Intensive Using IFS Therapy for Anger

1. Identify how anger potentiates emotional development from child to adult.
2. Define the “smoke alarm” theory of anger and other emotions.
3. Examine common childhood situations that lead to suppression of anger.
4. Examine the sensation and energy of anger in the body.
5. Identify the consequences of suppressed anger.
6. Analyze the four IFS parts that cluster around anger.
7. Define Martin Buber’s two basic ways of relating.
8. Determine the role of anger in recovering from a narcissistic family.
9. Define the Inner Critic as a part burdened with moral beliefs.
10. Differentiate judgment from assessment.
11. Distinguish potential benefits from negative consequences of the Inner Critic.
12. Determine positive cultural uses of shame.

Foundations of the Internal Family System Therapy Model

• Brief history of IFS therapy development
• Understanding the concept of internal multiplicity
• Core logic as the IFS therapy model
• Restoring self-leadership as the main goal in IFS therapy

Core Components of the IFS Therapy

• Self as the client’s internal leader
• Protectors: managers and firefighters
• Exiles and the IFS therapy approach to wounded parts
• Origin and impact of personal and legacy burdens
• IFS therapy as a tool for memory reconsolidation

The Function and Formation of Anger

• Anger as a boundary-protecting part
• Anger as a driver of individuation and differentiation
• Constructive vs. destructive anger patterns
• How early learning shapes threat detection and anger responses

Clinical Presentations of Anger in IFS Work

• Inhibited, somatic, and displaced anger
• Introjects and the internalized anger system
• Identifying the anger cluster
• Creating conditions for welcoming anger safely

Relational Frames and the Sense of Self in IFS

• Meeting clients and their parts in therapy
• Anger as energy that restores boundaries and relational integrity
• Clinical interventions for unblending, meeting, and befriending protectors
• The developmental role of wants and desires in the therapeutic process

Anger, Authenticity, and Adaptive Strategies

• Implications of Martin Buber’s model for IFS work
• Consequences of narcissistic caregivers
• Fawning as an attachment-driven survival strategy
• The essential role of anger in reclaiming self-agency

Understanding Polarity Dynamics in IFS

• Polarity as a natural principal in parts interactions in therapy
• Intuiting the “missing side” of polarized pairs
• How protectors create polarization through their strategies
• Most common polarizations

Working with Polarized Systems in the IFS Model

• External polarizations and internal reenactments in relationships
• Dissociation as an extreme form of polarization
• Clinical interventions for de-escalating polarized protectors
• Accessing self-leadership and restoring flexible parts collaboration

Understanding the Critic Role in the System

• Connection between the inner critic, outer critic, and anger
• Judgment vs. assessment
• Most common core fears driving critical behavior
• Enrolling anger to unblend from critics

Helping the Critic Relax and Organize

• Supporting the inner critic through “future parts”
• Using boundary-protecting parts to soothe the critic’s vigilance
• Reframing shame as supporting cultural cohesion
• Clinical interventions for working with critic parts
• Risk and limitations of research

Closing

• Case examples
• Q&A

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