The Intersection of Spirituality and Trauma Therapy ft. Ilyse Kennedy
The Intersection of Spirituality and Trauma Therapy ft. Ilyse Kennedy
In this episode of the podcast, we are joined by Ilyse Kennedy, a trauma therapist, to talk about the intersection of trauma work, spirituality, and healing modalities. We delve into the integration of Internal Family Systems (IFS), Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), and somatic experiencing in therapy sessions.
Key Topics Discussed:
1. Integrating Modalities:
- Ilyse and I explore how trauma therapists integrate modalities such as IFS, EMDR, and somatic experiencing into their practice to guide clients through healing processes.
2. Spiritual Dimensions:
- The conversation touches upon the spiritual aspects of trauma work and the role of spirituality in connecting with one's authentic self.
3. Therapeutic Process:
- We discuss the importance of therapists doing their own inner work to be able to hold space for clients in deep trauma work and to navigate therapeutic processes effectively.
4. Depth of Trauma Work:
- We emphasize the significance of delving into the depths of trauma with clients, highlighting the importance of therapists being comfortable in those spaces alongside their clients.
5. Client Empowerment:
- The discussion underscores the empowerment of clients to ask potential therapists about their depth work and personal experiences before initiating therapeutic relationships.
For more information on Ilyse Kennedy visit: https://www.movingpartspsychotherapy.com/
Interview Transcript:
John: [00:00:00] This is going inside healing trauma from the inside out hosted by me, licensed trauma therapist, John Clarke Going Inside as a weekly podcast on a mission to help you heal from trauma and connect with your authentic self. Tune in for enlightening guests, interviews, immersive solo, deep dives, real life therapy sessions, and soothing guided meditations.
John: Follow me on socials at John Clarke therapy on Instagram. TikTok and YouTube and apply to work with me one on one at johnclarketherapy.com. Thanks for being here. Let's dive in.
John: Welcome back to the show. Everyone. I'm excited to introduce my guests for today. Elise Kennedy is a trauma therapist and owner of a group practice called moving parts psychotherapy in Austin, Texas. She specializes in working with complex trauma, DID, and parenting after trauma, and [00:01:00] utilizes a social justice lens in her work.
John: You can follow her on Instagram @movingpartspsychotherapy, and you can purchase her book, The Tender Parts, A Guide to Healing Trauma Through Internal Family Systems Therapy, on Amazon. Let me bring Ilyse up, Ilyse, thank you again so much for being here. And yeah, maybe a little elaborate elaboration on your bio as to kind of who you are and how you got here and then we'll get into our topics.
Ilyse: Sure. Thank you so much for having me. So I specialize in working with trauma and I was lucky to come to working with IFS in graduate school through a very wonderful professor Sonny Lansdale who taught our trauma class at St. Edward's University and when I first heard the concept of working with parts, it made so much sense just for my [00:02:00] own system.
Ilyse: And so I took the IFS training like as soon as I could. This was like a little before. It was in such high demand, so I was lucky to get it. But I took the training and really adopted IFS into my practice and. Made that a highlight within my work with clients. And then I utilize internal family systems along with EMDR, somatic experiencing and just general work with interpersonal neurobiology.
John: Yeah. Excellent. Also curious to hear a little bit more about your book, you know, and how, how that came to be, obviously. Sure.
Ilyse: Well I started a mental health Instagram that really took off during COVID when everybody was really like looking for connection. And I think COVID was a time that first of all, we were faced with like this huge [00:03:00] crisis and we were in the midst of a trauma.
Ilyse: And then I think being stuck at home and having to be still for a lot of us who might have coped with trauma by keeping busy or other ways of coping with a trauma. I think it not only highlighted the trauma that we were in, but also all of our historical traumas and mental health struggles. And so during that time, Therapist social media is really blew up.
Ilyse: And we were also in the midst of the not the first uprising of social justice, but with George Floyd's murder, there was a big turn towards social justice. And that was another thing I was talking about on my Instagram. And so I gained a lot of followers during COVID. Sorry, I have a pup here that wants to Get up.
John: No problem. Oh my [00:04:00] goodness.
