What Is Internal Family Systems (IFS) Therapy?
Internal Family Systems (IFS) is a gentle, trauma-informed approach to therapy that helps you understand and heal your inner world. Rather than treating your thoughts, emotions, or behaviours as problems to fix, IFS understands them as parts of you that have lost their way and need help, guidance, and healing.
How IFS Therapy Works
Many of the psychological patterns people struggle with were developed for good reason — ways of coping with something painful, usually early in life. In IFS therapy, healing happens in three movements: understanding what these patterns have been protecting you from, learning to meet them with compassion instead of frustration, and, as that trust grows, watching your inner world settle back into balance.
From Coping and Survival…
Many people come to therapy because they feel stuck in patterns — avoidance, overthinking, people-pleasing, perfectionism, intense anger, persistent self-criticism. In IFS, these are not character flaws or signs that something is fundamentally broken. They are protective responses that developed for good reasons, usually earlier in life, when something painful needed to be managed.
A part of you that learned to stay quiet to avoid conflict. A part that overworks to feel worthy. A part that stays busy to keep harder feelings at bay. A part that criticises relentlessly to prevent failure before it arrives. These responses have genuine positive intentions, even when their methods create suffering. They are not enemies. They are trying to help. Understanding this changes the entire relationship you have with the aspects of yourself that feel most difficult — or most shameful.
The patterns you most want to change are usually the aspects of yourself that most need to be understood.
…to Compassionate Self-Healing
Protective responses help us manage and cope, but only Self-energy can heal deeper emotional wounds. The Self — the calm, curious, compassionate centre at the core of every person — is not something that needs to be built or earned. It is always present. It can be obscured, but it cannot be destroyed. In IFS, the goal of therapy is to help the protective aspects of ourselves trust the Self enough to step back and let it lead.
In therapy, I act as a guide — helping you slow down, build self-awareness, and relate to your inner experience in a new way. You remain in control throughout. From a Self-led place, the wounded aspects of yourself that carry fear, shame, grief, or loneliness can be approached with genuine compassion rather than frustration or avoidance. We are not trying to manage or suppress these responses. We are creating the conditions in which they feel safe enough to share what they carry — and in doing so, to be healed.
…and Restoring Balance
As Self-leadership strengthens, the internal system naturally restores balance. The protective responses that once had to work so hard begin to relax — because they trust that the Self can handle what is here. And having relaxed, many discover they no longer want the roles they have been playing. The inner critic may find it would rather encourage. The part that kept everything controlled may simply want to rest.
Clients often experience greater emotional resilience, healthier relationships, clearer decision-making, and a deeper sense of meaning in their daily lives. These shifts tend to carry beyond the specific issues that brought someone to therapy. When the relationship with your own inner world changes, the relationship with everything outside it changes too.
What IFS Therapy Can Help With
IFS is effective across a wide range of experiences — including trauma, relationship difficulties, and major life transitions — as well as anxiety, depression, addiction, and low self-worth. These patterns also show up in particular ways for men, which is the focus of my men's therapy.
Because IFS works with the underlying dynamics driving these experiences rather than addressing symptoms on the surface, it tends to produce lasting change across many different presenting concerns. You do not need a clear diagnosis or a specific problem to benefit from this work. You need only a genuine interest in understanding yourself more deeply.
I have worked exclusively with this model for seven years as a Level 2 trained IFS therapist in Sydney and PACFA-registered counsellor based in North Sydney. I see individuals only, and I offer both in-person IFS therapy in Sydney and online sessions for clients throughout Australia. You can verify my Level 2 certification on the IFS Institute practitioner directory and find the Australian IFS practitioner network at Mind Beyond.
Is IFS Therapy Evidence-Based?
Internal Family Systems has been in clinical use for around forty years, developed by the family therapist Richard Schwartz in the mid-1980s. Its formal research base is still limited in size, but it exists, it is peer-reviewed, and it has grown over the past decade. The main studies to date are set out below.
Post-traumatic stress. A 2021 pilot study in the Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment & Trauma followed 17 adults with PTSD arising from multiple childhood traumas, each given sixteen sessions of IFS. Symptoms fell significantly over the course of treatment, and most of the participants who completed it no longer met the diagnostic threshold for PTSD afterwards, with the gains still present at a one-month follow-up. This was an uncontrolled study, with no comparison group and a small number of participants, so it points to promise rather than proof.
A more rigorous test followed. In early 2026 the American Psychological Association's journal Psychological Trauma published a randomised controlled trial of a sixteen-week, online, group-based programme built on the IFS framework. Both the IFS group and a comparison group improved significantly, without a clear advantage for either — though people in the IFS group attended more sessions and rated the experience more highly. It was a group programme rather than the one-to-one work I offer, but as a randomised trial it sits among the stronger pieces of evidence the approach has.
