Internal Family Systems · Virtual · Six provinces
Online IFS Therapy in Canada (Internal Family Systems)
You have probably been having some version of this argument with yourself for years. Internal Family Systems just gives both sides a chair.
Online sessions in British Columbia and five other provinces, $150 per 60-minute session, with Mohamad Shabib, MACP, CCC, who has completed IFS Level 1 and Level 2 training. English and Arabic. Free 15-minute consultation; evenings and weekends, 12:00 pm to 9:00 pm Pacific, seven days a week.
Opens our booking page. Choose "New Client Consultation (Telehealth) – 15 minutes", then pick a time. Jane will ask you to create a free account to confirm it. Nothing to pay for the consultation.
Prefer not to create an account? Text two times that suit you to (519) 760-5211 and we will book it for you, or send them through the short form. We reply with two consultation times, usually within 24 hours. If you would rather work with a particular clinician, say so and it is arranged.
$150 individual · $175 couples · 60 minutes · direct billing with Pacific Blue Cross, CVAP and TELUS eClaims plans; an insurance-ready receipt for every other plan. Fees & insurance · Direct billing
At a glance
Online IFS therapy in Canada, at a glance. TEO Counselling provides Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy online across British Columbia, Ontario, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Newfoundland and Labrador. It is delivered by Mohamad Shabib, MACP, CCC (#11249205), who has completed IFS Level 1 and Level 2 training and works in English or Arabic. Appointments run 12:00 pm to 9:00 pm Pacific, seven days a week (3:00 pm to midnight Eastern, 1:00 pm to 10:00 pm Mountain). Individual sessions are $150 and couples sessions $175, each 60 minutes. No provincial health plan covers counselling in private practice; every session comes with an insurance-ready receipt, and direct billing is available with Mohamad for Pacific Blue Cross and TELUS eClaims plans, and, for BC clients, CVAP. The first step is a free 15-minute consultation on a video call or a scheduled phone call, no referral needed. Manitoba clients can start from IFS therapy in Winnipeg, which gives the hours in Central time.
Internal Family Systems therapy here is online, from anywhere in the six provinces listed above, with Mohamad, an Internal Family Systems therapist trained in IFS Levels 1 and 2. If you came looking for a parts work therapist or for IFS counselling online, the sections below explain what the model actually is, what a session looks like, and who it tends to suit.
What is Internal Family Systems therapy?
Internal Family Systems therapy, shortened to IFS, is a form of psychotherapy that treats the mind as made up of distinct inner parts — protective patterns and the vulnerable feelings they guard — alongside a core Self, and works by helping you build a different relationship with those parts rather than by arguing them down or getting rid of them. It was developed by the family therapist Richard Schwartz, who noticed that the language people already use about themselves — part of me wants to — describes a system rather than a single voice.
Two things follow from that, and they are what makes IFS feel different from other therapy people have tried. The first is that no part is treated as the enemy, including the ones doing real damage. The second is that the work is sequenced: protective parts are met first and nothing more vulnerable is approached without their agreement, which is why IFS does not require a detailed retelling of what happened to you.
IFS is sometimes called parts work therapy, though that term is broader — the difference is set out further down this page, along with how IFS compares to CBT. Nothing here is a diagnosis or a treatment recommendation, and the section directly below explains precisely what “a part” means and what it does not.
What are parts in IFS?
A part, in IFS, is a recurring inner pattern — a cluster of thought, feeling, body sensation and impulse that shows up reliably, holds a consistent point of view, and is trying to accomplish something on your behalf, however costly the way it goes about it.
Start with something you already say. Part of me wants to leave the job; part of me is terrified to. I know it’s fine, but something in me won’t settle. Ordinary language is full of this. IFS therapy takes that as its starting point: that internal experience does not always run as one continuous voice.
Internal Family Systems treats that ordinary observation as useful rather than sloppy, and gets specific about it. Most parts are ones you would recognise the moment they were described to you. The one that rehearses conversations at 2 a.m. The one that goes flat and polite the second there is tension in the room. The one that reaches for the phone the moment a feeling gets uncomfortable.