Ilyse: And so I had, I had always wanted to write a book, but I didn't think it would come about so soon in my career. And the first publisher Who reached out to me was a little bit like of a schmoozy, like caricature of a publisher. And he was like, Oh, I love your brand moving parts.
Ilyse: Like you've got to do something with that. And so I wrote a book proposal for like a book about parts work. And then when Pesci approached me, I had that first book proposal, but they helped me flesh it out a little bit more. And so my goal was really that I think there are so many trauma books and so many books.
Ilyse: On IFS as well. But I wanted to be really not that, not that like the other IFS books are not trauma informed because I think The whole [00:05:00] IFS model is very much trauma informed, but I have a book that was really more for clients than therapists. So I wanted it to be trauma informed in the sense that it's a shorter and quicker read.
Ilyse: It has a lot of containment built into it. And hopefully it describes IFS in a way that is is more for, like, the layperson that doesn't have as complex of language and that really has tools that people can use. With my Instagram, a big goal for it was getting out mental health information to people that might not be able to afford therapy.
Ilyse: And so that was similar with this book to really offer it for, as a tool for people who can't afford therapy. And so that's sort of how it all came
John: about. Amazing. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I'm I'm always amazed at on one hand, you know, some clients are very [00:06:00] therapy savvy and they come in and they've already, they know about IFS, they read no bad parts, right?
John: They've heard seven different podcasts about it and they're kind of ready to go. I also, you know, I live in San Francisco, so that's par for the course. For a lot of folks that are very therapy savvy or very, you know, a very intellectual on the other hand, some people don't know what therapy is or good therapy is, or trauma therapy is, and a lot of therapists well intending, you know, and even in my case, for years, Like a lot of therapists that are, that are okay.
John: Like having clients talk about their trauma and being very warm and validating and listening and that, and then they walk out the door and the client is completely flooded, you know, and we, the therapist actually just made it worse. Right. That was kind of a little bit of my. You're not feeling equipped to treat trauma per se until I first got EMDR training, like 2015 or whenever that was.
John: And it was like, Oh my gosh, I actually have something now to go in and [00:07:00] treat trauma, at least treat the traumatic memories that people are holding. And then for me and discovering IFS and learning IFS, it was a whole new world of like going even deeper with, with deep, deep healing, right. And and helping.
John: Parts that are traumatized and wounded and holding pain and also integrating EMDR, you know, in my case, it sounds like you do similar work, integrating those pieces and even the somatic piece. So maybe talk a little bit about how you kind of came to where you are now in terms of how you treat trauma and why why, and how you kind of integrate a handful of these models together.
Ilyse: Yeah, that's a great question. So. I was really lucky that a lot of the mentors that I came across in grad school, which I know is not at all the norm. Yeah, they were very steeped in interpersonal neurobiology. And like the work of like Dan Siegel and Bonnie Battenach. And so I was [00:08:00] introduced to this way of working very early on.
Ilyse: And when I was in grad school, I, I wanted to, I, I knew I wanted to get trained in those modalities. And do it like while I was still a student. So it was cheaper. So I, I knew like from what I had read and a lot of like you know, most of us, our first introduction was like Bessel van der Kolk, the body keeps the score.
Ilyse: And so in his book, he talks a lot about that connection between having to heal what's stored in the body. as well as like the emotional pieces and the parts that we develop in order to cope with our traumas and survive really. And so I, my first training that I did was EMDR and that was a really helpful tool.
Ilyse: But having come across Bonnie Badenock's [00:09:00] work in grad school as well. One of the things that she talks about she has a few books, but one of them is Being a Brainwise Therapist. And she talks about how all of the things that we learn, like, EMDR or IFS or somatic experiencing. Those are just tools.
Ilyse: And in order to really be a good therapist, we have to know those tools so deeply that we are embodied when we're offering those tools to our clients. So like, now that I've had a few years behind me, I find that like, in how I offer EMDR or even IFS, it's a lot more of a gentle, intuitive approach to offering it like and my biggest takeaway from IFS.