Depression. In a 2017 study in the Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 37 college women with depression took part in a randomised trial of IFS. Their depressive symptoms declined over the course of treatment. The sample was small — too small to reach firm statistical conclusions — and the authors described the finding as preliminary evidence that IFS can reduce depressive symptoms rather than as proof of it.
Rheumatoid arthritis. A randomised controlled trial published in the Journal of Rheumatology in 2013 tested an IFS-based programme for people living with rheumatoid arthritis. It reported improvements in self-assessed pain and in depressive symptoms, some of which were still present a year after the sessions ended. It was the first randomised controlled trial of IFS, and remains one of the strongest.
The wider picture. A 2025 scoping review drew the published IFS research together and reached a consistent conclusion: the findings so far are promising, particularly for depression, trauma and chronic physical conditions, but most of the studies are small trials and case reports rather than large randomised ones. The evidence is early, and positive in the direction it points.
That is the current state of the research, stated plainly. It is a modest but real evidence base, still being built, for a therapy that has been practised far longer than it has been formally studied.
How IFS Differs From CBT
If you have had therapy before, there is a good chance it was CBT, and you may be wondering how this is different. CBT works by helping you notice unhelpful patterns of thought and shift them as they arise. It is a practical, structured approach that has helped many people.
IFS begins in a different place. Rather than trying to change a troubling thought in the present, we want to learn where the thought came from and make sense of why it is there. Many of our thoughts arise from unmet needs and traumatic experiences in the past. If we can address thoughts at their source, they tend to change or disappear altogether.
Session Details and Fees
Individual sessions are 90 minutes. Online sessions are $170. In-person sessions at my North Sydney office are $210. Health fund rebates are available through Bupa, Medibank, HCF, ahm, and ARHG. No GP referral is required.
How to Begin
The best way to begin is with a free 15-minute intro call. We can talk through what you are looking for, answer any questions you have, and see whether working together feels like a good fit. You can book directly at crawfweir.as.me.
“The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.”
- Carl Rogers
Frequently Asked Questions about Internal Family Systems (IFS)
What happens in the first session?
In our first session, we’ll explore what brought you here and what you’d like to change or understand about your life. You can share at whatever pace feels right for you. Together, we’ll begin to get a sense of the parts of your experience that feel most present or in need of care. Also, if you want to understand how to choose a qualified IFS therapist, this guide covers what to look for.
What is Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy?
IFS is a gentle, evidence-based approach that helps you understand the different “parts” of your inner world - such as protectors, critics, or younger wounded parts and connect with your core Self, which is naturally calm, compassionate, and capable of leading your healing. You don't need to understand any of this to begin. Most people come in simply wanting something to ease — the worrying, the anger, the pressure that never quite lets up. What tends to help isn't pushing those things away, but making sense of why they're there. When we understand and appreciate what's happening inside, that's when change is possible.
What does IFS therapy help with?
IFS therapy is effective for a wide range of experiences, including trauma, anxiety, depression, relationship difficulties, addiction, burnout, and a sense of being stuck or unfulfilled. Because IFS works with the underlying parts driving these experiences rather than just the symptoms, it tends to create lasting change across many different presenting concerns.
How does IFS work in sessions?
In session, we slow down and turn inward. You won’t need to analyse or perform. Instead, we gently explore the parts of you that feel stressed, overwhelmed, reactive, or shut down. As these parts feel safer and more understood, they begin to soften, allowing deeper healing to take place.
Where do sessions take place?
I offer in-person sessions in my North Sydney office, which looks out onto a peaceful garden. If you prefer, we can also work together online via Zoom.
How often should we meet?
Many people begin with weekly sessions and gradually move to fortnightly or monthly as their internal system becomes more stable and self-led. We make these decisions collaboratively.
How long is each session, and how much does it cost?
Each session is 90 minutes. Online sessions are $170 and in-person sessions at my North Sydney office are $210. Health fund rebates are available through Bupa, Medibank, HCF, ahm, and ARHG.
Is therapy confidential?
Yes. Everything you share is confidential, and I follow the ethical guidelines of the Psychotherapy and Counselling Federation of Australia (PACFA).
Do I need a referral from my GP?
No referral is necessary. You’re welcome to book directly.
Do you offer health fund rebates?
Yes. Health fund rebates are available through Bupa, Medibank, HCF, ahm, and ARHG.
Are you trained in Internal Family Systems?
Yes. I am a Level 2 trained IFS therapist. IFS is the foundation of all my work with trauma, emotional patterns, relationship challenges, and life transitions.. IFS is the foundation of all my work with trauma, emotional patterns, relationship challenges, and life transitions.
How do I get started?
The best way to begin is with a free intro call where we can talk through your needs, answer any questions, and see whether working together feels like a good fit.
