Sex Addiction and IFS with Jenna Riemersma
Sex Addiction and IFS with Jenna Riemersma
In this episode of "Going Inside," I’m joined by #1 best-selling IFS author, Jenna Riemersma about the transformative power of Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy in healing trauma and addiction. We explore the core principles of IFS, its application in addiction treatment, and the paradigm shift it brings to therapy and recovery.
Key Topics Discussed:
1. The essence of Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy and its relevance in trauma healing.
2. How IFS helps individuals understand and work with their inner parts to achieve self-healing.
3. The role of shame in addiction and trauma, and how IFS addresses shame-based behaviors.
4. Integrating IFS into addiction treatment programs and its impact on recovery.
5. Jenna's journey of bringing IFS into addiction therapy and the exciting developments in the field.
Learn more about Jenna at https://jennariemersma.com/
You can find Jenna’s meditations on https://www.sentur.app/ and https://insighttimer.com/jennariemersma
Interview Transcript:
[00:00:00] John: Joining us today is best selling author, speaker, and certified IFS therapist, Jenna Riemersma. Jenna is a Harvard graduate and a seasoned clinical director whose groundbreaking IFS books have repeatedly topped Amazon's best selling new release charts. Jenna trained directly under Dr. Richard Schwartz and is a level three certified IFS therapist and IFS clinical consultant, as well as an EMDR therapist and CSAT and CMAT supervisor.
[00:00:30] John: Jenna, thank you so much for doing this and welcome to the show.
[00:00:34] Jenna: Thanks John. It's great to be with you.
[00:00:37] John: Yeah, yeah. A lot of directions this this episode could, could take. I know you first of all, from reading Altogether Us or at least kind of picking and picking the book apart and going from chapter to chapter or diving right in, you know, the the IFS and EMDR chapter was actually the first one I went to cause at the time that was the one I needed the most help.
[00:00:59] John: [00:01:00] Integrating and it's still quite interesting to me, but yeah, I guess what else should people know about you in terms of how you got here? A little bit about your story, especially with, with IFS. And yeah, and then maybe even just kind of what you're up to lately.
[00:01:14] Jenna: Yeah, absolutely. Well, I came into the clinical world sort of as a second career.
[00:01:19] Jenna: My first, in my 20s was in public policy. I actually was in Washington DC working on Capitol Hill. So kind of an unusual shift but my own personal journey in counseling brought me into the field of therapy and I originally. Had as my area of clinical specialization, sex addiction and betrayal trauma.
[00:01:42] Jenna: And I remember early in those years, early in my private practice and residential years, I would come dragging home at the end of the day and I was just worn out. I felt like I'd been wrestling alligators all day long. And then I discovered IFS. [00:02:00] And it was such a complete light bulb moment for me. Most people describe it that way.
[00:02:05] Jenna: So I know I'm not alone in that experience, but it's so transformed the way that I worked with addiction and betrayal trauma and the way that I offered compassion to my own struggles, my own experiences that it immediately became my go to model of therapy. And I would come home at the end of the day.
[00:02:27] Jenna: Energized and enthusiastic as opposed to exhausted. It's really made all the difference. And I feel really privileged that I was able to go through the training way back in the day when Dick was personally training us, he's been a, a dear friend and a mentor to me, and has been very gracious to endorse and write chapters in, in the books that I've published and Yeah, I just am really passionate about the IFS model and my heart's desire is to really create [00:03:00] Access to help create access to the model because access is such a challenge right now with so many people excited about it It's very difficult to get into the trainings.
[00:03:09] Jenna: It's difficult to get into an IFS therapist. And so The heartbeat of my last book that you were just referencing, All Together Us, is that every chapter in that book is just a little quick standalone piece of integration. How do we use IFS with EMDR or with polybiggle theory or how about when we're Working with this type of client or that type of client.
[00:03:32] Jenna: And so what I'm working on right now is further expanding what I wrote about in chapter two of that book, which is my three word shorthand of the model. I call it move toward. Because the spirit of the model of IFS is to move toward all parts of ourselves with curiosity and compassion. And that's really in juxtaposition to how most of our culture moves against the [00:04:00] parts of ourselves and the parts of others that we don't like.
