Meeting the parts of you that learned to go numb or take over
IFS therapy for adults in Austin and across Texas. No part of you gets exiled here, including the ones you don't like.
Schedule a free consultationI use Internal Family Systems as one of my two core modalities, alongside EMDR, because it's the model I've watched change how people relate to themselves fastest. Most clients who come looking for IFS specifically have already read about it, or already tried therapy that treated their inner critic like a problem to eliminate instead of a part that needs to be understood first.
If any of this sounds like you
You can name your inner critic, and you're tired of being told to "just be kinder to yourself."
Part of you wants help and part of you is bracing for it to not work, again.
You go numb, shut down, or check out under stress, and you'd like to understand why instead of just managing around it.
You've noticed you act like a completely different person depending on who you're with.
You've read about IFS, or a past therapist mentioned "parts work," and something in you sat up.
You're doing fine on paper and quietly exhausted from keeping it that way.
What a first session actually looks like
We don't start by cataloguing your parts like a personality inventory. We start with what's loud right now: whatever's stressed, stuck, or showing up that day. I'll reflect back what I'm hearing in parts language early, something like "it sounds like a part of you wants to say yes, and a part of you is already dreading it."
That's usually the moment it clicks. Most people expect parts work to feel abstract until they hear their own conflict named that plainly, and then it stops feeling like a technique and starts feeling like relief.
From there we get curious about whichever part showed up, not to fix it, but to understand what job it's been doing and how long it's been doing it.
What it feels like from the inside
The shift most people notice isn't dramatic. It's the moment they stop fighting a part instead of pushing it away. When a client meets a protective part, the critic, the planner, the one who goes numb, we don't try to talk it out of its job. We get to know it. How old is this part? How did it end up carrying this job in the first place? Does it even like doing this, or is it exhausted and doing it anyway because nobody's told it that it doesn't have to anymore? What is it afraid would happen if it stopped?
That's befriending a part, not managing it. And once a part feels genuinely understood, hopes, fears, and all, the anxiety in the room drops. Not because the part disappeared, but because it stopped having to work so hard to be heard. That's usually where clients start describing feeling calmer between sessions too, not just during them.
I was personally drawn to this model because, as a chronic overthinker and intellectualizer myself, IFS finally took me out of my mind and into my feelings for the first time. I was actually able to experience acceptance, relief, compassion, all these things I knew I was supposed to do but didn't know how to do, or what they even felt like.
Underneath all of it is what I call Self: the part of you that isn't a part at all. You'll know you're there when things feel open, curious, calm, compassionate, courageous, confident, or creative, and there's no agenda in the room. Just space. That's not a state you have to build from scratch. It's already in you, and the work is clearing enough room for it to lead.
"There are no bad parts. Only parts carrying jobs they were handed too early."
IFS, explained in a few minutes
Sometimes it's easier to hear it than read it.
A map of your inner system
Everyone's system is different. These are patterns, not boxes, and we never force our way toward anything.
The parts working hardest on the outside: the critic, the planner, the one who goes numb, the one who keeps you busy. Everyone's look different.
In IFS these are called exiles: younger parts still carrying vulnerable feelings from earlier experiences. We don't go looking for them. Protectors decide when, if ever.
Calm, curious, and steady. Not a part, but the place we work from as trust builds inside your system.
How IFS and EMDR work together
Building capacity
IFS handles the protective parts of you that would otherwise pull you out of your own experience the moment things get difficult. It widens your window of tolerance first.
Processing what's ready
Once your system has more room to stay present instead of shutting down or flooding, EMDR becomes the tool we use to actually process specific memories.
Neither one skips the other. Trying to run EMDR before a client's protectors trust the process usually backfires, and IFS without ever touching the memories underneath it can leave people insightful but stuck.
What this asks of you
This isn't the fastest path. Parts work asks you to slow down and stay with discomfort instead of explaining it away, which is genuinely harder than it sounds if you're someone who copes by understanding things intellectually.
Insight alone won't move this. Your nervous system has to actually experience something different, not just recognize a pattern from the outside. That takes longer than most people expect, and it's usually the point where clients realize therapy that only ever talked about their feelings never quite got them anywhere.
Who this tends to fit, and who it doesn't
You might be a good fit for this work if you're an adult who's carrying complex trauma, CPTSD, or childhood emotional neglect, and you're ready to go beneath just managing symptoms, into where they actually come from. This is for people who feel curious about their inner world, open to working with the body and not just the mind, and who want a therapist who walks alongside them rather than hands them a script.
People who are in active crisis and need a higher level of care first. This includes acute suicidal crisis, unstabilized eating disorders, active substance withdrawal, or untreated psychosis. These deserve specialized, intensive support before deeper trauma work can be safely done.
People who are looking for short-term, skills-only support (like structured CBT) without interest in exploring where their patterns come from or working with the body.
People who are hoping for a therapist who will direct and advise rather than walk alongside them in a slower, collaborative process.
IFS, answered
Do I have to talk about specific memories in IFS sessions?
Not right away. IFS starts with what's present now. Memories come up when a part is ready to share them, not because we go looking for them.
How long does this usually take?
Everyone's different, but by around six months, most clients start to notice more space between themselves and their reactions. More room to connect with their own feelings, more compassion for themselves, a steadier sense of who they are underneath the parts.
What's it actually like?
This is the question I get most before someone books. It's less strange than it sounds. We're not performing a technique. We're getting curious about whatever's already loud in you and listening to what it's trying to do for you.
Am I doing it right?
This comes up a lot, usually from people who feel like they're failing at it somehow. There isn't a wrong way to bring a part into the room. Whatever you bring in is exactly what we work with. There are no "shoulds" in this process.
Isn't talking to your "parts" a little strange?
I get why it sounds that way before you've done it, closer to how EMDR sounds like eye-tracking gimmickry before anyone explains it. Underneath the language, it's just a way of befriending what's already inside you and learning to feel your feelings instead of managing around them. The words are unusual. What's happening underneath them is pretty grounded.
Working together
I see adults virtually across Texas and in person in Austin. A free 15-minute consultation is where we talk about what's bringing you in, whether IFS sounds like the right starting point, and what questions you have before committing to anything.
Let's start with a conversation.
If a part of you has been running the show for a long time and you're ready to find out what it's protecting you from, that's work we can do together.
Schedule a free consultationA steady space is here whenever you are.