Ilyse: is [00:10:00] this idea of self energy and that as a therapist, we offer our self energy to our clients. And so even when I'm offering a tool like EMDR or doing something that feels a little bit more like a protocol, it's coming from a place of self energy and really feeling into what the client might need in that moment.
Ilyse: And doing an invitation or an offering. Yeah. I don't even know if that, I don't remember what
John: the question was. I don't either, but now I've, I've got even more questions. This is great and we might even do the rest of the interview about this. Yeah. Kind of doing EMDR from a self led place is a really interesting idea because on one hand, The models are very different, but there's also people that have shown how they're quite similar.
John: I, I, I use both in a very kind of fluid way, but when you first kind of learn EMDR and at, at, at first glance, it's this protocol thing. And so the [00:11:00] inclination is to stick to this sheet that says exactly what to do and exactly what to ask. And in theory, a robot could do it. Right. Or in theory, you could go, you right.
John: You could have a lay person just go, okay, now focus on that memory. And I'm going to start the BLS and boom, we're off to the races. Right. And the practitioner doesn't even need to know what's happening inside the person. Right. After 30 seconds, you could pause and say, what do you notice? Okay. Go with that, right?
John: And then an hour goes by, right? And you can get some real healing happening there. I think in part because in my experience, the brain wants to heal just like a cut on your arm wants to heal and has a propensity toward healing. And everything we're doing in therapy is basically leveraging that innate quality in us, right?
John: I think IFS does that in a profound way in that helping people get access to self energy and then self knows exactly what to do next. Or even in the course of a session, I had a session today where I didn't quite know where to go. We're doing IFS work. And so I just put it back [00:12:00] on the client in terms of see if your system has a sense of where to go, whether it's go further with this part or go back to this kind of conference table or this campfire and hear from You know, which parts need your help or, or ask, you know, what part needs your help today?
John: Now I'm forgetting my question for you, but those are some thoughts about, Oh yeah. That's the kind of self led EMDR piece versus like, just do it. Like the sheet says.
Ilyse: Yeah, I so I'm actually doing. Bonnie is year long training. Now, I just literally flew in from Portland last night. And this actually came up this weekend in the training.
Ilyse: Oh, I should say since it's a podcast, it's called nurturing the heart. And it's a year long intensive interpersonal neurobiology training. And Bonnie has a little bit of a different way of looking at parts work. But I taught, I touch on it a little in my book because she looks at it more from an attachment perspective.
Ilyse: And I [00:13:00] think that's a really neat a neat piece of things that we don't necessarily get fully in IFS. But we were talking this weekend about Like how, because the EMDR is so protocoled you can feel like there are these steps that you have to follow. Yeah. And that, and when we think about that from the IFS perspective, it's coming from our like therapist part and it's not coming from our self energy.
Ilyse: So it's the therapist part trying to stick to an agenda. in order to get to the healing. And that's important when I think about it from a self led place. And I offer it for myself, flood place. I know in my embodied self that the protocols. And especially the containment that we do in the beginning and end, like the safe, comfortable place and stuff like that that's in there so [00:14:00] that we, to slow us down with the way that we use EMDR.
Ilyse: And so, and it helps the client to build those internal resources so that we're respecting their protectors and that their protectors can ease up to To accept the healing that can come from EMDR. And when we run, sometimes we run into when we're doing IFS with EMDR, the thing that I find most helpful in integrating the two.
Ilyse: Is that a lot of times there can be parts that step in, in the EMDR process that won't let us reprocess a memory. But as IFS therapists, we know that we have to pause with those protectors and check in with them and respect what they're trying to do before we can move forward. Whereas if we don't have that piece.
Ilyse: We might stay in therapist agenda and take it on as like something that the client is doing [00:15:00] wrong or like, why isn't this protocol working?
John: Yeah. Yeah. And are the, do our do good in therapist parts that want the session to go somewhere today or to get somewhere or really for our clients to get relief or when clients have.
John: A part with an agenda that comes in and goes I've read everything about EMDR. I've decided this is the thing that's going to finally fix me, right? Or finally heal me. So can we do some of it today in the first session or whatever? And the therapist goes, yeah, sure. I think we could, we could try some, you know?