Nothing about this is mystical, and none of it is a diagnosis. It is not the same as dissociative identity disorder, which is a distinct clinical diagnosis and not what this page is describing. “Parts” is a working language — a way of getting specific about internal experience so it can be worked with instead of argued about.
What are protectors and exiles in IFS?
IFS sorts parts into a small number of roles: managers, which work in advance to stop pain arriving; firefighters, which work after the fact to make a feeling stop now; and exiles, the younger, more vulnerable parts carrying what was too much at the time — managers and firefighters together being the protective parts, and the exiles being what they are organised around. The map is simple; what it opens up is not.
Managers
Work in advance. Their job is to keep pain from arriving in the first place. This is where perfectionism lives, along with over-planning, harsh self-criticism, people-pleasing, staying busy, scanning a room for whoever is unhappy. Managers can be the parts other people admire, which is one reason they are hard to put down.
Firefighters
Work after the fact. When something painful breaks through anyway, their job is to make the feeling stop now, whatever it costs later. Drinking, bingeing, scrolling for three hours, shutting down, spending, leaving. Firefighters are not stupid about consequences. They have simply been assigned an emergency, and emergencies do not weigh costs.
Exiles
What the protectors are organised around — younger, more vulnerable parts carrying the fear, shame, grief or loneliness that formed when something was too much at the time. They are exiled because feeling them fully once felt unsurvivable.
Self
Not another part. It is what is present when the parts step back a little: curiosity instead of judgment, some steadiness, some perspective, the capacity to be with something difficult without being swallowed by it. In IFS this is the position the work is done from rather than a state to be achieved — which is worth unpacking, so it gets its own answer directly below.
Some of what firefighters do lands on other people — rage, contempt, walking out mid-argument. Understanding what a part is protecting does not cancel what it costs someone else, and this work does not ask anyone to accept being hurt while it happens. If that is part of the picture, the safety note further down this page applies alongside everything else here.
Managers and firefighters are both protective parts. They tend to disagree with each other, which is why the internal argument feels endless: one part cracks the whip, another part goes numb in response, and the whip comes down harder.
What is the Self in IFS?
In IFS, the Self is not another part — it is what is present when the parts step back a little: curiosity instead of judgment, some steadiness, some perspective, and the capacity to be with something difficult without being swallowed by it.
You may recognise it before you can name it. It is the state you were in the last time someone told you something hard and you neither flinched away nor rushed to fix it. In IFS terms, being Self-led is not a mood or an achievement; it is what is left when nothing has taken over, and it is the position from which a protective part can actually be listened to rather than argued with.
Two honest notes. The first is that the model treats Self as existing in everyone and as impossible to damage — only to crowd out. That is a premise of the approach, not a proven fact about the brain, and it is worth naming as such rather than presenting it as settled science. The second is that most of what happens in a session is not a search for some pure Self state. It is the far more ordinary work of noticing which part has the floor and asking whether it would be willing to give you a little room.
Why does IFS say no part is bad?
IFS says no part is bad because it treats every part as protective rather than defective: even the parts doing obvious damage are understood to be carrying out a job, and the model works by finding out what that job is instead of trying to defeat the part doing it.
This is the idea the whole model turns on, so it is worth slowing down for.
In IFS terms, an inner critic is understood as protective rather than self-sabotaging. It can look as though the part took the job because criticism from inside felt safer than criticism from outside — get there first, and the blow lands softer. A part that drinks is not, in this model, a weak part; it may be using the fastest tool it trusts to end pain. A part that goes cold in an argument may have learned, somewhere, that cold was safer than open.
They are extreme. They can be costing a great deal. But in this model they are not enemies and they are not stupid — they are doing a job they took on for a reason, a long time ago, with far fewer options than are available now. Understanding why a part does something is not the same as concluding it is harmless. The cost it carries, to you and to the people around you, still counts.
This matters practically, not just philosophically. A part under attack digs in. You may arrive having already tried to defeat your own behaviour — willpower, deadlines, contempt — and found that the harder you push, the harder something pushes back. IFS does not ask you to win that fight. It asks a different question: what is this part afraid would happen if it stopped? The answer can be a real answer. And a protective part that trusts the answer has been heard may be willing to loosen its grip, which is not something it will do under pressure.
