IFS Therapy - Have any of you made this work completely on your own?

[ZenAlex]

So my mental health has taken a downwards turn over the last 6 moths or so, to the degree that it's impacting me physically and I'm getting psychosomatic symptoms it seems. Stimulating activities like exercise, work and other things are effecting me worse than usual and my thoughts are more severe. I've done so many physical tests and there's no clear answer as to what is causing it. But I do notice that stress/mentally stimulating activities are quite big contributors to the symptoms, so I assume it's just a case of my mental health declining and these are now the symptoms.

I've gone back to see a psychologist, and they happened to bring up IFS Therapy. He cannot perform on it and said the waiting list for that therapy in the UK is about 2 years. He will be doing other forms of therapy on me such as considering emdr therapy and other such therapy, but were just in the process of understand my more deeply. I saw an NHS therapist/psychologist previously and I didn't gain much from it. 

But I've paid for a private psychologist now, and I feel we've made more progress in 3 sessions than I did with my other therapists in about 20 sessions. 

I've heard of IFS therapy before and watched videos about it but I suppose never followed up on it, although It makes perfect sense.

TL;DR What I want to know is, is it safe to do it by yourself without the guidance of a professional? Is it likely to succeed if your dedicated?

Looking for success stories and advice.

[Grateful Dead]

Get the book: No Bad Parts by Richard Schwartz. It contains over 30 exercises that you can do on your own. (all safe)

The more in touch you are with your higher self, the more likely you are to succeed on your own. And if you can find and pay a good therapist who is more conscious than you are, it can speed up the process a lot.

Also if you have access to psychedelics and know how to use them, you can do IFS therapy with psychedelics, which is extremely effective. But that is dangerous if you do it on your own. You need to be extra careful, start with a low dose and go very slowly.

[Ulax]

The IFS self therapy book series by Jay Earley is a good resource for this sort of thing too, imo.

Thing is your gonna be a newbie doing this sort of thing on yourself. Compared to having the expertise of a higher level IFS therapist. So, good to have a mentor via a higher level therapist I think.

Can be especially tricky if you have issues accessing self. At least that was the case for me. I tried a lot of self ifs work but didn't get much progress with it.

[meta_male]

@ZenAlex What about starting off with online sessions? There's heaps of spots left.

I got into it with a practitioner, sometimes do sessions alone too, but I don't think I would have made this much progress without any guidance first.

Edited March 12, 2024 by meta_male