John: And then you're just kind of. Barging past protector and after protector. And sometimes, you know, you can get into really deep waters with clients with five minutes left in the session doing, doing this work. Right. And inherently there's a big piece of EMDR that is exposure work in nature.
John: Right. So. There's a lot of places where it can go wrong, but this piece around permission or protector of permission is I think a piece that for all the years I was doing EMDR without [00:16:00] knowing IFS was just not knowing I wasn't getting permission or even cases where the client did get super flooded or they there was backlash, right?
John: There's how IFS would see it now. Or we do, you know, a session of EMDR, it seems like it goes well and then. Client goes home and drinks more than they ever have or relaxes or whatever it is. And then they come back in, you know, and, and we're just going, okay, well shoot, what do we do about that? Right.
John: Didn't mean to make that happen if we did make that happen or was that just coincidence or whatever? But this, this piece, you know, I think about agenda is extremely important and something I'm, I'm, I will remind myself is self has no agenda. Right. And sometimes, sometimes. I have even offered to clients when I'm doing IFS that really want it to go well, and they want to get somewhere today is offering, let your parts know nothing needs to happen today, right?
John: If all you do, quote unquote, is [00:17:00] just hang out with this part that we just met, then that's more than enough. Right. And again, I think also just in our society of being productive and getting somewhere and getting stuff done. And again, I live in Silicon Valley, so this place is full of people that like efficiency and optimizing things and like getting, getting somewhere and data.
John: There's that inclination, right. To like really get somewhere today. And that can often yeah, kind of. Getting in the way of, of the work actually progressing and healing happening on its own time.
Ilyse: Yeah. And I think that brings up another piece that there's, and another thing that I love about IFS, but like the importance of slowing down in trauma work I I used to joke with one of my colleagues that like our website taglines would be, we're going to be here a while.
Ilyse: But that, like, that doesn't necessarily bring you [00:18:00] the clients. Yeah, that's not what they want to hear. Yeah. Like now that I have really long term clients that are doing deep work, like they know we're going to be here a while and they're okay with that. Or I have people that come to me because they're looking for a long term therapist.
John: Hire a marketing agency that they want the tagline to be real results, fast guarantee, guarantee, you know, 30 days or your money back.
Ilyse: Exactly. And that's just like there is some merit and there is merit to short term therapy. We can recognize long term therapy as a privilege. Like insurance companies do not want to hear that.
Ilyse: You're going to be here a while. And there is so much importance with slowing down to do trauma work and to really check in with all of the parts that are coming
John: forward. And if clients have questions about a timeline or how long is this going to take? Well, you can start there with the parts [00:19:00] work, right?
John: Or you might dig in a little bit and find that right off the bat, there's a part that's holding a belief around Hopelessness or I'm broken, right? Or I'm unfixable. Or, you know, I've had clients say after the work has happened or after we've made some meaningful progress or gone through a significant unburdening process with one of their parts of they'll then say, I didn't tell you this, but you were the last therapist that I was going to try, right?
John: I've been through six therapists and actually this was, this was kind of it. Yeah. Right. So, so sometimes we don't even know how much hopelessness is being held, you know, by, by parts as they're coming in. Definitely. Yeah. Yeah. Or what they've tried up until this point to work through their trauma, right.
John: And this piece around, am I truly broken? Is this going to be, is this trauma going to be screwing up my life forever? Right. And holding that, That question driving a lot of the work or the urgency sometimes. Yeah. And [00:20:00] I guess as therapists, you know, we, we try to not let that become our urgency or become our crisis of, Oh my gosh, I've got to fix you now and quickly or else.
John: Yeah. I'm, I'm curious, you know, a little bit around this piece of versus complex trauma and a piece with your intro is, yeah, your work with, with complex trauma and even DID. So to get into that a little bit or for folks listening and wondering am I in that category of trauma or am I in that category of complex trauma and how you help your clients kind of See the difference or whether the difference is important.
Ilyse: Yeah. So I, I think about with so much more access to mental health information now it's both like a blessing and a curse. Because I think just in general, there can be like a lot [00:21:00] of confusion around what trauma actually is. Like what complex trauma actually is. And for some people to have that definition match it can feel very affirming, and for other people, like, it can bring about that sense of hopelessness.