[00:04:03] Jenna: And moving against ourselves is making our suffering worse. Moving toward ourselves is actually where the healing occurs.
[00:04:14] John: Something that comes to mind to me is how IFS has so many implications beyond the therapy room. The therapy room is where I know and use the model primarily. But the more I got to know the model, the more I see Yeah, how far reaching it is and could become not to mention the fact that a lot of non therapists use the model.
[00:04:39] John: The, you know, the Institute has trained coaches and, you know, practitioners that are not licensed therapists. I found that really unique compared to other models of psychotherapy, you know, working psychodynamically or, you know, CBT or whatever it might be, or even something like EMDR. That's this kind of fancy protocol that you really [00:05:00] need.
[00:05:00] John: A therapist to be using, and yet with IFS, there is such an opportunity here for, for access, both in terms of what the model is and also who can kind of use it. I know that the, the, the bottleneck with the with the Institute itself is kind of another story and probably talked about plenty you know, on, on my show and others, but yeah, maybe you can say more about that in terms of Yeah.
[00:05:25] John: The implications for, for IFS and, and why this accessibility piece is so important to you.
[00:05:34] Jenna: Well, I think that it's a nuanced sort of differentiation because the basic concepts of IFS seem very simple on the surface. We all have a core self and we have our exiled parts and our protector parts. How hard can that be?
[00:05:51] Jenna: And yet, as soon as we began to kind of drop into the training, we realized that it can be extremely [00:06:00] complex, particularly when working with particular types of parts and that to do the deeper sort of. Trauma healing and burdening work. It's often very helpful to work with an experienced IFS therapist or IFS practitioner who's been through the training, but it's really been on my heart that there has to be another way that we can help people kind of grab a hold of the essence of this concept without needing to do sort of all of the deeper trauma healing, but just to help us in the moment when we're And because my background is in working with addiction, Managing triggers is a really significant piece for me clinically.
[00:06:41] Jenna: And a lot of people also share in my consultation groups. And when I'm speaking various places that their clients have a hard time, they do beautiful work in session, but they can have a hard time checking in with their parts in between sessions. And so this idea came [00:07:00] to me to really simplify the essence of the model.
[00:07:03] Jenna: Obviously not the full model. It's not the trauma. Work, but just the essence of the model so that we could use it when we need it, it would be simple, easy to remember, easy to apply. And so I came up with these three words, notice, know, and need. And those three words really capture a lot of the essence of how we can move toward the parts of ourselves that are hurting that may be feeling or doing things that we don't like.
[00:07:32] Jenna: and help them to come into that secure attachment relationship with self and to be able to receive what they need in the moment. So it's really deescalating and it's reestablishing that earned inner secure attachment with our core self energy.
[00:07:50] John: Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's wonderful. I, I am feeling inclined now to actually ask more about your particular [00:08:00] specialty around sex addiction and betrayal trauma.
[00:08:02] John: Can you say more about how you were helping clients through those issues before you came to IFS?
[00:08:10] Jenna: Hmm. Yeah. Well, a lot of the sort of ways of addressing addiction in our popular Sort of clinical culture right now are, are very sort of move against meaning that the part of the individual who's engaged in the acting out behavior, whatever it might be, alcohol, sex.
[00:08:31] Jenna: Drugs, gambling, shopping, whatever the, the addictive behavior is we tend to approach that with a very move against strategy, which is, this is who you are and you need to stop it. And if you go back into that behavior, even in the slightest amount, you have relapsed, you need to pick up a white chip, you need to start your process all over again.
[00:08:54] Jenna: It's, it has a very Sort of extreme approach. [00:09:00] Does not invite the part of the individual that's engaging in the behavior to the table To really find out how is this part trying to help like when did it first get started? Doing this thing that it's doing and what's it afraid would happen if it stopped doing this thing And so what we find is that in highly addictive behaviors such as viewing online pornography or sexual acting out that really hit the dopamine reward center in the brain in such intense and strong ways.
[00:09:34] Jenna: You've got the neurochemical underpinnings of the addictive processes, and then you've got this move against approach that for some people can work. Sometimes in the short run, I find more often than in the long run. If that's all we do, if we say, stop it, like don't drink, call your sponsor, go to a meeting.