What happens in an IFS session?
In an IFS session you name one concrete reaction or behaviour, turn your attention toward the part of you producing it and describe what you notice, then answer the question that does most of the work — how do you feel toward that part? — and get curious with it directly, moving toward anything more vulnerable only once the protective parts agree.
People genuinely do not know what that looks like in practice, so here is the shape of it.
You name something concrete — a reaction you keep having, a behaviour you can’t argue yourself out of, an argument that went the way they always go. Then, instead of analysing it, you turn your attention toward the part of you doing it and describe what you notice. It might be a tightness in the chest, a tone of voice, an image, a familiar sentence.
Then comes the question that does most of the work: how do you feel toward that part? If the answer is “I hate it” or “I want it gone,” that is useful information — it means another part has an opinion, and that one gets attention first. Nothing is skipped past.
When there is enough space, you get curious with it directly. How long has it been doing this. What is it worried about. What would it have to feel if it stopped. Protective parts can answer, and the answers can be more coherent than expected.
Only when the protectors agree does the work move toward what they are protecting. That permission step is not a formality; it is the main safeguard in the model. IFS does not require a detailed retelling of what happened to you, and it is not designed to push you into the deep end to prove something.
Sessions are online. Some people close their eyes; others keep them open.
IFS therapy online in British Columbia
IFS therapy at TEO Counselling is online for anyone in British Columbia. Sessions run as video calls on Jane, with Zoom or Google Meet as backup: a link arrives by email, there is nothing to install, and you join from wherever you have a private room and a connection that holds for the hour. A fallback, usually a phone call, is agreed before anything demanding is started.
An online IFS session runs the way the section above describes. You name one reaction, turn your attention toward the part producing it, and Mohamad asks the questions that do the work — how do you feel toward that part, what is it worried about, what would it have to feel if it stopped — moving toward anything more vulnerable only once the protective parts agree. Being in your own space, with the option to stay there afterward instead of driving home, is part of how the work is paced.
- Who. Mohamad Shabib, MACP, CCC, who has completed IFS Level 1 and Level 2 training and is the only clinician at TEO who offers IFS. Sessions are in English or Arabic.
- When. 12:00 pm to 9:00 pm Pacific, seven days a week, so evenings and weekends are on the schedule.
- Fee. $150 for a 60-minute individual session, with an insurance-ready receipt after every session. MSP does not cover counselling in private practice.
- First step. A free 15-minute consultation on a video call or a scheduled phone call, with no referral needed.
What does IFS therapy feel like?
IFS can feel self-conscious at first and then unexpectedly ordinary — you are awake, you remember everything, and the strangeness can pass the moment something answers back that you did not consciously compose.
Talking to a part of yourself sounds strange until you have done it.
What comes back varies more than people expect, and there is no correct version of it. Some people get images. Some hear a phrase. Some get nothing visual at all and only notice a shift in the body — something loosening, or a tightening that says not yet. All of these count.
Some people get nothing for several sessions. That happens, and in IFS terms it is not failure; it may be a cautious protector deciding whether this is safe. That gets worked with too.
It is not hypnosis. You are awake, you remember everything, you can stop at any point, and you can say “I don’t want to go there today” without a debate.
Is “parts work therapy” the same as IFS?
Close, but not identical. Parts work therapy is the broad umbrella for any approach that treats the mind as having distinguishable inner voices or states — ego state therapy, chairwork, schema modes and others all sit under it. Some of these ideas are decades older than IFS.
IFS is one specific, structured version of parts work: its own map (managers, firefighters, exiles, Self), its own sequence, and its own rule that you do not approach a vulnerable part without the protectors’ permission. If you searched “parts work therapy” and landed here, IFS is most likely what you were reading about.
And if the language you arrived with was shadow work — the Jungian term for meeting the disowned side of yourself — how that practice relates to IFS, and how we actually work with it, has its own page.
What is the difference between IFS and CBT?
