Foundation for Self Leadership

To foster emotional and relational healing and wellbeing by disseminating the IFS paradigm and practice. In doing so, we aim to contribute to greater peace within ourselves, with each other and in our world.

KEY GOALS
- Fund independent, scientific research on IFS; creating a growing body of evidence about the efficiacy of IFS across a range of situations. This will accelerate the adoption of IFS by more faculty, practitioners and agencies.
- Incubate programs that provide distressed communities with access to the IFS paradigm, beyond the traditional clinical setting; then evaluate and partner to scale-up successful initiatives.
- Advocate for the paradigm of IFS in the broader health and wellness space; for continued work to adapt and apply the model. Continue fostering a Self-led community even as the model gains recognition.

Current strategies include:
-Catalyzing and funding clinical IFS research
-Introducing the IFS modality into academic settings
-Sharing research findings within help professions
-Fostering the application of IFS within the VA
-Piloting IFS-based programs in K-12 schools
-Launching programs that introduce IFS into communities that have been traditionally marginalized
-Engaging in public advocacy for IFS-informed approaches to societal needs
-Expanding community-based collaborations

1) The first study ever funded by the Foundation for Self Leadership (in 2014) was published in a peer-reviewed journal in 2021. The research was led by Hilary Hodgdon, PhD, at the Trauma Center, Justice Research Institute, in Brookline, MA, USA. The study, which was an uncontrolled, feasibility pilot, sought to assess the efficacy of IFS on patient outcomes. It was conducted in an ethnically and socio-economically diverse, large metropolitan area in the Northeastern United States. Multiple validated scales were administered. The results showed that IFS therapy had significantly positive effects on adults with PTSD and histories of exposure to multiple forms of childhood trauma. Notably, at the one-month follow-up assessment, 92% of participants no longer met criteria for PTSD. See partsandself.org/2570-2.

2) Launched the Leadership Fellows Program, in partnership with the IFS Institute, to support current and future leaders from the Global Majority and LGBTQIA+ communities that have been traditionally marginalized by society.
24 champions and leaders were selected using a rigorous process and are currently engaged or willing to actively engage to make a difference in their community. They include community agency directors, coordinators, and psychotherapists; leaders of human-services or faith-based organizations; and social activists and advocates for the empowerment of marginalized groups. See partsandself.org/ifs-and-self-determined-leadership-in-marginalised-communities.

3) The largest funded project to-date is a randomized clinical trial studying IFS as a treatment for PTSD as well as opioid use. The study is being conducted at the Harvard-affiliated Cambridge Health Alliance community mental health center, led by an IFS Level 2-trained addiction psychiatrist. A pilot study began in 2021 to examine the effects of the IFS protocol in treating 12 individuals experiencing complex PTSD. Given the public-health crisis, the study had to be conducted online with weekly IFS group therapy and bi-weekly individual IFS sessions. An unexpected silver lining of the pandemic: this study is now going to yield results of the first-ever evaluated IFS online group.

4) Amidst the global pandemic and one of the most difficult years known to schools, educators in Connecticut were able to connect with their own Self, nurture their own parts, and provide warm, wise company for each other. This sanctuary for authentic self-care was constructed from the wisdom and practices inspired by IFS. Educators learned that they have extraordinary inner resources and the innate capacity to be calm, curious, compassionate, and courageous. See: foundationifs.org/outlook-october-2021#AccessingSchoolsConnecticut