The One Inside: An Internal Family Systems (IFS) podcast

Jessica Tomich Sorci, a Level 3 IFS therapist and perinatal mental health specialist who created the Mom Parts Method, walks through a five-step practice for mothers. She names 29 recurring mom parts, explores grief as a through line in motherhood, and contrasts parts that protect kids with parts that plead, What about mom. Practical tools and community focus round out the conversation.

Audrey Davidheiser, a licensed psychologist and certified IFS therapist who treats trauma and religious trauma, returns with insights from her book on grief. She discusses how protectors make grief pile up and how to negotiate small, manageable doses of mourning. Conversations include honoring parts that still yearn for the deceased, cultural and faith-based barriers to grieving, and practical ways to invite grief safely.

Jenna Riemersma, a Certified IFS therapist and bestselling author who makes parts work practical, shares the three-step Move Toward tool: Notice, Know, Need. She explains using it in relationships, addiction, and activism. Learn how unblending shifts your energy, why Self-led action preserves humanity, and how to create safe spaces for marginalized voices.

Today I welcome to the podcast Drs. Risa Adams, Robin Beardsley, and Elizabeth Parsons. They are family physicians turned psychotherapists who came together during the pandemic to write, find community, and speak for their parts. What they found in that process and wrote about in their new book, It Doesn't Have To Be This Way: A Physician's Guide To Radical Self Care (by three physicians who've been there), is something most caregivers, doctors, healthcare workers, therapists, parents, partners, anyone who finds their worth in being needed, will recognize. In This Episode The parts that helped you survive by taking care of everyone else Why fear and shame rarely get spoken out loud in medicine, or anywhere caregiving happens What finally broke each of them, and what helped Writing as a way to let parts be witnessed for the first time Why belonging and helping got tangled together so early Takeaways Helper parts learned that helping was the price of belonging The parts that make you good at caring for others are often the same parts driving burnout Burnout is a signal that the strategy has run out of space Being witnessed by people who get it can reach parts that have never been spoken out loud The culture around caregiving, in medicine and elsewhere, rewards the helper and punishes the one who needs This episode is for anyone who has ever made themselves smaller so there would be room to help. Links: Book: It Doesn't Have to Be This Way: A Physician's Guide to Radical Self-Care IFS Canadian Community Conference: A two-day online gathering for professionals using Internal Family Systems in their work, and for those exploring how IFS may support their professional practice. June 5-6, 2026, online. About the guests: Risa Adams, MD, CCFP, is a family physician with a focused practice in perinatal mental health and complex PTSD. She is a Certified IFS Therapist, Approved Clinical Consultant and Trainer with the IFS Institute. Through her own travels with mental health she has come to appreciate the complexity of being a human while being a physician, with a special interest in intergenerational trauma. Risa lives in Elora, Ontario, with her partner and two children, and hopes to help bring IFS to doctors, patients and her own communities. Robin Beardsley, MD, FCFP, a Family Physician with over 35 years' experience of comprehensive family medicine practice and psychotherapy with a focus on care for the caregiver. She is a certified IFS-I Therapist, approved Clinical Consultant, with extensive training in the Satir Model and is a trained teacher of Mindful Self Compassion. She also works with learners, as a faculty member of the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Ottawa, and teaches Self Compassion for Health Care Communities. These experiences of working with and healing from empathic distress in medical communities with IFS and Self-Compassion, along with her own journey of being a caregiver, personally and professionally, has given her a greater understanding of the complexity and multiplicity of our systems. She lives in Ottawa, Ontario with her husband and adult children nearby. Elizabeth Parsons, MD, FCFP, has been a physician for over 25 years, practicing psychotherapy since 2007. She is a Certified IFS therapist and an Approved Clinical Consultant with the IFS Institute. In addition to IFS, Elizabeth is trained in trauma therapy and has been facilitating psychotherapy groups since 2010. Her interest in physician well being goes back to residency, when she surveyed medical residents on their coping strategies. She has been closely involved with the Medical Psychotherapy Association Canada since 2007, launching a self-care retreat for physicians that has run annually since 2012. Elizabeth lives in Ottawa, Ontario, with her husband and 3 children. About The One Inside I started this podcast to help spread IFS out into the world and make the model more accessible to everyone. Seven years later, that's still at the heart of all we do. Join The One Inside Substack community for bonus conversations, extended interviews, meditations, and more. Find Self-Led merch at The One Inside store. Listen to episodes and watch clips on YouTube. Follow me on Instagram @ifstammy or on Facebook at The One Inside with Tammy Sollenberger. I co-create The One Inside with Jeff Schrum, a Level 2 IFS practitioner and coach. Resources New to IFS? My book, The One Inside: Thirty Days to Your Authentic Self, is a great place to start. Want a free meditation? Sign up for my email list and get "Get to Know a Should Part" right away. Sponsorship Want to sponsor an episode of The One Inside? Email Tammy.

