A do-it-yourself introduction to your inner family

I first encountered my own internal family in the summer of 2020 by reading this book, by Jay Earley. If you’re curious about your own inner world, it’s a good book to learn partswork from.

The grandiose subtitle of this book nearly kept me from reading it — “Creating Wholeness and Healing Your Inner Child Using IFS, A New, Cutting-Edge Psychotherapy,” yeesh — but at the time I was so very unhappy that I was willing to take a chance. What I discovered in this book changed my life. Dr. Earley explains the Internal Family Systems model simply and clearly, with vivid anecdotes and sweet hand-drawn illustrations. But the real magic of this book is the simple, practical exercises he provides throughout:

You can learn much about yourself just by reading the book, even if you don’t choose to do the exercises. … However, if you do the exercises as you read the book, this will ground the concepts in your direct experience of your inner family. (15)

That’s exactly what happened for me. Once I started trying to identify the various parts of my inner world, they turned out to have a lot to say to me — so much, in fact, that I later decided to seek out an IFS practitioner to help me sort through all of it. My therapist guided me in very much the way I guide my coaching clients now.

Although I don’t agree with all the ways the book describes the model, I don’t hesitate to recommend it. Without reading Self-Therapy, I would never have started the journey that’s led me here.

Places to get Self-Therapy

You can find Self-Therapy on paper, as an ebook, or as an audiobook wherever you usually get books. (There’s also a companion workbook you can get, by Bonnie Weiss, which I didn’t use myself.) Here are some ways:

• Find Self-Therapy in a library near you
• Find a used copy of Self-Therapy or the workbook
• Buy a new copy of Self-Therapy or the workbook

If you decide to work with the book, I’d love to hear how it goes for you! Just get in touch.