[00:09:57] Jenna: That's wonderful because obviously the drinking [00:10:00] or the looking at pornography or whatever it might be is the behavior is harmful in some way. But if that's all we do, it's very difficult to maintain sobriety and it's very difficult to really take that deeper dive into recovery. And so when we can really have this concept that I've learned from my friend, Patty Rich of internal consent, which means that when we bring all parts of the system.
[00:10:28] Jenna: To the table and give an honored seat to each of them. And particularly the one whose behavior we're hoping to change the one who's acting out. We really want to get to know and build a relationship with that part. We're not saying that part is doing or feeling something that's good, but what we are doing is we're bringing that part to the table and we're getting buy in and then we're getting permission to go to the, What we call an IFS, the exiles, which is the deeper healing work to unburden those [00:11:00] exiles.
[00:11:00] Jenna: So that the part that is engaged in the compulsive or addictive processes no longer has to be stuck in that role. It can unburden and transform to its original positive self positive quality without having to be alarmed about the pain of the exile. And this is particularly important Because in addiction work, what we find is when we take more of a just a get sober approach, a stop it approach you might go into a 12 step meeting and you might be sober from your sexual acting out, but you have to walk through a cloud of smoke to get into the meeting and then you stand in a really long line to get your cup of coffee and your caffeine hit and then you sit down next to your buddies in recovery who've all gained 30 pounds.
[00:11:47] Jenna: And so we might have had success of locking one part in the basement who's engaged in an addictive process. And then the other ones have to escalate or, or come in to [00:12:00] address the pain of the exile if we don't do that deeper healing work. So really moving toward all parts is I find a much more compassionate and effective way to help those behaviors to cease to no longer be needed.
[00:12:17] John: I find that a concern people often have is if we go toward or if I invite them to get curious about their firefighter part and how it got this job and why it's doing what it's doing, there's sometimes a fear of like, Endorsing it or if I validate you know, and send appreciation even for how hard this part of mine is working that that will somehow endorse the behavior and the whole thing will get worse.
[00:12:44] John: Yeah. What's your reaction to that? Or how do you help explain to folks that that is not, it's probably not going to happen if you, you know, validate and send compassion to your, your, your. Firefighter part or whatever.
[00:12:58] Jenna: Yeah. Well, this is [00:13:00] probably the number one concern that I hear and a couple of things.
[00:13:03] Jenna: First of all, I want to pay homage to the gurus in our IFS community, C. Sykes and Mary Krueger, who are absolutely the addiction Brilliant addiction thinkers in the IFS community, and they wrote a powerful chapter on I have best with addictive processes and altogether us. So I really commend their work.
[00:13:23] Jenna: It's beautiful and sees particularly talks about this idea of the addictive. Process that it's not just the one part that's engaged in the acting out behavior, but there's actually a whole series of inner parts that she conceptualizes on a triangle that are operating in response to each other.
[00:13:43] Jenna: And so it's very important and helpful when we're working directly with the person who's engaged in the addictive process to recognize that by saying all parts are welcome does not mean all behaviors are welcome. What it means is that the most effective [00:14:00] way to help the behavior to no longer be needed is to welcome the part that is stuck carrying that behavior.
[00:14:07] Jenna: However, the close kind of parallel or corollary to that, I, I run into this a lot because I work with both sex addiction and betrayal trauma. So when you're dealing with the partnership, It's very important to be clear that what we're not saying is to a betrayed partner, to someone who is partnered with an individual who's acting out, that all those parts should be welcome in the partner system.
[00:14:33] Jenna: That is, in fact, not the case. What we are saying to a betrayed partner or someone who has partnered in an addictive process, is that all of your parts that are having a reaction to the addiction are welcome inside of you. We want to get to know and befriend all of those parts. And once we have moved toward all of those parts and they have been Stepped back or calmed down [00:15:00] and we've got self a little bit more access to self energy in the partner system then and only then is the partner able to wisely turn toward the individual engaging in the addiction with the wisdom to be able to assess.
[00:15:17] Jenna: And set and hold and follow through on healthy boundaries, which are an important piece of the partner half of the recovery process is, is how do we know what boundaries are needed? How do we follow through on those? And we have to first turn toward. The partner system before they can wisely turn toward the addictive system.
[00:15:41] John: Yeah.