Ilyse: So I guess I look at trauma and complex trauma as, like, trauma is a physiological response to an experience that we've endured that we either perceived or perceived. Sorry. Or that we perceived or really confronted survival. So like our survival is at risk in some way.
Ilyse: That could be like a one time traumatic event, like a serious car accident, or even a car accident that ended up not being [00:22:00] serious, but for whatever reason, your system went into fight, flight or freeze, which probably actually would happen in any car accident. And then due to that survival response.
Ilyse: the memory is stored as traumatic material. So it's stored as incomplete where we have pieces of the memory that live in the body, pieces of the memory that live in our emotions. And then from the IFS perspective, like pieces of the memory that live in parts that form in order to protect us from that trauma happening again.
Ilyse: Yeah. And then with complex trauma complex trauma is typically with multiple small or large traumas that happen over time. A lot of times it's developmental traumas. And most often I never want to say always, but most often it [00:23:00] is relational traumas that happen over, over a period of time. And so that can be like, not from birth, like not receiving what you needed from your caregivers, even if it's very covert.
Ilyse: Like even if they showed up for you most of the time it can still be. that covert, not receiving what you needed. And then that builds into complex or relational trauma, or it could be like, even we can see complex trauma from being in like an intimate partner violence situation as an adult, even having had a great childhood.
Ilyse: And, The other thing I want to say for both of those is that in both situations, whether it's like PTSD or complex PTSD there's a common thread of, like, feeling or being alone when the, [00:24:00] when the trauma occurred, whether that's Received being alone or it's actually being alone. Yeah. And so then DID, I really look at as a dissociative identity disorder.
Ilyse: I really look at that as an offshoot of complex trauma. And I see it as in the IFS perspective, there are part, parts of us that form in response, fragmented parts of us that form in response to very horrific trauma, like typically child abuse, childhood sexual abuse human trafficking.
Ilyse: But I've also seen it happen because of medical trauma. And it's when our parts end up taking the driver's seat in a way that can cause like amnesia and [00:25:00] other. Extreme forms of dissociation.
John: Yeah. Yeah. There's an extreme kind of fragmentation that happens there. Parts in their relationships, in their relationship to self, right?
John: Yes. Yeah. And the amount of self that someone with DID can access before or without, you know, treatments. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So some elements you mentioned the part about being alone, you know, I think about like, again, what makes something traumatic, that part about being alone, I think is huge. I think another word that I often throw in there is agency, right?
John: Something's happening or something's happening to me and I can do something about it or I can't do anything about it. Right. There's that element that always feels like a common thread to me when people are talking about things kind of Well, yeah, when they're thinking talking about traumatic things,
Ilyse: definitely.
Ilyse: Yeah, that sense of agency is [00:26:00] huge. And I think that can be like, Another facet of like the terror of feeling alone. Like you couldn't advocate for yourself or you didn't have anyone to advocate for you. Yeah.
John: And sometimes, you know, our, our clients come in and they're doing a lot externally to try to protect against this feeling of being alone.
John: Right. Whether it's compulsive X, Y, and Z working too much, physically, never being alone, sex addiction, whatever it might be. There's that go into great lengths to not be alone or even just to kind of be with myself or be with my thoughts on a more basic level, which is also such a pervasive part of our society today, or just being alive or not being able to be with your, without your phone for 20 minutes can be a lot for people.
Ilyse: Yeah, definitely. And I think that's one of the, Coolest things about therapy is that even [00:27:00] just that act of somebody holding it with you. Even if parts even if there are a lot of protective parts up and so a client can't fully embrace yet the the therapist accompanying them so that they're not alone.
Ilyse: It's still the act of.
John: Yeah, yeah, and I think so much of our work is about pacing the work and kind of titrating how much distress our clients can, can feel at a given time, right? Same thing, even going back to the EMDR and finding a starting point or finding part of the memory that evokes some distress and starting there and seeing if we can go there, experience some of that distress.
