New IFS-related articles appear in professional journals

New IFS-related articles appear in professional journals

A new research article by Michael Fitzgerald, Assistant professor in Child and Family Sciences at the University of Mississippi was recently published in The American Journal of Family Therapy. In his study of 303 students at two different universities, his paper, Cool, Calm, and Collected: The Associations Between Self-Leadership and Adult Mental and Relational Health Outcomes, showed results that higher Self-leadership, as measured by the 25-item IFS Self Scale, was associated with lower anxiety, depression, sleep problems, and dissociation. Greater Self-leadership was also associated with greater positive relationship quality, and less negative relationship quality.

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IFS Galley of Books, "innervention" Resources, and Other Great Reads

The Foundation is pleased to release the November 2020 Edition of OUTLOOK.

Browse through the special IFS Gallery 35, celebrating IFS authors and commemorating 35 years of growth for the IFS Model. Learn from "innervention" program leaders, who share about their experience during COVID - Teaching by Being in Self, Small Businesses Showing Adaptability & Resilience, Tips for Home Learning, Self-Care for the Caregiver, Befriending our Fear in Pandemic time; and stand with the Foundation Family as we extend profound gratitude to all the heroes in the community and affirm the imperative of racial justice during these uncertain times.

This issue of OUTLOOK also features the Foundation's online panel session about Uncovering Legacy Burdens of Racism; and largest funded research project to date.

Other Community updates include: Transition of all training programs to online realm in 2020; Stories of Transformation, and a number of Foundation's operational updates.  

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First Published Article on IFS Identified

Holding onto compassion and hope, take a retrospective glimpse at this especially challenging year as we bid farewell to it & discover an early article by Dick Schwartz on Internal Family Systems.

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A brief communiqué from your Foundation for Self Leadership

As our world navigates mounting crises, may resilient hope emerge from deep within each of us to shine through flimsy cracks in the darkness...

A Year in Re(ar)view
 
Most of us cannot wait to turn this year's page over. This life's chapter has brought significant suffering to countless individuals, families and organizations on multiple fronts. We honor those who left us and feel for all those in pain. And we must continue to believe that human ingenuity, goodness and endurance will save the day; and do everything in our capacity to help our species bounce back, stronger, whole... and united around our common humanity. 

Your Foundation has not been immune to its own share of difficult financial challenges; yet, significant activities were carried out with the help of the community and dedicated associates. Here is a short sample:

- A new funded RCT study to examine IFS as a treatment for complex PTSD and opioid dependency is now running at the Cambridge Health Alliance (Massachusetts, US).

- Asponsored effort to bring Self to schools, the Foundation's second such effort, continues apace now at two schools in Connecticut, US--its approach slightly modified due to Covid to engage teachers and staff online and respond to their emerging needs.

- Exploratory activity has taken place to bring IFS to military Veterans and active-duty personnel. Starting with one military base, IFS is being introduced to civilian therapists and chaplains; plans are being developed to provide IFS interventions for folks in active service; and the IFS Healing Corps is being formed as a growing group of IFS therapists to serve Veterans and support each other in peer supervision and planning.
 
The Foundation thanks the community for your generosity of spirit and giving. You made it possible for the Foundation to continue its operation in 2020.

To those who already provided financial support this year, many thanks. To others who still care to offer a monetary gift to the Foundation before year's end, you are invited to do so; please give what you can and help advance these important programs.
 

PS. The Foundation for Self Leadership is subscribed to donor-matching platforms (Benevity.com & CyberGrants.com). When family members or neighbors of yours in the corporate world donate to the Foundation through these platforms, their gifts could be matched multi-fold by their companies. Please share them the value of promoting IFS and encourage to give.
An Earlier IFS Citation 
 
As you may recall from the latest issue of the OUTLOOK magazine, the IFS community recently celebrated 35 years since the creation/discovery of IFS. In honor of this special milestone and the expansive developments occurring during this period, an IFS-book-gallery was featured in the magazine. Showcasing the broad range of published IFS-related works, the Gallery affirmed both the extensive dissemination of the Model and the deep engagement of the community in spreading it as a paradigm and practice for healing and well-being in various settings. 

While the Gallery was being curated, it was noticed that the earliest IFS resource commonly cited in various IFS publications is the seminal first 1995 edition of the Internal Family Systems Therapy book by IFS Developer Richard Schwartz, PhD (Guilford Press, which has been since translated into many languages. (A 2020 Edition was co-authored with Martha Sweezy, PhD).

What seemed to have gone unnoticed is Dick's article published in Family Therapy Networker in 1987 entitled Our Multiple Selves (Schwartz, Richard C.; Family Therapy Networker;1987, Mar/Apr; 11, 24-31 and 80-83], which could be reviewed herein its entirety.

In this paper, Schwartz urged family therapists to consider intrapyschic foundations to family dynamics, an approach that is offered to "bridge the gap between family and individual therapy." (This approach, which would end up revolutionizing family therapy, has significantly influenced the very nature and process of therapy and emotional healing.) He applied "many concepts and techniques of the structural/strategic family therapy to the inner domain of the internal family" and stated in the article that "what is crucial to inner well-being is the relationship among the parts." He also introduced the Self and suggested that its engagement would "develop the kind of harmonious relationships that characterize healthy functioning."

You will be pleased to know that this article and many other IFS resources appear (with detailed annotation) in the evolving Foundation's searchable online database of IFS-related publications, a community resource (designed initially for researchers) which has been online for six years now. The Foundation is grateful to Jenn Matheson, PhD, LMFT, for designing and populating this database, her team of volunteers for maintaining it, and Josh Lisojo, MS, for programming it as an online system. Check it out!
Please stay safe, healthy, and hopeful.
OUTLOOK Shorts v4.4 | December 28, 2020 | www.FoundationIFS.org
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Foundation for Self Leadership
www.FoundationIFS.org
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The Foundation releases a new series of inspirational videos

With all that is going on in the world and the overwhelming pressures exerted on all of us, holding onto hope and building inner strength are critical. To provide some respite away from this overwhelm, the Foundation releases a series of inspirational videos in partnership with Anna Huckabee Tull. The intent is to send out a reminder through these short and original creations that resilience, calm and solace are within our reach.

The series is posted on the Foundation’s special Playlist, Journey to Self, on its YouTube® channel.

Conceptualized and produced by the Foundation, the series showcases the music of Ms. Huckabee Tull and excerpts from her book Living the Deeper Yes. As we were putting together this collection of quotes from her recent book, music from her songs, and photographs taken by her throughout the course of the merciless global pandemic, Anna said that “something magical happened” for her. “Deep within me, parts that had been hurting, holding, waiting, struggling, and persevering throughout this challenging time began to feel newly heard, making way for some place deeper within me to fill with warmth and love and to dance once again!"

May these videos be inspiring, help sustain the viewer for a moment or two, and invite one’s inner strength to rise to the forefront… and “new ways forward, in deeper harmony with the voices within us and the world around us.”