About Inner-Directed Therapy

Why would I take something I initially find pleasurable and do it so relentlessly that it becomes a pain-filled burden, or even a danger to my life? Inner-Directed Therapy can help you discover an answer to this question of how your substance use turned from fun or partying into desperate self medication. But more than getting to understand your inner dynamics, Inner-Directed Therapy can help you heal the long-standing emotional wounds that fuel your compulsive substance use or other bad habits. With work and courage, you can get better.

Inner-Directed Therapy works by:

• Gently, gradually and compassionately going inside yourself to find the places that are hurt, and the chaotic emotions that often surround those places
• Negotiating a new relationship with the parts of you that are connected with your bad habits, so that real change can become more possible
• Healing the hurt and frightened parts of you by releasing their burdens of fear and pain
• Entering a more vibrant relationship with yourself, so that “self medication” is no longer needed. You become free to make clear, confident choices again.

Inner-Directed Therapy is different from conventional “talk” therapy and from drug or alcohol counseling. It invites you to go inside yourself in a meditative way that is gentle and non-judgmental, and to work with emotions and beliefs directly. This helps you move from being organized around defense against pain and frustration to a place where the deepest core of your identity, the true you, is leader and decision-maker.

Inner-Directed Therapy comes from a model of therapy called Internal Family Systems Therapy^SM, or IFS^SM. It is not family therapy, but very much individual work. The “family” the name refers to is your inner “family” of parts, which can have an almost independent life inside you. To learn more, go to Internal Family Systems Therapy.