IFS & IFIO Therapy

A gentle path to trauma healing, emotional integration, and deeper connection — with yourself and the people you love

What IFS & IFIO Therapy Are

IFS and IFIO are gentle, evidence-based approaches that help you understand and heal the parts of you shaped by trauma — so change comes from safety, not force.

Internal Family Systems (IFS)

IFS is an evidence-based model that helps you understand and heal the different “parts” within you — the ones that carry pain, the ones that protect you, and the ones that help you survive.

Instead of fighting your emotions or trying to “fix” yourself, we explore your inner world with curiosity and compassion.
This process brings more clarity, grounding, and a sense of coming back to who you really are.

Intimacy from the Inside Out (IFIO)

IFIO is an IFS-based approach for couples.
If you’re wanting healthier communication, emotional safety, or deeper intimacy, IFIO helps each partner understand what happens inside during conflict or distance.

Together, we slow things down, create space for real connection, and help each of you feel understood — not blamed.

A cross-sectional sketch of a human head showing various scenes inside the brain, including a person on a bicycle, a teacher, and people walking or talking, representing different activities and thoughts.

Why This Approach Works

IFS and IFIO work because they meet you where you are — without pressure, without forcing anything, and without judgment.

This approach is effective for trauma, relational wounds, and emotional overwhelm because it:

  • Works gently with the nervous system, not against it

  • Helps you build an inner emotional language

  • Reveals the patterns you repeat and why they exist

  • Heals the parts of you shaped by trauma, neglect, or high sensitivity

  • Strengthens your self-worth and inner leadership

  • Supports more authentic connection in your relationships

Over time, people describe feeling calmer, more spacious inside, more connected, and more like themselves.

What You Can Work On With Me

My approach supports a wide range of inner and relational experiences, especially those rooted in trauma or emotional overwhelm, including:

For Individuals

  • Trauma, complex trauma, or childhood emotional neglect

  • Growing up in dysfunctional or unpredictable families

  • Low self-worth or feeling “broken inside”

  • Anxiety, emotional overwhelm, or shutdown

  • Feeling “too much,” “not enough,” or easily overstimulated

  • Difficulty setting boundaries or expressing needs

  • Identity confusion or losing yourself in relationships

  • Inner child wounds and unresolved past experiences

  • Wanting to understand your emotional world more clearly

For Couples

  • Repeating patterns, conflict cycles, or emotional distance

  • Fear of closeness or difficulty trusting

  • Feeling unseen, misunderstood, or disconnected

  • Communication challenges

  • Healing from relational trauma or past hurt

  • Building emotional safety and intimacy together

Whether you’re healing individually or as a couple, the work always centers on compassion, clarity, and connection.

What others are saying

A woman and a young girl standing outdoors on a boat with a scenic lake and mountains in the background.

“Healing through the Self Energy has given me a freedom and inner peace that I have been needing. Working with Andrea has been the most natural and easy way for me to reconnect to my self-esteem and finally build a career that I wanted. Thank you”.

-Tatjana Fortikov, mother of Zarya

What Sessions Are Like

Sessions are slow, collaborative, and attuned to your nervous system. We work with what arises in the moment, without forcing insight or emotional release. You remain in control at all times.

In individual sessions, we might:

  • Slow down emotional overwhelm

  • Meet the parts that carry your pain or protect you

  • Rebuild inner safety and self-worth

  • Integrate younger parts that still hold past wounds

  • Strengthen your ability to stay grounded and connected

In couple sessions, we focus on:

  • Understanding each partner’s inner world

  • Identifying what gets activated during conflict

  • Communicating from a calmer, clearer place

  • Creating emotional safety and deeper intimacy

The goal is not perfection — it’s real connection.

Is This Approach Right For You?

This work may be a good fit if you are:

  • Ready to look inward with honesty and compassion

  • Searching for deeper healing, not just temporary coping tools

  • Wanting to understand why you react the way you do

  • Hoping to repair emotional patterns shaped by trauma or neglect

  • Wishing for healthier, more authentic relationships

  • Sensitive, introspective, or simply longing for more connection

Whether your wounds come from childhood, adulthood, relationships, or simply from feeling too much — you don’t have to navigate them alone.

If this approach resonates, you’re welcome to reach out.

You can book a free 15-minute consultation to ask questions and get a sense of what it’s like to work together.

Book a consultation