Psychedelics and Internal Family Systems: A partnership in relational healing

"Curt Kearney has spent decades studying the therapeutic effects of psychedelics and also has a deep knowledge of IFS. He combines those two passions in this engaging book, providing lots of detailed instruction and advice for therapists interested in the safe application of the two."

-- Richard Schwartz, Founder of IFS therapy

From the Introduction:

"Psychedelics and IFS have radical overlap in that they each invite soul or mind to show up in direct, powerful, and thoroughly relational healing. By that, they are both psychedelic and psychotherapeutic in the etymological senses of the words, psychedelic meaning 'soul or mind manifesting, ' and psychotherapeutic meaning 'soul or mind attending.'

An axiom of this book is that without adequate containers, without adequate cultures of psychedelia, the power of psychedelics can dissipate quickly or fuel limited, strange, or even dangerous journeys. Those of us in Western mental healthcare need to find or create pairings that are worthy of the work - and the ease - at hand with psychedelics. Enter the psychotherapy part of psychedelic assisted psychotherapy. And very notably, enter Internal Family Systems therapy. Astoundingly, Internal Family Systems therapy is an already existing form of psychotherapy in Western mental healthcare that partners extremely well with psychedelics."

Curt Kearney, MA, LCPC, is a psychotherapist in private practice in Evanston, Illinois.