[00:15:42] Jenna: And then that, yeah.
[00:15:44] John: With any type of trauma, but in particular with the partner, with the betrayal trauma, there's a sense of how can I trust myself again, if I didn't see any of this, or if this was happening under my nose for the last seven years or whatever. How do [00:16:00] you help people through that?
[00:16:03] Jenna: Yeah, it's a great question, and there's a couple of different answers to that, and everyone's system and situation is unique, but one answer is that when we are dealing with an addictive system, when an individual, their inner system is engaged in addiction, there are a lot of parts that are operating to conceal the addiction.
[00:16:27] Jenna: There are parts in denial, there are parts that manipulate, there are parts that gaslight, there are parts that blame shift. And so that system has a lot of parts that are operating to manage and control and allow the continuation of the addiction. So it is not at all uncommon, and there's nothing shameful about being in a partnership and having no idea that an addictive process is happening until it happens.
[00:16:54] Jenna: You kind of get hit with it out of the blue. That is, in fact, unfortunately, very common [00:17:00] in the work that I do. That being said, sometimes partners are have grown up in early life systems where they may have developed parts who learned how to try to keep them safe by engaging in some behaviors that work really well with Addiction, so it might be not seeing what is there, not seeing kind of signs of.
[00:17:26] Jenna: Difficulty or manipulation. It might be parts that don't use their voice and speak out when they're getting railroaded or gas lit. So there can be some really fruitful work that we can do inside of a partner system to help if there are some parts that have learned how to try to keep them safe in those ways.
[00:17:47] Jenna: And then we can really restore that ability to trust the inner wisdom that is always there but may have been obscured by some parts that were engaged in denial or not [00:18:00] speaking up or those types of things, not setting boundaries or not feeling worthy enough to speak up or set boundaries. And yet it's very complicated and the beautiful thing about.
[00:18:11] Jenna: IFS and the spirit of moving toward all parts with compassion is that there's no shame in any of these parts. If we get to know all of these parts, they always make sense. There was always a point in time when they began these jobs where it was the only thing they could do to try to help keep this person safe.
[00:18:31] John: Can you say more about just speaking kind of in stereotypes, I guess, for the partner with the sex addiction trends that you see in terms of their histories, their own trauma histories early childhood stuff, burdens that their parts are often carrying?
[00:18:53] Jenna: Yeah, absolutely. There are some significant ones.
[00:18:57] Jenna: And many years ago, I wrote, I think the first [00:19:00] article that was published in the Journal of sexual addiction and compulsivity that really kind of spoke to the bifurcation that we're seeing in the field. And I myself am a partner of a trade partner, which is how I got into this area. And I would say that I absolutely would fit kind of the old Or what I call the classic model which is where we have people like myself who are in their forties, fifties, and there's something called the circumflex model of family cohesion.
[00:19:32] Jenna: And if you look at the circumflex model, we've got on the X and Y access sort of from disengaged to a mesh and then from chaotic to rigid. And what we see in a classic model is that you have individuals who begin to get engaged in sexually compulsive behavior come from the quadrant and the circumflex model where the family is disengaged and rigid.
[00:19:58] Jenna: So maybe the [00:20:00] parents are present, but there's absolutely no emotional support. There's usually physical, sexual, verbal, emotional, or spiritual abuse happening. Very much the sense I'm all on my own. I got to figure this thing out. The world is not safe. You know, that type of thing. Partners like myself, on the other hand, tend to come from that upper right hand quadrant of chaotic and meshed.
[00:20:24] Jenna: And that was certainly true for my life experience. I grew up in a, in an emotionally enmeshed environment where I was an only child in a military family where we moved every year or so my entire life. And so sort of the three of us and the chaos of all of those moves and my father going to war and just a lot of other things.
[00:20:46] Jenna: And it turns out that is a perfect set up for people to meet and to enter into a partnership. We've now been married 30 years. So in my case, into a marriage where addiction is, [00:21:00] is happening under the surface. And for those folks who are more classic sex addicts, they have early life trauma.
[00:21:06] Jenna: early attachment rupture rigid disengaged sort of families of origin or early life experiences, and then early exposure to pornography usually and then with the advent of the internet that tends to kind of increase. Those people tend to come into care in their 40s and 50s and they have a family and a couple of kids and this has escalated to the point of chaos and crisis.