John: Yeah. And start to tamp it down with bilateral stimulation starts to give clients some traction, you know, pretty much right away, especially coming in and sometimes [00:28:00] having profound kind of fortresses up the walls they've built up around this memory or even accessing this memory or thinking about it, right?
John: A great deal of psychological avoidance around something. And then all of a sudden coming in and saying, all right, we're going to maybe re experience it 5 percent at a time or whatever it is. Yeah. Yeah.
Ilyse: Yeah. Yeah. And it's that disconfirming experience of touching into the traumatic material, even just a little bit and acknowledging that if your system will allow, you're in a safe place with a safe person.
Ilyse: And so as you. Are with that material. It hopefully it doesn't feel the same way as it did that. And it's not re traumatizing. It's. a corrective experience.
John: Yeah, that's great. That's great. Maybe you could say a little bit more about how you personally you know, integrate these models. [00:29:00] We talked about IFS, EMDR, somatic experiencing.
John: Yeah, this is really the same three that I integrate in my work with, with clients today, but maybe you can say more about kind of how you integrate them, how you decide kind of what to, to lean on in a given session or a given moment.
Ilyse: So,
Ilyse: at this point, most of the clients I see, like, are pretty aware of the way that I work, or like, I talk about that in the initial consult call, in the initial sessions and then this This is going to all sound like woo woo and therapist y but I really like allow the client's system to guide us in that work.
Ilyse: And I do a lot of offering where, so because of the [00:30:00] embodied way that I've taken in these modalities and I should also say, like, I have done so much healing work in my own life to support myself. And then that allows me to support my clients. And so usually if I'm offering a modality, It's not something that I haven't tried myself.
Ilyse: Like I just started ketamine therapy personally. Cause a part of me was like, well, I, I've heard that this has benefit, but I also don't want to recommend it to like a high trauma population if I don't know what it feels like and how my clients systems will respond to it. And so. I'm going to do that for myself too.
Ilyse: So, and a lot of the trainings that we do as therapists, like the IFS trainings, the somatic experiencing trainings, EMDR, we're actually like, [00:31:00] we have to be the client and see how that modality lands within us. So so I think that's important to mention because I know how this all feels within my own system, so I can attune to clients and tune into like, how this might land in their system.
Ilyse: And so everything is an offering and an invitation. But usually I'm always thinking about these pieces in the background and like, I'm very attuned to like, what's happening in the room, what it feels like to be in the room with that client. Like gently checking in around body sensation and then seeing where that leads.
Ilyse: Like if it leads to doing more deep SE work or IFS work I've also, I also utilize a lot of experiential or expressive [00:32:00] modalities. So like sand tray is something that I use a lot in my work. And so I think there's something even about just being in the room with the figures and the sand, even if we're not u using it, that invites that deeper work.
Ilyse: So, yeah. I know that that is not the most helpful answer for like, for therapists to know when to bring everything in. But it, again, like I just go back to like, knowing all of those tools that I have so well, and attuning to the client so that I know when to make offerings and where they might lead.
Ilyse: And then maybe they come in at like the coolest is when clients come in and say like, Whoa, I got in touch with this part, like in between our sessions. And I, I'm really [00:33:00] needing to check in with it today. Yeah, yeah,
John: yeah, no, I, I love your answer and also, you know, I, so I run a teaching practice here.
John: It's a group practice and naturally a lot of times therapists that are in training, they want to know what to do or what to do next, or some of them love EMDR in part because they feel like they have a plan for the session. And I have to work against that a lot to help gently help them gently let that go.
John: Right. Appreciate it. Because in every single session, we don't know what's going to happen or where clients are going to go, or we, they walk in and we were expecting them to be doing really well today or expecting them to be really sad and they're really happy all of a sudden. And now I'm looking at my sheet of paper going, well, I'm not sure where to start now because they're really happy or they relapsed or they actually got re traumatized this week.
John: So I'm not sure what the protocol says about that, you know, and clinging to something, right? Because again, I want to be helpful. I want this session to go well, et [00:34:00] cetera. And then ultimately what I want for them is to reach this fluidity that you're talking about of letting go, being in self as much as possible, and really just completely, yeah, completely letting go of the rope.
