In-Person Training – The Ethical Importance of Helping Clients Heal from Cultural Burdens Using “Art-Informed IFS”

This six-hour workshop, facilitated by 3 IFS trained art therapists, provides a clinical definition of the Internal Family System (IFS) concept of Legacy Burdens, with an emphasis on cultural burdens. The facilitators come from diverse racial, ethnic, cultural and religious backgrounds. There is an ethical responsibility for mental health clinicians to understand their role as nonjudgmental allies and advocates for clients from marginalized and vulnerable populations. Through didactic lecture and art experientials, participants will develop an in-depth understanding of the burdens clients’ parts carry including generational trauma, racial, ethnic, religious and social injustices, focusing on the concept of “othering”. We all carry personal burdens that emerge from our own distressing and traumatic life experiences; Legacy Burdens are those beliefs and emotional wounds passed on from our parents and past generations and carried by our protective parts. Cultural burdens evolve from the chronic wounding and injustices inflicted by the community such as racism embedded in societal practices.

An overview of Internal Family Systems will provide a foundational understanding of this compassionate model that focuses on communicating and understanding our internal parts; and a strengthening of our own Self energy to facilitate healing. The 8 C’s’ and 5 P’s of Self will be explained; the 6 F’s of the IFS process will be experienced through art-making that includes somatic body mapping, clay and case examples of sand trays. In these IFS-informed art experientials, participants will find, focus, flesh out, feel and friend personal burdens and exploring their fears and protective parts. They will gain a sensory somatic understanding of the IFS process, and learn how this can then be applied to clinical practice with their clients.

Ethical dilemmas and guidelines will be discussed, emphasizing the concept that we can’t work with marginalized clients without developing an understanding of their burdens as well as our own burdened parts, prejudicial beliefs and behaviors thus enhancing the ability to listen to clients’ lived experiences.

Richard Schwartz, founder of IFS, has stated that “ this work is critically important to create more peace and less divisiveness in our often fractured world…”

The Ferentz Institute, Inc. is an approved sponsor of the Maryland Board of Social Work Examiners for continuing education credits for licensed social workers in Maryland. CEU approval for all trainings is also granted to Psychologists, LCPC’s and MFT’s and approved by the Board of Professional Counselors and Therapists and the Board of Examiners for Psychologists in Maryland. Reciprocity has also been granted for clinicians in Washington, DC, Virginia, West Virginia, Indiana, Georgia, Massachusetts and Texas. If your state is not among this list, we encourage you to check with your state licensing board to see if they will grant reciprocity.

The Institute maintains full responsibility for all programming. In order to provide Category 1 CEUs for all of our trainings, the Maryland Board of Social Work Examiners requires online workshops to be live, interactive, and experienced in real time. Therefore, none of our trainings are recorded for later viewing.