[00:21:32] Jenna: That's very distinct from what I call contemporary sex addiction, which we're seeing in, in children. And that is much more akin to like a gambling profile where you see the exposure, but the trauma in this case, it can be a young person who has absolutely none of that classic trauma, no sexual abuse, no verbal, physical, emotional abuse, but there's access and exposure.
[00:21:56] Jenna: to highly graphic [00:22:00] and highly addictive forms of online content and the addiction graph rather than a classic one, which is a slow, steady incline. What we're seeing is an immediate escalation where there's access, an immediate sort of addictive process, which is why we're getting eight year olds, nine year olds, 10 year olds presenting for care because they are addicted to online sexual.
[00:22:26] Jenna: and searching but not really necessarily any of the prior history of trauma,
[00:22:34] Jenna: which is heartbreaking. Yeah.
[00:22:36] John: Yeah. Well, you, you read my mind on one hand, I have a part going, this, this is so heavy. On the other hand, I have a part going, thank God people are doing this work and people like Jenna are doing this work because It's, it's frightening and so heavy. We, we see teenagers in my practice here, you know, I went to a trauma practice, it's a group practice and we see teenagers here.
[00:22:59] John: So [00:23:00] what you're saying is in line with what we see and with the age going backward earlier and earlier exposure to this stuff and the internet having a lot to do with it for other folks that I've, you know, worked with, there is often something to around, um, being sexualized at a very early age and also their first experience of sex being something that was compulsive or very secretive in nature, even a occurrence of incest, things like that.
[00:23:32] John: And so I'm curious in that regard. Yeah. How much does one's like early experience of sex have to do with all this?
[00:23:41] Jenna: Yeah. Well, our early templates for what it is to be intimate, what it is to be relational, what it is to be embodied what it is to be a sexual being. Those of course are dramatically shaped by any early traumatic experiences.
[00:23:57] Jenna: So whether there is [00:24:00] exposure to graphic violent online pornography and sexualized images prepubescent where the natural stage of sexual development has not even emerged. So there's a deep confusion, usually shame, curiosity, arousal that is combined with that exposure, which often happens on the elementary school bus and somebody's got a phone or at the sleepover.
[00:24:26] Jenna: That is very much a sexual trauma, as is obviously incest, sexual molestation, any type of unwanted touching or sexual experience, and those experiences certainly can profoundly shape the individual's sense of what it is to be safe in their own sexual expression, in their bodies, in their arousal template, et cetera.
[00:24:53] Jenna: What I will say, sort of drawing from the work of Bessel Peter Levine, is that Having [00:25:00] a loving, attuned adult or adult figure, attachment figure, who is attuned and present in those moments when that happens, because unfortunately when I speak to parent groups, it's not an if, it's a when, and I hate that, I wish I had a magic wand, but unfortunately that is the world that we're raising children in.
[00:25:21] Jenna: And when our children are exposed to pornography, of course, we want to equip them at an age appropriate level beforehand, if possible, and normalize this is going to happen. Come and talk to me. But also really helping to equip a child to process that in a non shaming way and to be able to verbalize their experience and how arousing it is, how confusing it is, and to have a safe place in which to process those experiences.
[00:25:49] Jenna: And of course, if there's a perpetrator to have accountability and boundaries and all of that that is key in metabolizing a trauma in such a way that our parts do not become [00:26:00] burdened or as burdened and in helping to avoid the repetition of that addictive process kicking off at that juncture. So there really is hope in the attachment relationship with usually a primary caregiver.
[00:26:17] John: And you know, I'll, you know, I'm As, as a parent myself, I'm already fast forwarding to the future years and, and all the the risks that are out there for my child. She's only four. And yet I help a lot of adults that are just now dealing with it, right? Of things that happened a long, long time ago.
[00:26:38] John: And so on one hand, as a parent, I'm always thinking, how do I shield my child from trauma as much as I can, especially trauma that could impact her so deeply, like the ones you're talking about. And also, I had an adult client. Last week and working around sexual addiction and the, the unburdening [00:27:00] that happened was exactly the type of parenting moment.
