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Partswork

Here are all my posts about working with human beings’ diverse internal communities, through the IFS model and byond.

Beyond IFS: Inner Work that Works for Plural Systems

At this year’s Plural Positivity World Conference, we offered a Plural take on Internal Family Systems model — what it says, what it doesn’t say, how it fails Plural systems, and how it could work better. Resources from that workshop are all here.

A photo collage of the silhouette of Minnesota against a frost crystals on a window.

The future of IFS in Minnesota: Ideas and an invitation

On Sunday, January 12, our colleagues Makai Dorfman and Zayla Asquith-Heinz gathered 18 other local IFS practitioners in South Minneapolis to talk and think together about our future as a community. This is a report about it was like, the ideas we dreamt up for our future, and an invitation for you.

A little orange cat ponders the cover of Judith Herman’s book Trauma and Recovery

The wisdom of Trauma and Recovery

I read a lot of psychoanalytic writing about suffering in college and grad school, even took a course on trauma theory. But it wasn’t until a few years ago that I encountered the most important modern work on the subject. Here are some of my favorite passages from Judith Herman’s masterpiece.

The outline of the state of Minnesota, filled with a photo of mountain-ash berries and leaves.

The 2024 Minnesota IFS community survey: what we learned

As the admin of the Minnesota IFS email list, I wanted to learn more about our statewide community — not only to improve the list, but also to explore other ways we might want to connect with each other statewide. Here’s what a community survey revealed, and what’s next for the model in our state.

A beautiful orange cat investigates the water fountain on my desk.

Free and low-cost support for exploring your inner world

You don’t need a lot of money, or any at all, to get some help navigating your internal community or learning more about human multiplicity. Here are some resources to try.

Four cartoon drawings of a set of objects, each with a larger yellow object

Beyond “Self-Leadership”

Despite the centrality of “Self-leadership” in IFS theory, people actually experience their sense of self in a vast diversity of forms. This workshop, proposed for the October 12 Parts Work Unconference, is a place to explore alternative conceptions of Self.

My father’s prayer beads, photographed in my garden on August 11, 2024.

Two weird tricks for getting by in overwhelming times

Well hello again! 👋 It is lovely to be back in your inbox after all these absurdly eventful months. Since unprecedented times seem likely to continue for the foreseeable future, I’d like to offer two practical ideas about how living more plurally can help us stay sane as history whirls us along.