I get lots of questions about eligibility for attending Drawing into Self workshops, so this blog post aims to clarify things. Please ask if you still have questions after reading it.
Firstly, its important to say I don’t teach IFS, only deeply somatic ways of using the model.
The 3 separate workshops that together make up the Foundation level of Drawing into Self have 3 different eligibility criteria:
Exploring the Survive/Thrive Spiral (Personal Experiential)
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- Open to all (usually attended by a mix of therapists & general public).
- It’s a good idea to have a basic understanding of both IFS and Polyvagal theory.
- Please prepare by watching my Youtube video that introduces the graphic.
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The reason for this criteria is that this is an experiential, participatory workshop. It not designed as a training, however clinicians who attend might take elements of the workshop into their client sessions.
Foundation 2: Conference Table (Community Experiential)
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- Open to therapists / practitioners / coaches – normally those doing some form of parts work with clients/groups.
- You need to understand the core principles of IFS (eg through your own therapy or study) but you do NOT have to have done an official IFS Institute training.
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The reason for this criteria is that the workshop introduces a way of using Drawing into Self that can be used in community group settings as well as individual therapy sessions.
Foundation 1: The 1-to-1 Session (Training + Client Demo)
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- Open to therapists/practitioners / coaches who have completed the IFS Institute Level 1 training – OR another live training of at least 36 hours that includes supervised practice (eg Stepping Stone)
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The reason for this criteria is that the workshop demonstrates using Drawing into Self for delivering the full IFS healing protocol, therefore clinicians need to already be fluent in using IFS with clients.
A note for those who don’t meet the criteria for Foundation 1 but still want to attend
Unfortunately I been assured in the past by a number of people saying they were fully fluent with IFS who have proved not to be – which has both hampered delivery of workshop content and also caused problems for other participants. This has led me to be specific about the pre-requisites for attendance.
That said, I am also aware that there are people out there practicing IFS with great facility who have become fluent through other means, e.g. hundreds of hours of IFS therapy, supervision and training offered by a range of other sources. (And that some of these people may well have more facility with the model than a subset of others who have done all 3 levels with IFSI.)
Therefore, if you have IFS supervision with someone who is IFSI-trained to a high level, and your supervisor can verify having seen the quality of your work with clients, I am happy for you to write to me outlining your experience and including a recommendation from your supervisor.
