EFT and IFS: Better Together
EFT and IFS: Better Together
Lori Marchak, ICEEFT SUPERVISOR and certified ifs therapist
Jennifer FIEBIG, Ifs assistant trainer
Experiential Workshop, Thursday evening – Sunday morning, July 20-23, 2023
Boulder Hot Springs, Boulder, Montana
15 Continuing Education Credits for Mental Health Professionals
Are you an advanced Emotionally Focused Therapist who is intrigued with the Internal Family Systems model? Come join us as we explore how to expand our therapist presence and skills while welcoming and integrating both models.
Boulder Hot Springs is a remote, unassuming, and nurturing setting rich in history, healing energy, and nature. Here we’ll celebrate, share, support, learn, and explore. There’ll be time to soak in the mineral-rich, geothermal pools, take a walking meditation through the Seven Generations sculpture, and hike the mountain trails. Nutritious, locally sourced meals accommodate most dietary needs and preferences.
At this retreat, we’ll celebrate all that EFT and IFS models have given us, while appreciating the challenges they present to us. We will see, hear, and honor each other for our accomplishments and our struggles. Through experiential learning, we will grow our connection with our own systems by grounding in both models, simultaneously.
Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), developed by Sue Johnson, continues to expand in recognition and popularity. It is perhaps the most respected and powerful, and certainly the most well researched, model of couple therapy. Moreover, EFT is increasingly appreciated as a general model of psychotherapy for individuals, families, and groups.
At the same time, Internal Family Systems, developed by Richard Schwartz, is spreading at lightning speed, not just in the psychotherapy world, but across a wide range of professional disciplines.
IFS and EFT have fundamental similarities. Both are radically de-shaming, seeing “negative symptoms” as positive attempts to maximize belonging. In both models therapists work experientially, learning to deeply attune, resonate, and respond to the client’s moment-to-moment experience.
Yet IFS and EFT have fundamental differences. EFT prioritizes the attachment relationship, beginning with an attachment relationship between the client and therapist, as the primary source of healing. IFS assumes the existence of an intact, infinite, and spiritual Self within each of us, and prioritizes one’s own Self as the primary source of healing. From a client’s perspective, EFT and IFS sessions feel quite different. With lack of collaboration between model leaders, practitioners who are attracted to both models can become lost and confused in attempting to bring them together.
This 3-day experiential workshop will playfully explore how EFT and IFS can be powerfully integrated in a manner that resonates with the clinician’s own parts and Self. We will create an intimate, accepting and caring container. From there, we will encourage our parts to be seen, validated, and supported as they resonate with and react to different ways of working more powerfully with our clients. We will emerge with more clarity and understanding of ourselves and how we want to approach our clinical work.
Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, Boulder Hot Springs is an historic inn and retreat center. Sitting on a remote 240 acres, Boulder Hot Springs offers hiking trails, animal and bird watching, star gazing, and a quaint western museum. It’s most famous attraction is it’s natural, mineral-rich geothermal pools and steam rooms.
Healthy, locally sourced, buffet-style meals will be provided and are including in your registration fee. Most special diet needs can be accommodated. Boulder Hot Springs Inn provides several options for lodging, including historically decorated B&B rooms, modest rooms with private or shared bathrooms, and camping spots. Boulder Hot Springs is dedicated to providing a sacred, healing environment, and has an alcohol-free policy. For those who would like to imbibe, there is a bar in the small town of Boulder, Montana, 3 miles up the road.
To get to Boulder Hot Springs, fly into Bozeman, Montana. Nestled in the Rocky Mountains, Bozeman is a historic town, cultural center, and hub to a wide variety of outdoor recreation opportunities. Bozeman is also an ideal base for a day trip to Yellowstone National Park.
Boulder Hot Springs is a two hour drive from Bozeman. To reduce the number of cars and climate impact, we will coordinate ride share opportunities between Bozeman and Boulder on Thursday afternoon and Sunday morning.
Contact Boulder Hot Springs at (406) 225-4339 or go online to reserve your accommodations. Reserve early to ensure you get a room onsite.
