Couples Therapy

The Truth About IFS Therapy: A Clinician’s Perspective

Published By: Jenni Hartwell
Post Modified: November 5, 2025 | Originally Posted: November 5, 2025

The following blog post explores recent discussions about Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy, its benefits, risks, and the professional responsibilities that accompany its use. Please note that these reflections are general in nature and drawn from professional experience. Every therapist and client relationship is unique, and outcomes depend on individual readiness, training, and therapeutic context. Not all statements will apply universally to every clinician, client, or experience of IFS.

The Truth About IFS Therapy: A Clinician’s Perspective

While [The Cut article] does provide some damning evidence as to how IFS can do more harm than good, it is important to look at some of the issues highlighted in the article at a higher level.

The First Truth: Any Modality Can Cause Harm in the Wrong Hands

The first truth that we must grapple with is that any modality dispensed by the wrong person can cause harm. This is true of DBT, IFS, EMDR, and likely more. When employing any intervention, it is important to do so with adherence to the principles of the modality as written by their founding institutions or governing bodies.

IFS in particular is currently grappling with an issue of supply and demand. Currently, the demand for certification via the IFS Institute that is stemming from the clinical population is unable to be met by the Institute’s current supply for training. This, in concert with Dick Schwartz‘s desire to continue to market his modality, has created a diluted version of IFS that is available through Dick’s books, self-paced workbooks, workshops, and even PESI trainings.

Many clinicians feel that they can comfortably do IFS without having taken any of the Institute’s training toward certification. Any dilution of each modality’s original procedures is going to come with inherent risks to the safety of the client. All of us accept a certain level of liability when we become practicing clinicians.

Why Self-Leadership and Ethics Are Essential in IFS Work

To address the article more specifically, as a person who has now done the level 1 training, it is clear to me that the clinicians at the facility are not providing the appropriate container for the work, nor are they emphasizing that these individual parts need to exist within an integrated family of parts that comprise a complete Self. If clinicians are not emphasizing the importance of identifying Self leadership, it’s no wonder that there is a risk for fragmentation.

Additionally, there are ethical concerns raised regarding the highlighted clinicians that would likely exist regardless of the modality being used. This emphasizes the point that it is our ethical responsibility to not only maintain adherence to our chosen modality’s procedures, but also to the code of ethics that governs each of our respective license types.

The Second Truth: Readiness and Sequencing Are Essential for Safe IFS

The second truth we must grapple with is that sequencing matters. IFS is a modality that is suited to bring relief to those with trauma, often deep-seated complex trauma.

However, it is of the utmost importance that we consider each client’s individual resourcing, containment strategies, distress tolerance skills, and overall stability before we engage in trauma work. Clients must be stabilized before engaging with deep trauma work. With that in mind, IFS absolutely should not be dispensed as a first line of defense. It is up to us as clinicians to accurately assess readiness as part of treatment planning in order to maintain a standard of care.

One could argue that a residential facility such as the one highlighted in the article may not possess a population of patients, and I use the word “patients” instead of “clients” specifically, that demonstrates readiness for this type of work.

Macro Pressures in Mental Health: Why Systemic Change Is Essential

The third truth we must grapple with are the macro pressures that affect our work. The article is correct to highlight the cost of training for IFS, but many different modalities suffer from the same problem, wherein the costs of training are too high and the demand for certification overwhelms the supply.

With these pressures, it can be a costly and time-intensive endeavor for any clinician to ensure that they can dispense the gold standard of care. This may particularly afflict clinicians who work for government agencies or insurance companies who are not being compensated in accordance with the care they are expected to provide. This creates a situation where clinicians who are working with society’s most vulnerable populations may not even have the means to pursue higher level trainings to ensure the highest standard of care, furthering the likelihood of risk and oppression.

In order for this problem to be fixed, the culture at large must prioritize mental healthcare in the same way it prioritizes medical care, and agency’s and their employees must receive more funding from public sources. Until this happens, Institutes such as the IFS Institute can continue to profit off of their exclusivity.

A Step Forward: Making IFS Training More Inclusive and Accessible

That being said, the IFS Institute is actively trying to find ways to expand access to certification trainings while maintaining a high standard of excellence. They are also currently expanding scholarship opportunities and are trying to create training groups that are specific to BIPOC populations in an effort to promote diversity, and, more importantly, to try to reach clinicians who are working with vulnerable and marginalized groups.

Final Thoughts

In summation, this article highlights larger issues that afflict our scope of practice as clinicians and uses IFS as the proverbial punching bag. Examining IFS under this lens or using it as a poster child for clinical harm is myopic; we should all be paying attention to warning signs that highlight issues in the culture at large.

About the Author

Lauren Adelman, LMSW

Lauren is passionate about helping people locate and activate their inner strengths to alleviate their own suffering. Lauren’s clinical interests include working with couples and adults who are experiencing anxiety, ...

References

Corbett, R. (2025, October 30). The therapy that can break you: Internal Family Systems is a widely popular trauma treatment. Some patients say it’s destroyed their lives. The Cut. https://www.thecut.com/article/truth-about-ifs-therapy-internal-family-systems-trauma-treatment.html