Altogether You: Experiencing personal and spiritual transformation with Internal Family Systems therapy

This book changed my life. A student of inner-healing, I had still found myself weepy when certain memories would come up in conversation, and I realized there was yet some emotional healing to take place—but how?This book shows the parallels between Internal Family Systems and what the Bible says about how we are created. I’d practically been born on a church pew but had not connected the dots quite like this before. In fact, there was one thing the author said that I disagreed entirely with and made note of that in my copy of the book, but just like with any book, I took the nuggets and left the rest. And the nuggets gave me the tools to bring much-needed understanding and healing to my life as I actually applied what I learned.That being said, this isn’t just a book that you read to increase your knowledge; the author expects you to stop and apply that knowledge as you’re reading it through the activations/questions in each chapter. I was so amazed at my own results that I shared some of them with my teenage daughter, and that opened up some feelings for her to process through. She was willing to work through the feelings using the IFS model and had major breakthrough that greatly complimented her counseling sessions! (Her counselor is trained in IFS and recommended the book to me.)My relationship with myself is improved, my daughter’s relationship with herself is improved/improving, and my relationship with others is improving as I can better understand why they behave the way they do. If you like self-help books, I can’t recommend this book enough!

If you struggle with addiction or unhelpful ways of going through life, are resentful and angry about the world around you, this book is for you

As an IFS trained therapist, I found this book helpful in helping clients deconstruct some of the ways their formative church experiences influenced the development of their own Internal System. In particular, the way we have " Spiritualized " defense mechanisms that separate us from God instead of draw us closer to God. It has helped normalize instead of pathologize mental health struggles.

I approached this book from 3 perspectives:Do the thoughts in this book make sense, within a Christian context?Does it seem to be valid from a psych science perspective?Is it helpful?I found all three enhanced and reinforced after reading it. So much so that I’ve started a much deeper journey into IFS and the therapy for myself.I was most worried about the first, does it support or detract from my Christian faith. For quite some time now, my faith has shifted from trying to measure up to God, be obedient to understanding God’s nature as revealed to us. Especially through the lens that God’s very nature is all loving, all good, all knowing, all powerful. This despite the evidence of hate, evil, and bad things happening on our world. But that, the “epicurean dilemma” is another discussion.I found the Chapter 6, Relief for our Managers, and the section on a specific part called “spiritualizer” especially enlightening as it relates to faith and spirituality. My own, and others. Where it says spiritualizer takes us away from an “authentic faith journey in an attempt to earn righteousness, God’s approval, or the church’s approval. Or to protect an exile that feels unworthy, broken, or unseen.”And those around us feel this part by our “reflexive response inside you: hide, pretend, cover up, say something churchy, force yourself to be something you are not, judge or be judged.”How true is this?Then the construct of “Self” or as she puts it God’s Image in us, “God created us to be good”, but surrounded my burdens/exiles and managers to cope with the badness in the world connects the dots for me. God giving us his goodness through in Christian belief his image, or the Holy Spirit, but the burdens of this world and life seemingly superseding that here in this life.Add in Jesus’ coming, and going to these exiles first, and going against the spiritualizers of day. Showing us how to live out of the 8 C’s of internal family systems, and then dying a sacrificial death to bring us closer into relationship with him (as his children) it all seems to fit together.Further, in starting to explore my own parts, I am learning more about myself than I’ve ever known, feeling real help, and feeling my “Hod Image” more present in my life than before.Very helpful. Thanks for connecting the dots.

Lots of good info. Recommend someone to help you out if you read this. A lot to go through. Does take a while to read

This is a great book on IFS. I’m doing this as part of a group book study and learning so much about myself and the healing is bringing. I highly recommend to everyone!

I've found this book to be the most approachable book on IFS I've read and so helpful to incorporate spirituality as well. Life changing perspective in an incredibly well articulated format that makes it easy to gain new insight and build a new understanding of human behavior that honors the god image in each of us!

My trauma therapist recommended this book for me as part of my therapy protocol. Its a wonderful book that really helps bring into perspective the issues we encounter (sometimes over and over). If you are a christian, she does write from a biblical point of view. I personally was not offended at the way she wrote about the "God image" inside of us b/c I agree with that point of view, but some Christians may have an issue with this concept. I would say to pray and read through the entire book and hopefully find an IFS trained therapist to help you walk through the exercises. That is what I am doing. We have to learn how to deal properly with all the parts of us vs feeling ashamed of what we have been through. Usually as children and by no fault of our own. Its even helping me as I deal with issues in my own family. To see and all their parts. Highly recommend.

This book really opened up my mind to a deeper awareness of who I am and how I have shown up in life and continue to show up. Understanding how God is part of this deepened my awareness into how to move forward. Grateful for the work you have done Jenna and continue to do and share with the world.

What a beautifully written book !Very empowering and practical.I found a lot of wisdom in it, such as that when we're struggling we shouldn't focus on the outside solutions. Rather, we should look inside of ourselves, listen to our pain, experience it. This pain has valuable messages for us and if we want to find healing we shouldn't ignore it, deny it or minise it. We should go towards this pain, honour it with compassion and love.It's not an easy path and most of us don't initially take it. We often try other things first, let it be self help book, self development, outside spirituality, changing jobs, changing relationships, addictions, working long hours, etc. All we do that way is we distract ourselves from the pain, we avoid it, put in "Don't got there" box and leave it. Whereas what happens when we actually do the opposite: go towards the pain, look for a God/Higher Power/Universe or whatever you want to call it inside of ourselves - we heal, we transform, we start becoming whole again. Simple but extremely difficult to begin with.I also loved the fact that the author stressed the importance of part awareness. Often when we are triggered by let's say difficult people/situations we act a certain way but we very rarely think why that is. When we become aware of our parts we can identify in fact our parts are at war and that itself is a clear indication that we should work on ourselves, understand our parts better, help them to release the burdens that they've been carrying. That way we get triggered far less often, we're more in control of our emotions, we understand other much better, we can deal with difficult situation much more effectively and most importantly we can show compassion when we experience someone else's pain and suffering. In other words: if we accept our own pain we accept other people's suffering.We need more books like this. To encourage people to go towards the pain, take a difficult path find healing and inner peace. That way The World would be a much better place ❤️🙏

This is a fantastic book which helped me understand my internal world so much deeper. I super duper recommend it.

I was really looking forward to reading this book as a new comer to IFS but I was completely disappointed as I’m not a religious person her constant references to god and bible passages were just irritating.