[00:27:03] John: You just mentioned where he went back and kind of explained to this exiled part exactly what was happening in his body, why this was both confusing and exciting. This felt both really good and really, really bad. Right. And just kind of breaking it down for this part was so beautiful in this case. This kind of you know, that exact parenting moment that, that, that.
[00:27:26] John: Ideally would have happened back then. And so the bad news is that happened and that has had ripples. And as you know, like for a lot of clients, this stuff can ruin your life, your marriage, your can wreak havoc on your life. And yet the good news is with IFS we can do something about it and healing.
[00:27:45] John: Is possible, which again is a huge paradigm shift to a lot of the kind of classic addiction models and components of 12 step that would suggest it's a, it's a life sentence and it's because of your character defects and we, we're going [00:28:00] to just focus on stringing together as many days as possible between you and the behavior.
[00:28:05] John: Yeah, I'll stop there.
[00:28:07] Jenna: Yeah, no, that's beautiful. Because what you're saying is what I love so much about IFS that. We may or may not have had access to someone who is attuned and safe, who we felt able to share with or even have the language to share with. Sometimes these traumas happen pre verbally or a child is too confused to even know how to share this with someone or they're threatened or whatever the case may be.
[00:28:33] Jenna: But we can always. We are never too old. It's never too late from to do this IFS work and to bring in the secure attachment relationship with that core inner self. And also in our spiritual integration, we can, if it feels right for our system, invite in the divine or our guides to assist in that process.
[00:28:57] Jenna: There's ancestral lineage healing work that [00:29:00] we can do if there's a legacy burden associated with this work. With this trauma or abuse. And so there's so much hope there. So I'll say that for early childhood or traumatic experiences. But what I'll also say for those of us who are kind of in adult years navigating you know, kind of.
[00:29:18] Jenna: post discovery or post disclosure of addiction. So myself and my husband have been in our recovery journey process for 20 plus years. Now we went through discovery at about the 10 year mark and I can with 100 percent assurance. Say that we would not be married today if it were not for IFS. And one of the reasons why it could be one of the simplest and yet most profound tools that IFS offers.
[00:29:48] Jenna: And I want to just give a shout out to Tony Herbine Blank and the beautiful work that she's done bringing IFS to couples and her model of that work is called IFIO, intimacy from the inside out. [00:30:00] She also has a little section on this in my altogether us book. That's. It's really powerful and beautiful, but the ability to speak for our parts rather than from them is a game changer.
[00:30:13] Jenna: It doesn't make the behavior or the situation or anything else. Okay. But it's so different if my husband if I'm going to just make something up here. Yeah, let me think of something. If, if I walk into a room and my husband's on his computer and he shuts the computer, Yeah. Yeah. Really quickly to a partner.
[00:30:31] Jenna: That's going to be triggering, especially early in the recovery process. It's a very different thing to speak from a part and say, what the hell were you doing on the computer? I saw you shut that. I want to see everything. You better open it right now. Okay. That's speaking from a part and that part makes a lot of sense.
[00:30:49] Jenna: It's a very different thing to say, Hey, gosh, can I check in for a second? I'm noticing there's a part of me that saw you close your computer really quickly and is feeling [00:31:00] really anxious and scared about that. That is wondering like, well, why did you need to close that? When I walked in, there's another part of me that knows you've been in recovery for 20 years and that we do, you know, you've rebuilt trust in a whole lot of ways.
[00:31:13] Jenna: Then there's another part of me that's just enraged. That I have to even think about this when I come into a room and you do something innocuous, could I just check that in with you? What's coming up for you? That's a whole different experience. It deescalates and it allows us to have a self to self conversation.
[00:31:33] Jenna: And if there was something going on. A partner is much more able to address it when we are in self energy than when we're in a part, a part is going to throw out these strong ultimatums and ultimately that's going to backfire and we're going to wind up disempowered. I've worked with this a lot with partners around boundaries.
[00:31:55] Jenna: And if in fact nothing was going on. It allows us to [00:32:00] address it without attacking and to still be able to have our hearts and our needs met. And reflected and given the best opportunity to be seen in that need to be reassured and validated.
[00:32:16] John: No, that's wonderful. And such a real world example of how this stuff can can play out or even going back to the access thing.
