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Title: Internal Family Systems therapy - anyone know about it? Post by: goodintentions on July 06, 2015, 01:46:20 AM Our new therapist (who has lasted much longer than I anticipated) works with Internal Family Systems therapy (Dr. Richard Schwartz, Ph. D.). My uBPDw and I have been going twice a month for a while now and things have actually been going ok, and she is talking in therapy. The majority of our session in joint marriage counseling is spent directly with her, which is a good thing IMO. Our T recently recommended I read a book called You Are the One You've Been Waiting For and I just wondered if anyone has had experience with IFS therapy and could share whether or not it would be an effective approach.
Note: We live in a rural area and access to therapists is limited. I'm hoping we got lucky with a good T who can help us restore some normalcy, even if not skilled in traditional therapies that work for BPD-type issues. I have purposely kept quiet about my BPD suspicion as I want to know the T's assessment first, and to avoid tainting the jury. Title: Re: Internal Family Systems therapy - anyone know about it? Post by: sweetheart on July 07, 2015, 04:43:23 AM Hi goodintentions,
What I think about therapy is that if you and your SO are engaged in therapy no matter what kind this is positive. Your description of what is happening for you both sounds to me constructive and beneficial. What makes therapy in my humble opinion effective is a good positive working relationship with your T, trusting your T, wanting to keep going even when the work gets a bit more tricky. All therapies can work for anyone, it is for me about finding the right 'fit.' If you are talking and focusing on issues that are helping your relationship outside of therapy then that sounds like an effective approach to me. I understand why you are asking the question about the type of therapy, and that DBT is promoted as one of the more effective therapies for pwBPD, but given that it can be very difficult for a pwBPD to even get to therapy, it seems to me that what you and your wife have found is working for you both at the moment. Title: Re: Internal Family Systems therapy - anyone know about it? Post by: goodintentions on July 08, 2015, 05:20:09 AM Thank you for the reply, @sweetheart. Yes, you are exactly right in that I've worried about not seeking DBT therapy. And I've heard that therapy with the wrong T can exasperate the problem. But at least for me, it's been helpful even in trying to sort out my own feelings and perceptions, and I appreciate that my uBPDw is at least opening up to him about things. Thanks for the input and encouragement to stick with it.
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