Lori Marchak, MS, Ph.D, LMFT, LCPC
Lori is an ICEEFT Therapist, ICEEFT Supervisor, and Certified IFS Therapist. A deeply experiential therapist, Lori has been at the forefront of bringing both EFT and IFS to the State of Montana. Lori has trained for over a dozen years in EFT, and is a founding member and training director for the Montana Community for EFT. Lori has worked closely with several EFT trainers, and has provided joint trainings with Roy Hodgson in Seattle and Debi Scimeca-Diaz in New Jersey. She led a Bozeman-based group practice grounded in IFS as well as EFT.
Lori’s clients travel from all over the country, as well as internationally, to work with her in three-day intensives designed to bring healing and transformation. Lori specializes in working with complex and generational trauma. Lori is passionate and gifted as a couple therapist, and finds intensive work with individuals incredibly meaningful as well. She is known for her ease, safety, and warmth, as well as her strength and confidence as a guide through deeper, underlying material.
Jennifer Fiebig, LCPC
Jenny Fiebig is a professional counselor licensed in Montana and Colorado. Her private practice focuses on helping individuals and couples heal from trauma, and most specifically trauma related to outdoor accidents. Her first career was in outdoor education and guiding. While working with people for long periods of time in a wilderness setting, she found the profound connection people shared to self, to others and to the landscape they were traveling within. In 2010 she went back to school to pursue a graduate degree in Mental Heath Counseling at Montana State University. She was exposed to IFS while working for a group practice in Bozeman, MT and has deepened her knowledge in IFS ever since. Jenny has been through multiple Levels 1, 2 and 3 with IFS-Institute and IFIO, is a Certified IFS Therapist, and an Approved IFS Clinical Consultant for Certification. IFS has taken her all over the US, Australia and Portugal. She completed the ATP program with IFS Institute. She now works as an Assistant Trainer for IFS-I and has experience working with a number of lead trainers. Jenny has a deep passion for IFS and is excited to be in a teaching role with IFS Institute to bring this model to more healers around the world.
More Details
Benefits of attending this event:
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- Gain confidence in embracing and integrating both EFT and IFS models.
- Develop a clear understanding of the similarities and differences between two popular and powerful experiential therapies.
- Improve your IFS work with an EFT lens, and improve your EFT work with an IFS lens.
- Gain consultation on stuck points in your work.
Learning Objectives
In this workshop, you will:
- Identify the key similarities and differences between EFT and IFS.
- Translate EFT to IFS terminology, and vice versa.
- Differentiate, Explore and Develop your personal relationship with the IFS and EFT therapist stances
- Conceptualize the use of each stance
- Increase transparency and client collaboration in using EFT and IFS interventions
- Conceptualize and Practice bringing “EFT interventions” into IFS insight work, and “IFS parts work” into EFT
- Conduct an informed assessment of when to work with the couple or family vs. the individual(s) in doing EFT, IFS, or EFT/IFS
Lodging at Boulder Hot Springs
Boulder Hot Springs is an historic inn, hot springs spa, and retreat center.
Healthy buffet-style meals will be provided and are including in your registration fee. Most special diet needs can be accommodated on request.
Boulder Hot Springs Inn provides several options for lodging, including rooms with private bathrooms, rooms with shared bathrooms, and camping spots. Contact Boulder Hot Springs directly to reserve your accommodations. Reserve your room early! Space is limited, and there are only a few rooms with private bathrooms.
Schedule
Thursday, July 20
3-6 pm: Check in
6 pm: Dinner
7-9 pm Workshop
Friday, July 21
8 am: Breakfast
9-12: Workshop
Noon: Lunch
1-4 pm: Workshop
6 pm: Dinner
Saturday, July 22
8 am: Breakfast
9-12: Workshop
Noon: Lunch
1-4 pm: Workshop
6 pm: Dinner
7-9 pm: Workshop
Sunday, July 23
8 am: Breakfast
9-11 am Checkout
Prerequisites
Participants will need to have a solid understanding of the EFT model and have practice working with individuals in that model. Ideally, participants will have have completed an EFT Externship as well as EFT Core Skills. Comfort and extensive experience working with couples in the EFT model is not necessary.
Level 1 training in IFS is not a prerequisite for this training. However, participants will be expected to have some prior training and experience working with the IFS model. Links to on-line introductory IFS trainings and exercises will be provided on request for advance preparation for this workshop.