[00:32:25] John: Sometimes I will just offer to clients, Hey, just Humor me and try using parts language when you're talking about this stuff, or when you're talking with your partner about anything, right? Even about you know, um, partner came in, you know, a client came in recently and was like, well you know, feeling really criticized because we took a trip and then my wife is sitting there looking at me like, why did you pick?
[00:32:47] John: This destination, right? And all sorts of parts are up, right? So you could be like just starting there with parts language as this client is starting to try to resolve this because the more I do this work and really like [00:33:00] almost every episode I've done on this show so far in the world of trauma and addiction, shame is We keep coming back to shame, right?
[00:33:10] John: Or even going into this moment that you just described this hypothetical moment with your husband. If you come in in a part, right? Hey, why'd you sling your laptop right now? And then parts kind of beget parts, right? That are working hard to Oh, to to avoid shame, right? Then we're off and running, right?
[00:33:27] John: Part versus a part and the whole thing, Michael throws and then we create more hurt. And then, you know, the part that's holding the shame goes further into exile and yeah, and off and round and round we go. So I just see even a client coming in and saying that there's There's a part of me that that likes to drink or there's a part of me that, that gets angry and, and yells and, and can we get to know that part?
[00:33:48] John: Can you actually invite it into the room? Can we go toward it is so radical for people. And especially when my clients have not heard of IFS and I just offer that, that going toward part in whatever [00:34:00] language they're confused. And yet when they start doing it, everything starts to soften. Everything starts to open up, right?
[00:34:07] John: And then bring in this concept of self and we bring self toward these hurting parts. I'm so amazed how self inevitably knows just what to do. Going back to this moment with my client, this kind of re parenting moment of this, this little one who had encountered sex too soon. Even though this client is not a parent, Self knew exactly what to do and to get down on this little one's level and to look him in the eye and explain exactly what's happening and why this again, both feels really good and really bad.
[00:34:40] John: And what's happening in your body right now. This is how your body works, right? Just like beat by beat being right there with them. And it's like, okay, how else do you explain where that came from? You know, in terms of like this innate parenting ability and never having been a parent. I'm like, That's self.
[00:34:58] Jenna: That's right. [00:35:00] That's right. And it is such a powerful resource and to know that self is who we truly are. The part of us that is feeling or doing the thing that it's feeling or doing that we don't like is, is just one part of us. It's not all of who we are. And not only that, it's a good part of us that's gotten stuck in a bad role.
[00:35:23] Jenna: It doesn't even want to be feeling or doing that thing. But it feels like it has to, and we can help, but to be able to say to people, like when I have clients who first come in, I'll say, because of course it's the managers, the manager parts, if you're familiar with IFS, the managers call us up and they're like, hello, Jenna, I have heard that you are an official kicker outer of firefighter parts.
[00:35:47] Jenna: Cause it says right here you work in sex addiction and I'm sick and tired of this part that says. Acting out sexually and I want you to help me kick it out of the system because all of my efforts have failed. And so we know it's [00:36:00] the managers calling us, the managers come in and present in therapy.
[00:36:04] Jenna: And so we want to welcome both sides and all say, gosh, it makes so much sense that there's a part of you that's really upset about this acting out behavior and wants that to stop because it's really hurting you and the people that you love. And if you're like many people, there's also a part of you that is engaged in the acting out behavior for some reason that's going to make sense when we get to understand the whole story.
[00:36:29] Jenna: And that part probably feels really terrified about the prospect of giving that up. As a way of trying to help you and I just want you to know that both of those parts are welcome here and there's probably parts of you that feel really vulnerable things like shame or worthlessness or powerlessness and those parts are welcome here too and we want to help all of them.
[00:36:52] Jenna: And who you are is not any of those parts who you truly are is your core self, which is loving, [00:37:00] healing, wise, clear minded, compassionate, and courageous. We can do this thing. So right off the bat, all parts welcome.
[00:37:09] John: Gosh, yeah, the whole thing just gives me chills because It's such a paradigm shift, both for therapy at large, even an even more radical paradigm shift for the world of addictions.
[00:37:22] John: So,
[00:37:23] Jenna: yeah, well, I'm really excited to be that more and more addiction treatment centers and addiction therapists are really. Excited about the IFS message. So Dick and Dick Schwartz and C. Sykes recently with a team completed the very first level one training for a residential treatment facility.