CBT works with the content of thoughts — whether a thought is accurate, what the evidence is, what changes when the behaviour changes — while IFS works with the relationship between parts, asking less whether the critical thought is true and more who is saying it and what that voice believes would happen if it went quiet. They are asking different questions rather than competing for the same one.
CBT
Works with the content of thoughts
- Is this thought accurate? What is the evidence?
- What happens if you change the behaviour and watch what follows?
- Structured, commonly time-limited, with practice between sessions
- One of the largest and longest-standing research bases in psychotherapy for several specific difficulties
- Tends to be efficient for clearly bounded problems — panic, insomnia, a specific phobia, a defined behavioural pattern
IFS
Works with the relationship between parts
- Less interested in whether the critical thought is accurate
- More interested in who is saying it, how old that voice is, and what it believes will happen if it goes quiet
- Some people reach for it when they already understand the logic, can recite the reframe perfectly, and still feel exactly the same
Neither of those observations is a rule about you. They are also not incompatible — Mohamad has training in both IFS Level 1 and 2 and CBT for Trauma Level 1 and 2.
Who is IFS therapy for? And who it may not suit right now
IFS tends to suit people carrying long-standing relational or childhood material rather than one discrete event — people who already understand intellectually why they are the way they are and feel no different for knowing, who have a loud internal critic they have lost every argument with, or who have coping behaviours they cannot reason themselves out of.
IFS can land well for people who:
- have a loud internal critic and have lost every argument with it
- feel like a noticeably different person at work, at home, and alone
- understand intellectually why they are like this, and feel no different for knowing
- have coping behaviours they cannot reason themselves out of
- carry long-standing relational or childhood material rather than one discrete event
- dislike being told what to think, and would rather be asked
It may not be the right starting point right now if:
- you are in immediate crisis, or housing and safety are unstable — practical stabilisation comes first
- experiencing yourself as having separate parts is distressing rather than clarifying, or you have a history of psychosis
- substance use is at a level that needs medical detox or a higher level of care than outpatient therapy sessions can provide
- you want a short, protocol-driven course of work for one clearly defined problem, where a more structured approach may get you there faster
These are tendencies, not rules, and none of them is a judgment about you. If two or three of those landed, the next step is a free 15-minute consultation. The consultation exists partly so all of this can be said out loud, including saying that we are not the right fit.
Book a Free ConsultationIs IFS good for trauma?
IFS is widely used with trauma, and its structure is built around it: protective parts are met and worked with first, nothing more vulnerable is approached without their agreement, and no detailed retelling of what happened is required — which can be what makes starting possible for someone who has avoided therapy precisely because they did not want to narrate it.
It can fit relational and developmental trauma, because that material may not present as one memory. It presents as a pattern — a way of going flat, or managing everyone else’s mood, or bracing before a door opens — and a model organised around long-standing protective roles has somewhere to put that. People who describe what they carry as complex PTSD may recognise themselves in the protector and exile language before they recognise themselves in a diagnostic list.
Three honest qualifications sit alongside that. The first is timing: IFS is not the right starting point during acute crisis, while housing or safety are unstable, or where substance use needs medical detox or a higher level of care than outpatient sessions can provide. Practical stabilisation comes first, and that is not a smaller kind of help.
The second is fit with the language itself. Experiencing yourself as having separate parts is clarifying for some people and distressing for others, and where it is distressing, or where there is a history of psychosis, that is something to raise in the consultation rather than push through.
The third is that IFS is not the only approach used here for trauma. Mohamad’s training also includes Advanced EMDR (EMDRIA) and CBT for Trauma Levels 1 and 2, so if structured memory reprocessing looks like the closer fit, that gets said plainly rather than worked around. Where two approaches might otherwise run at once, sequencing matters — there is a note on combining therapies in the questions below.
What none of that establishes is that IFS is the right approach for your situation, and the evidence section directly below sets out plainly how much the research does and does not support. Nothing on this page is a diagnosis or a treatment recommendation.
More on trauma therapy at TEO →Does IFS work? What the evidence shows
IFS is widely practised and has a detailed, well-specified clinical model. As a research subject it is still young, and it deserves a straight description rather than marketing.