Today I welcome Irina Diyankova back to the podcast. Her last episode, Is It Trauma or Neurodivergence? was one of our most popular. This time we explore what happens when "going inside" during an IFS session becomes hard for clients. She finds this is especially true with neurodivergent and C-PTSD clients. Irina shares why externalization can be so helpful in these cases. Instead of relying only on what's happening internally, bringing things outside, like mapping, speaking out loud, connecting visually or relationally, really help. We also talk about how IFS isn't a cookie-cutter model. We all respond differently, and part of the work is noticing what helps you stay engaged and attuned to a particular client's system. One of my favorite segments was hearing her talk about building community inside with part-to-part relationships. This is where we help parts notice each other, listen, and begin to relate differently. These part-to-part connections are just as important in the healing process as Self-to-part. We also talk about slowing things down in session, and how that's a small-but-critical opportunity for healing. Saying, "what you just said is important," or "tell me more about that." For many people, that kind of attention wasn't there growing up. It can feel unfamiliar, and also really supportive. Later in the conversation, Irina shares about her experience with cancer, being in remission, and what it's been like to be with her system in the process. She talks about holding different parts at the same time, and relating to cancer not as something to fight, but something to understand. Don't miss my short extended interview with Irina over on Substack, where she shares what's giving her hope lately. Takeaways from this episode: • Externalizing can make parts work more accessible when staying inside feels hard • IFS isn't one-size-fits-all; adjust based on what you need • Slowing down and naming something as important can help people feel seen • "Community inside" means parts noticing and relating to each other • When Self isn't available, part-to-part connection still helps • Orienting parts to the present can reduce overwhelm • What helps you stay engaged when going inside feels hard? Links: Medium article: Dancing With Cancer Using IFS with Complex Trauma Clients workshop About Irina Diyankova Irina Diyankova, Ph.D., is a licensed psychologist, certified IFS therapist, Approved IFS Clinical Consultant, and a Co-Lead Trainer. She has private practice in Knoxville, TN, USA where she specializes in working with complex trauma in adults and adolescents and intersection of trauma and neurodifferences. Irina also maintains consultation practice where she offers individual and group consultation to the IFS therapists and those who are in the process of learning IFS. Being born and raised in Russia, Irina has a special interest in applying IFS across cultures, as well as working with cultural dynamics and burdens. Irina has completed all three levels of IFS training. SHe has also conducted multiple IFS workshops and consultation groups in the US and Russia. She is very passionate and excited about IFS Model and loves sharing it with other therapists and human services professionals. In her leisure time she loves practicing yoga, hiking, traveling, reading and writing. You can learn more about her work at dr-irina.com Episode Sponsor This episode is sponsored by Therapy Training Boston. Therapy Training Boston offers live, in-person, and online workshops, plus consultation for therapists and other helping professionals, designed to support you as a whole person while satisfying your CE requirements. All of their offerings are taught with an eye toward context, power, and relational justice, and draw on the family systems theories and best practices that shaped the IFS model. They also offer an Intensive Certificate Program in Couples and Family Therapy to help you build confidence and capacity in community. About The One Inside I started this podcast to help spread IFS out into the world and make the model more accessible to everyone. Seven years later, that's still at the heart of all we do. Join The One Inside Substack community for bonus conversations, extended interviews, meditations, and more. Find Self-Led merch at The One Inside store. Listen to episodes and watch clips on YouTube. Follow me on Instagram @ifstammy or on Facebook at The One Inside with Tammy Sollenberger. I co-create The One Inside with Jeff Schrum, a Level 2 IFS practitioner and coach. Resources New to IFS? My book, The One Inside: Thirty Days to Your Authentic Self, is a great place to start. Want a free meditation? Sign up for my email list and get "Get to Know a Should Part" right away. Sponsorship Want to sponsor an episode of The One Inside? Email Tammy.

