Thread by @xuenay

Every now and then I see people ask for good introductions to Internal Family Systems. So, here are my picks:

For a "what *is* IFS" overview I would recommend elemental.medium.com/inside-the-rev… if you like text or if you prefer video (gets going at the 4 minute mark). If you like text and are STEM-minded there's also my own lesswrong.com/posts/5gfqG3Xc… .

(If I had to pick just one of those I'd recommend the video.)

For "how to *do* IFS", the video gets into it a bit but the most detailed how-to guide is smile.amazon.com/Self-Therapy-S… . A nice complement is smile.amazon.com/Power-Focusing… , technically about Focusing but very IFS-like in style.

The "canonical" IFS book is the one by its creator, smile.amazon.com/Internal-Famil… . It's aimed at professional therapists and is drier reading than the others, but it does include some nice case studies, as well as discussion of e.g. how IFS principles manifest on the level of groups.

A few other books that I'd consider supplementary are one specifically aimed at applying IFS to self-criticism, smile.amazon.com/Freedom-Your-I… , and another that's about fulfilling romantic relationships, ifs-institute.com/store/37 . First chapter of the latter: ifsca.ca/wp-content/upl… .

(If you are the type to wonder something like "okay but WTF is *actually* going on with IFS, like what's the underlying mechanism" then I'll take the chance to also plug lesswrong.com/posts/i9xyZBS3… , which applies to all transformative therapy, IFS being one special case.)