John: I have no idea where this session is going to go, what this person is going to bring in. And again, that piece about agenda. This happened to me recently where I was. In a session with someone, we're about, you know, 40 minutes into it or whatever, which is oftentimes where something happens, right. Or a lot of times where we've achieved some depth in the session or, or, or whatever we might be accessing a more vulnerable part or an exile or whatever it might be in this case, we encountered an exile kind of unexpectedly.
John: And this exile started to overwhelm her, started to, to, to flood her. And so we had kind of asked Asked the part not to overwhelm her, right? That wasn't really working. And so I offered the, the, my tappers, like my EMDR tappers and said, if you want to hold [00:35:00] these, hold these for a second and keep going.
John: And if it's okay to keep hearing what this part is wanting to share with you is wanting to show her a memory. Right. A traumatic memory. And the tappers helped tremendously. Right. And she didn't even know at the time, like what these tappers are, what this EMDR thing is, and it didn't matter. Right. But there was something that happened there.
John: Same thing to where we might be in the middle of a session and a thought will come to me and I will just share it. I don't. I don't know why, but you know, offer this to the part, or I wanting to say this to the part, see if that that lands and sometimes will. And when it happens, sometimes that'll feel like that thought is just kind of coming and I'm just sharing it directly without filtering it through 10 different therapists filters.
John: And should I say this and what would be a IFS thing to say here, an EMDR thing to say here, whatever it'll just kind of happen. So then I start to see what is my role here is to mostly be in that state as much as possible. And it's never a hundred [00:36:00] percent kind of thing, but when I do the work unfolds and my client and their parts can sense that I'm have that energy and holding that self energy and the session can truly go wherever.
John: Right. And I'm willing to go. Go with them, especially the more clients do this work, and especially the IFS work. A lot of it is truly them doing the work and I'm just kind of here, right? Which is, which is incredible, right? And a wonderful place to be to, to see them do that. Or to your point about your client coming in and saying, Hey, I was working with this part and can we kind of build off of that?
John: Great. Yeah. Let's, let's start there.
Ilyse: Yeah. I in some of my deeper work in trainings and in my own therapy I've been really tuning into like, you know, not just anybody is crazy enough to come into this profession. Like most of us have experienced our own Traumas to be a [00:37:00] trauma therapist, like we have a spark for it.
Ilyse: There's a reason that we're coming to that work. And I think the calling that brings us to that work can be very spiritual and can really be, and. It's like a gift that we have. And I know that for myself and many other therapists, we also might have people pleaser parts that don't want to or fawning parts that like want to be the helper, but don't want to say like, Oh, I have a gift.
Ilyse: Yeah. Yeah. But when we attune to it more, as an actual gift and can feel even a little bit into like the spirituality of it. It allows a lot more space to trust the process, to trust our inner wisdom, and to trust the inner wisdom of the client. Like I will have very strange [00:38:00] things happen with clients.
Ilyse: That like things that I notice that I'm like, Oh, there's a reason we're working together. And of course we have to be like foundry and recognize when it's okay to, to self disclose at certain points or if it's, if it's coming from a part or if it's coming from self. But I also think that it's very powerful.
Ilyse: And very much okay to step into like being a healer as a gift. Like I can laugh that my Reiki healer told me that I was a shaman in a past life. But I'm also like, even if I don't fully believe that I was a shaman in a past life, that form of healing and that information. is still telling me something about myself and about this resonating as a gift.
John: Yeah, I love that. And, and [00:39:00] some people, if people are listening that have known me, you know, even five years ago, even two years ago you know my wife gives me a hard time because I am a Capricorn. So every time I'm doing something Capricorn, She's like, of course you would say that you're Capricorn, you know, like the realist, is it practical?
John: How much is that going to cost? And there is that part of me that is really strong. And so that part was also leading the dance and a lot of my therapy work at times of just like being realistic, doing a lot of CBT. Like I worked under a CBT purist for years. Right. And that tickled that, you know, CBT part of me of like, I can be really helpful and there's a worksheet for everything.
John: Right. And it's just, we just got to restructure your thoughts or whatever. Then coming into this, this into IFS, I'm like, I can't not see it as a spiritual model. And the first time I, you know, walked a client through an unburdening, I'm like, oh, dear God, this is the most spiritual thing I've ever seen or been a part of.