Joanna Curry-Sartori, LMFT and founder of the Self-Leadership Collaborative, shares bite-sized ways to bring IFS into daily life. She introduces the PAUSE five-step practice and models it in live exercises. Short conversations cover using PAUSE in classrooms, relationships, experiments for change, and how simple parts language creates space, curiosity, and connection.

On today's episode I welcome Nitsan Joy Gordon, a dance movement therapist, IFS practitioner, and peacebuilder who lives in Israel. Nitsan shares about growing up in Israel, living near the border, and what it's like to live in a place where war and trauma have been part of daily life for generations. She also tells the story of how Internal Family Systems changed her own life. A powerful experience at Esalen with Dick Schwartz inspired her to use IFS in her work back home. Nitsan leads Together Beyond Words, an organization bringing Israelis and Palestinians together to transform pain through deep listening and connection. Her work is guided by the belief that pain that is not transformed is transmitted. After the attacks of October 7 and the immense grief and trauma that followed, Nitsan realized the need for healing had grown beyond what her organization had been doing. Today nearly 80 volunteers are offering ongoing support, and dozens of groups have been created where Israelis and Palestinians can process trauma, grief, and fear together. As you listen, I invite you to notice your own parts. What comes up for you as you hear these stories? What do you feel in your body? For me, this conversation was a reminder of the power of curiosity, one-on-one connection, and the courage it takes to stay present and open in our divided world. In This Episode We Talk About: • What it's like living in Israel today. • Nitsan's organization Together Beyond Words, which brings Israelis and Palestinians together to transform pain through shared healing. • The idea that "pain that is not transformed is transmitted." • A powerful IFS session she had with Dick Schwartz. • How the events of October 7 changed her work. • Why people need separate spaces to grieve before they can reunite. • When she realized the level of trauma requires an "army of healers." • How the Healing for Peace initiative grew from a handful of volunteers to nearly 80. • Why facilitators working in conflict zones are learning IFS tools like unblending and working with polarizations. About Nitsan Joy Gordon Nitsan Joy Gordon is a Dance/Movement Therapist, IFS therapist, and peacebuilder who has been working in Israel/Palestine for over three decades. Her work lives at the meeting point of movement, deep listening, and compassionate presence, creating spaces where pain shaped by conflict can be felt, witnessed, and transformed. She is the author of Together Beyond Words: Women on a Quest for Peace in the Middle East and the initiator of Army of Healers, an offering of safe spaces to feel and heal across deep divides. Learn more at: Together Beyond Words. About The One Inside I started this podcast to help spread IFS out into the world and make the model more accessible to everyone. Seven years later, that's still at the heart of all we do. Join The One Inside Substack community for bonus conversations, extended interviews, meditations, and more. Find Self-Led merch at The One Inside store. Listen to episodes and watch clips on YouTube. Follow me on Instagram @ifstammy or on Facebook at The One Inside with Tammy Sollenberger. I co-create The One Inside with Jeff Schrum, a Level 2 IFS practitioner and coach. Resources New to IFS? My book, The One Inside: Thirty Days to Your Authentic Self, is a great place to start. Want a free meditation? Sign up for my email list and get "Get to Know a Should Part" right away. Sponsorship Want to sponsor an episode of The One Inside? Email Tammy.

Meg Josephson, LCSW, a trauma-informed psychotherapist and NYT bestselling author, discusses the fawn response and people-pleasing. Short segments cover how being “nice” can disconnect us, why grief and anger matter for healing, and using mindfulness and the NICER tool to notice needs. She also explores when it’s safe to speak up and how small corrective experiences help parts learn safety.

Marcella Cox, LMFT — a therapist and author specializing in IFS, somatic work, and listening therapies. She explains polyvagal basics and how nervous system states shape parts. They explore co-regulation, differences between Safe and Sound Protocol and Rest and Restore, and how filtered music can open bodily safety and increase Self energy.

Courtney Corona, journalist and podcaster who tells candid stories about love and healing, and Keith Miller, licensed therapist and IFS consultant working with ketamine-assisted therapy, share their messy, brave relationship. They talk radical honesty, starting with the ending, dating app chaos, using IFS in conflict, grieving past lives while loving again, and how psychedelics helped unlock grief and reconnection.