7 Available Los Angeles Internal Family Systems (IFS) Therapists
At Therapy on Fig, we approach therapy with compassion and curiosity, creating a safe haven where all parts of you feel welcome. Instead of seeing overwhelming emotions as problems, we help sensitive souls like you build trust with each piece of your identity using Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy. Here, we’ll share more about our approach and introduce you to our team in the hopes that you find the support you’re looking for.
You've been doing talk therapy for years. Often, it looks like you are catching your therapist up on the most recent happenings of the week. You try reframing negative and unproductive thoughts and tell yourself you need more self-discipline and accountability.
You also remind yourself to be more self-compassionate and to feel your feelings, although you don't know how. While you appreciate the validation and reflective listening of your therapies, you wonder if chronic themes of ennui, loneliness, and anxiety will ever not get the best of you.
Your therapy space can be more than an analytical space where you repeat the same introspection you do on your own.
Meet the therapists
Recommended for entrepreneurs: Sharon Yu
Recommended for late-discovered neurodivergent adults: Sabrina Bolin
Recommended for highly sensitive mothers & couples exploring non-monogamy: Gabriella Giorgio
Recommended for couples & empaths who work in highly competitive industries: Janelle Malak
Recommended for mid-20s women navigating life transitions and relationships with themselves: Marina Mendes
Recommended for teens: Rachel Kwon
Recommended for religious trauma & interracial couples: Grace Chan
Therapist profiles
Sharon Yu
Recommended for entrepreneurs
Therapy with Sharon is affirming, inclusive, and non-pathologizing. As a business owner herself, she has a special passion for helping entrepreneurs navigate the unique pressures of building something meaningful while still making space for their own needs. Sharon utilizes IFS to empower high achievers to tune into themselves without having to abandon their empathetic, driven nature.
Offers IFS ✓
Clientele: Adults, couples
Location: Highland Park, Los Angeles
Virtual therapy: Available
Sabrina Bolin
Recommended for late-discovered neurodivergent adults
Having navigated her own ADHD diagnosis later in life, Sabrina intimately understands the profound relief and grief that can accompany late-discovered neurodivergence. She blends IFS with somatic work and a relationship approach to help clients rebuild trust in themselves, moving from a lifetime of masking toward genuine self-attunement.
Offers IFS ✓
Clientele: Adults, couples
Location: Highland Park, Los Angeles
Virtual therapy: Available
Gabriella Giorgio
Recommended for highly sensitive mothers & couples exploring non-monogamy
As a highly sensitive mother and someone with attachment wounds, Gabriella brings deep understanding to navigating complex relational territories. She draws on IFS and other trauma-informed modalities to help parents and couples exploring ENM navigate the vulnerable terrain of intimate relationships and learn how to reparent themselves while also caring for their little ones and attuning to their partner(s).
Offers IFS ✓
Clientele: Teens, adults, couples
Location: Highland Park, Los Angeles
Virtual therapy: Available
Janelle Malak
Recommended for couples & empaths who work in highly competitive industries
Having navigated her own journey in a multiracial, neurodiverse relationship while transitioning careers in her late 30s, Janelle understands both the strain competitive industries place on sensitive individuals and the unique pressures couples face when pursuing demanding careers. She blends IFS with relationship-focused modalities, such as Emotionally Focused Therapy and Gottman Method, to help partners cultivate deeper, more attuned connections with themselves and each other.
Offers IFS ✓
Clientele: Adults, couples
Location: Highland Park, Los Angeles
Virtual therapy: Available
Marina Mendes
Recommended for mid-20s women navigating life transitions and relationships with themselves
With lived experience across multiple continents and cultures, Marina brings expansive understanding to the profound shifts that mark significant life changes. Her approach integrates IFS with mindfulness, somatic practices, and nature-based therapy, offering clients navigating major transitions a sacred space to reconnect with their inner wisdom during times of uncertainty.
Offers IFS ✓
Clientele: Young adults, adults
Location: Highland Park, Los Angeles
Virtual therapy: Available
Rachel Kwon
Recommended for teens
As a second-generation Korean American who understands the complex dance between family expectations and personal identity, Rachel specializes in working with teenagers during these formative years. Through IFS, she offers affirming support to help teens learn how to trust their own voice and bridge the distance in family relationships that often forms around this time.
Offers IFS ✓
Clientele: Teens, young adults, adults parenting teens
Location: Highland Park, Los Angeles
Virtual therapy: Available
Grace Chan
Recommended for religious trauma & interracial couples
Grace's journey as both a deconstructing person of faith and as a person in an interracial relationship informs her deep understanding of navigating complex identity intersections. She blends creative arts therapies with IFS, holding a sacred space for clients to explore who they are beneath layers of religious conditioning and learn how to co-create a relationship that feels right for them amidst the mental load of being in an interracial partnership.
