present moment even when connecting with traumatic memories, triggers, or experiences. This means finding safety within. I work with the deep understanding that our mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual bodies are intrinsically interconnected; this means they all have to feel safe. By combining somatic techniques (like breathwork and gentle movement) with mindfulness practices and working through the lens of Internal Family Systems, we are able to tend to all these layers of our being.
“To heal is to touch with love that which was previously touched by fear.” – Peter Levine
Lastly, I have extensive experience receiving my own extended IFS sessions and exploring parts-work and somatic techniques in ceremonial spaces. I bring lived experience on the receiving end of these healing modalities as a fellow human with a Highly Sensitive system, complex trauma, and history of panic attacks, depression, anxiety, dissociation, and suicidality. I hold these spaces from a deeply heart-felt place of genuine care.
Overview
IFS Intensives offer a unique opportunity to slow down and come home to yourself, through loving presence with all of your parts. This extended format and slower pacing can support healing that often takes much longer to reach in a standard, weekly therapy format.
⊹ Intensive sessions are 3 hours, with the option to book multiple intensives for deeper work.
⊹ Intensives are offered to ongoing clients and as a standalone offering for new clients (with one virtual session before and after for preparation and integration). Intensives are available for new clients who are already working with another therapist, sometimes in modalities such as EMDR or CBT, but are unable to attend weekly sessions or are seeking to deepen their work through a one-time IFS intensive. When helpful, collaboration with their existing therapist can also be offered.
⊹ Intensives are offered in-person, outdoors, in Topanga Canyon, CA. They can also be offered virtually if it's a better fit for your schedule and location."
Who Should Do an Intensive?
An IFS intensive session with me might be for you if …
⊹ you feel ready to go deeper in your healing
⊹ you have tried ‘talk therapy’ but are yet to see the results you are looking for
⊹ you feel a pull to tend to your inner world, and you’re ready to listen
⊹ you are familiar with IFS and feel a desire for more spaciousness to explore your system
⊹ you feel a spiritual connection with the natural world
This might not be the right fit if…
⊹ you want to be “fixed”
⊹ you don’t have a safe and supportive environment for integration after the intensive
⊹ you desire a “one and done” solution and are not prepared to continue nurturing ongoing relationships with your parts
Book an IFS Intensive Today ♥︎
Here at Therapy on Fig, we have relational and IFS-trained therapists that can facilitate these extended journeys of self-exploration. Follow the steps below to book an intensive session today:
Reach out to schedule a free consultation.
Speak with non-pathologizing therapist that specializes in holding these healing containers.
Find the internal safety you need to live life on your terms ♥︎
Other Services Offered at Therapy on Fig
AtTherapy on Fig, we offer therapy services that fit the unique needs of teens, adults, and couples. We provide Therapy in Highland Park, CA, offering Neurodivergent Affirming Therapy,Therapy for Empathsand HSPs,Trauma Therapy,Grief and Loss Therapy, andCouples Therapy.We also address related issues such as anxiety, stress management, self-esteem, and relationship issues. Whether you're seeking support for a specific issue or looking to strengthen your relationship overall, our therapists are here to help.Reach out today to learn more about our services and to begin your path to healing, agency, and peace.
Marina Mendes is a Registered Associate Professional Clinical Counselor (#15511) supervised by Sharon Yu, LMFT (#50028). As a mixed-race Asian American queer woman, introvert, and Highly Sensitive Person, my healing work is shaped by a deep understanding of what it means to feel "othered." I support individuals who feel misunderstood, embrace multifaceted identities, and value multicultural awareness. Reach out to learn more about our experienced therapists.