[00:37:45] Jenna: It's high watch treatment facility, and it's In new England. They're a 12 step based residential program, and now their entire staff is trained and I am going to different treatment centers and providing training. [00:38:00] So in a few months, I will be training the entire clinical team at Capstone treatment centers, which.
[00:38:06] Jenna: really a premier residential addiction treatment center for young adult men and soon to be young adult women. They're about to open the young women's program. And I'm going to be going out. The Meadows is bringing me to LA to do a large training there. In two days I'm flying to Salt Lake city to do a training there.
[00:38:26] Jenna: So there's, and I am just one of many people that are doing these types of trainings. So it's exciting to see kind of the enthusiasm, the field really embracing the I. F. S. Model and this compassionate approach to healing because, as you say, it really is a paradigm shift and it really does. Well, on the one hand, it's very exciting and very inviting.
[00:38:51] Jenna: It also does require us to kind of unlearn everything that we've learned and to learn a whole new way of being, which to me is beautiful. It's a [00:39:00] very it's a very, spiritual in the large sense of the word spiritual journey, I think for many of us, and it's quite beautiful incredibly healing.
[00:39:10] Jenna: So I'm just thrilled.
[00:39:12] John: Amazing. Yeah. So many good things to come. And even just these larger corporations really, and, you know, recovery centers and bigger companies taking interest in IFS and having people like You and cease go and bring the model to them is, is really reassuring because they have a lot of power, right?
[00:39:31] John: And some of these places like the meadows that have, you know, 10 locations and all these, these beautiful facilities where people can go and then infusing IFS into a place like that is just so powerful and has ripples, you know, of, of of, of impact. So that's so, you know, Inspiring to know that that's happening.
[00:39:50] John: And shout out to
[00:39:51] Jenna: the Meadows. Dick is one of their senior fellows. So I just want to I want to honor that. They've really embraced, you know, Dick is a senior fellow. [00:40:00]
[00:40:00] John: Yeah. Yeah. That's that's that's incredible. I Yeah, we got just a couple minutes left, Jenna. I anything you feel like you wanted to say, but didn't.
[00:40:09] John: And then, of course, if you can lead us out with how people can learn more about you or potentially work with you or bring you into for training, speaking, et cetera.
[00:40:19] Jenna: Yeah, absolutely. Well, the thing I would love for anyone who's listening to leave our conversation with is just the one truth who you are.
[00:40:29] Jenna: Is good and all parts of you are also good and that is a truth that I believe with all of my heart after a lot of years of clinical work in this field, who you are really is good and I no longer am working or taking individual clients. However, I do quite a bit of training, speaking consultation, I'm doing a lot more kind of coming into.
[00:40:56] Jenna: Large private practices or treatment centers and training their [00:41:00] whole team in the IFS model. And so if you are interested in that, you can reach my assistant. Her email is just info at Jenna Remersma dot com and spelling. My name is not easy. So hopefully you can put that in the show notes or you can come check out my website, which is move toward dot com.
[00:41:22] Jenna: Movetour. com or jennaremersma. com. Either one of those will get you to the same space. And I've got lots of free resources there, guided meditations, online video courses. I've got my books there and I've got a, an online workshop where you can join me. I'll teach you through the spiritual integration accompanies my first book, Altogether You.
[00:41:48] Jenna: So lots of different ways to be in touch with me. I'm also on Insight Timer, which is a free meditation app, so you're welcome to find me there, as well as on the Sentur app, [00:42:00] S E N T U R, which is an IFS mental health application. So lots of ways to connect, and I look forward to meeting with people. If that, if that is the direction they'd like to go.
[00:42:15] John: Wonderful. We will of course put links in the description. So whether folks are listening or watching the video version on YouTube, you'll have quick. And easy access to those links. Jenna, I can't thank you enough for being here for the work you're doing and for sharing for, for sharing with us today.
[00:42:33] John: So thank you again. And you're of course, welcome back anytime.
[00:42:37] Jenna: Yeah. My pleasure. Thank you, John, for the beautiful work you do in the world and for this exciting new podcast.
[00:42:44] John: You got it. Thanks again.
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