Offers IFS ✓
Clientele: Teens, adults, couples, families
Location: Highland Park, Los Angeles
Virtual therapy: Available
FAQs about IFS therapy
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Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy is based on the idea that we all have different "parts" or sub-personalities within us. These parts are like complex inner characters, not just simple feelings or thoughts. IFS focuses on how these parts show up dutifully and consistently in times of stress and uncertainty and gets to know their respective jobs in our systems.
Then, there's YOU, noticing, witnessing, and holding the capacity to lead these parts into harmony. IFS aims to help you access your core "Self," a state of inner wisdom, hearing all your parts out and holding perspective. By understanding and unburdening parts that have adopted extreme roles or behaviors due to past experiences, you can heal and achieve lasting neurological shifts.
This approach is naturally trauma-informed. It recognizes and works with parts stuck in past traumas and acknowledges a deeper spiritual essence within each person. Developed by Richard Schwartz, Ph. D., IFS offers a non-pathological, evidence-based framework to help people navigate internal conflicts with greater self-trust and agency.
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Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy is best suited for those who are:
IFS therapy is for people who are naturally curious about their behavior, thoughts, and feelings and are ready to turn that curiosity into personal growth.
Notices their introspection and self-analysis and imagines the possibility of separating from this part of them.
Trusts in the process enough to not have to tell the whole story all at once, quickly, or thoroughly, but believes unburdening one part of themselves organically lends to further healing.
Cares about solutions but does not see therapy as a means to an end but rather a shifting orientation from outsourcing trust to others and the systems they're raised in to truly trusting themselves and experiencing self-compassion that isn't infantilizing nor enabling.
IFS therapy is gentle, personalized, and your unique system's led approach.
You may have done EMDR therapy in the past and worked through specific traumas, or you may be searching for therapy that honors your neurodivergent wirings, cultural roots, and gender and sexual identities. It's important your IFS therapist believes you and works on themselves to hold space for you without unchecked biases and internalized prejudices.
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Some common reasons our clients reach out to our IFS therapists for IFS therapy include:
Identifying as a highly sensitive person and empath and is curious about the intersection of this identity with codependency, perfectionism, anxiety, and friendships.
Couples who notice attachment differences with their partners hope to understand and express themselves courageously and receive and see the same in their partners.
It is important to have an IFS therapist with a shared cultural, racial, ethnic, spiritual, and geographical background so there's a shorthand for collective experiences.
Those experiencing grief and loss, whether that is through the death of a loved one, the ending of a season of life (expected or unexpected), or a person who is still alive but isn't in your life anymore, at least not in the same way.
Healing from religious trauma, currently deconstructing faith, and having an active spiritual life apart from their religious upbringing.
Extreme burnout and is curious about the parts of them working hard and distinguishing systemic versus personal factors.
Late-diagnosed with ADHD or Autism. Learning and unlearning ways of being in systems that are built for neurotypicals and working through internalized ableism and a lifetime of masking.
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Our approach to IFS therapy is modified to fit your unique system. It acknowledges the larger systems we live in, where specific identities are arbitrarily elevated over others, and sensitively holds space for parts of us that are conditioned to mold ourselves into systems that are incongruent with our authentic selves. Our clients find that they do not have to be able to identify their emotions or bodily sensations, nor do they need to be imaginative or creative. They also don't need to be able to visualize and have permission to think more abstractly rather than conjure concrete mental images.
Our IFS therapists skillfully and compassionately engage with even the most aggressive or overwhelming parts of you, inviting them to create space so we can understand their concerns. They will help you build a deep, trusting relationship with yourself, allowing you to access your inner wisdom as a constant source of guidance and support.
Begin IFS Therapy in-person in Highland Park, Los Angeles, or virtually in California
You don't have to live with constant self-doubt, hypervigilance, and exhaustion. At Therapy on Fig, our IFS therapist can help you move beyond feeling stuck and disconnected, offering a path to lasting healing and relief. Book a free initial call with a therapist who is trained, informed, and experienced in approaching therapy through an IFS lens and is ready to hold space for you and be the hope you struggle to find in the midst of complex challenges and difficulties.
Reach out to schedule a free consultation.
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Other Therapy Services Offered at Therapy on Fig in Highland Park, Los Angeles, and Throughout California
At Therapy on Fig, we offer therapy services that fit each couple's unique needs. In addition to Couples Therapy in Highland Park, we also offer Therapy for Empaths, Trauma Therapy, Couples Therapy, and Grief and Loss Therapy. We also address related issues such as anxiety, stress management, 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. Contact us today to learn more about our services and how we can support you on your journey towards a healthier, happier relationship.