John: And I have to tone down my [00:40:00] excitement for it too, because the first time I like learned IFS and told my sister about it, she was just like. This sounds like something else, you know and yet, like, when we think about how the depths to which trauma can touch a person, and we think about the role of like a soul in all of this or the healing aspects of.
John: A soul or getting connected to your soul, your authentic self, your highest self, whatever you want to call it. You know, and I appreciate that IFS also offers lots of terms around like self or self energy. Like we still have to keep it in this kind of medical model that you and I work in with a licensure board and the, you know, these people that are over top of what we do and like diagnostic codes and billing requirements and all these pieces.
John: So But that being said, like, I've just, I've never had such a level of conviction for any model and until I found IFS. So, yeah.
Ilyse: Yeah. And it's neat to like [00:41:00] even be in spaces with like IFS people. Because like, we just have a way of getting each other. I didn't know. Sometimes it can be too much with talking about our parts all the time.
Ilyse: Sometimes we need a break. But we just have like, I very much like trust the IFS people that I know. And we have this understanding for ourselves and something really neat that happened for me as I got more in depth with IFS is that I started doing these. more like alternative forms of healing like Reiki or the ketamine.
Ilyse: But I, I actually am very connected to my parts and because of all the, the IFS work I've done, my parts show up for me. And are just able to have a more a deeper subconscious experience because these are parts that I've already met in the IFS context.
John: [00:42:00] Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's, it's wonderful. I mean, there's also people I've had clients who are new to IFS, but client that went and had a.
John: Like a journey with psilocybin and basically had an unburdening, you know experience like a literal, like by the book IFS type on burdening on their own. Right. So it's like his system was just ready for that. And that happened you know in the right environment and context and support and people and all that.
John: So it's like, again, there's that propensity towards, toward healing that happens. Yeah. Automatically to your point before about therapists doing the work, I believe that 100 percent and that we cannot take clients farther than we've gone ourselves. And so again, one of my primary jobs is doing that work.
John: So I have been through EMDR. I have Cons I'm going through IFS right now, receiving IFS as a client right now. And I talked to my clients about that piece too, because I think it's important and they can feel that too, especially again, if we're in deep waters in a [00:43:00] session and in the trauma work, they can feel whether or not I'm actually comfortable being in these deep waters with them, right?
John: They can really feel it. And to me, that, that is almost more important than having a technique at hand or having, again, a worksheet for that is that deeper felt sense of Having been to dark, dark places. Definitely. Yeah. The, the, the time has, has flown by. I wanted to thank you again so much for being here.
John: Of course. Just wanted to invite you to share any kind of like final thoughts you wanted to share with folks, anything you didn't get to say. And then of course, how people can find out more about you and, and follow along.
Ilyse: I can't think of any more final thoughts. But just, I just want to reiterate. And really acknowledge the, like, being in the depths. With our clients at like doing the depth work so that we can be in the depths safely with our clients I really like that idea and I think that's so essential [00:44:00] as trauma therapists and for clients out there It's more than okay to ask your When you're looking for a therapist to ask what sort of depth work they've done themselves before deciding to hire them.
Ilyse: And then you can find me on Instagram @movingpartspsychotherapy. My website is www.movingpartspsychotherapy.com. My practice is located in South Austin, Texas. I am sometimes on TikTok. I think my TikTok is also @movingpartspsychotherapy. And my book is available on Amazon and through Pesce's website. It's called the tender parts.
John: Amazing. Yeah. And we'll have links to all that in a show description whether you're listening audio version, or if you're watching on YouTube.
John: So at least thank you again so much for doing this. It really means a lot to me and love to have you back [00:45:00] anytime.
Ilyse: Yeah. Thank you
John: so much. Thanks for listening to another episode of Going Inside. If you enjoyed this episode, please like, and subscribe wherever you're listening or watching and share your favorite episode with a friend.
John: You can follow me on Instagram, @johnclarketherapy, and apply to work with me one on one at johnclarketherapy.com See you next time.
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