The published research base is small. It is dominated by case studies and a handful of small trials, with only a few randomised controlled trials so far. Published reviews describe the early findings as promising while stating plainly that larger, fully powered studies are needed before anything firmer can be said.
What that means in plain terms: the evidence is early and encouraging, not settled. It is a much smaller base than CBT or EMDR have accumulated. Anyone describing IFS as proven for a specific condition is ahead of the data, and no approach — this one included — can be promised to work for you.
It is also not the only useful thing in the room. IFS is used here because it can be clarifying for people who have been stuck in a fight with themselves, and it is combined with other training where that makes more sense.
What is the IFS controversy?
The IFS controversy centres on four criticisms: that the research base is small and does not yet match how widely the model is practised; that it does not appear in the major PTSD practice guidelines the way trauma-focused CBT and EMDR do; that its central idea of an undamaged core Self is a premise rather than a finding; and that its parts language needs care with dissociative disorders and psychosis, and is used loosely in self-help and coaching settings the model was not built for.
Each of those is fair. The evidence section above already describes the first. On the second, the American Psychological Association’s PTSD guideline and the UK’s NICE guideline are public documents, and IFS is not in them. On the third, the Self is treated in this model as something everyone has and cannot lose; that is a useful working assumption, and it is not a claim about the brain. On the fourth, IFS has grown well beyond the therapy room — into workbooks, apps and coaching — and the model’s own cautions about pacing and about not forcing contact with painful material do not reliably travel with it. Two further concerns have been raised in print: a 2024 article for the Society for the Advancement of Psychotherapy notes that past clients have sued IFS practitioners alleging false memories were introduced, and a 2025 article in The Nation reported some critics likening the IFS unburdening process, in which a part is helped to let go of what it carries, to an exorcism. Our guide to No Bad Parts sets out the published studies and the concerns clinicians have raised about the model.
The model’s reply is also worth hearing: it is explicit about not pathologising any part of a person, it does not require a detailed retelling of what happened, and it gives people a vocabulary for inner conflict that some find immediately usable. The position at TEO Counselling is the one this whole page takes — IFS is a well-specified approach with an early evidence base, offered by a clinician trained to Level 2, and it is not presented here as proven for any diagnosis.
What are the 6 F’s of IFS?
The 6 F’s of IFS — sometimes called the six steps — are find, focus, flesh out, feel toward, befriend and fear: the sequence an IFS therapist uses to help you get to know one protective part before anything more vulnerable is approached.
Find the part — where does it show up, in or around your body, when it is active? Focus on it, keeping attention there rather than drifting to the story. Flesh it out: an image, an age, a tone of voice, a posture, whatever it offers. Feel toward it — and this is the pivot — because if what you feel is irritation or fear, that is another part speaking, and it gets asked to step back before you continue. Befriend the part by asking what its job is, how long it has been doing it, and what it wants you to know. And ask its fear: what it believes would happen if it stopped. That last answer is where the part it has been protecting comes into view.
In a session this is unhurried and it is not a script read at you; the steps are a map for the therapist, and the conversation is between you and the part. The free Getting to Know Your Parts handout on this site walks through a gentler first version of the same sequence.
EMDR or IFS — which fits when?
Neither EMDR nor IFS is better than the other in the abstract: EMDR works on how a specific memory is stored, IFS works on the relationship between the parts of you that manage a difficulty and the parts carrying it, and which one fits depends on what you are bringing.
EMDR tends to fit when there is a clear memory, or a small set of them, that still carries a physical charge — you can name the moment, and your body reacts when you do. It is structured, target by target, and asks for little narration. IFS tends to fit when the difficulty is a long-running conflict inside you or a protective pattern with no single event behind it — the critic that never rests, the shutdown that arrives before you notice, the part that reaches for a drink or a screen. It is slower to start and less protocol-driven, and it is built to negotiate with the parts that would otherwise block the work.
They are not rivals. Some people do IFS first, so that protective parts agree to the reprocessing, and EMDR afterwards on the memories that remain; some people do the reverse. Mohamad is trained in both, so at TEO the choice, and the order, is a conversation in the free consultation rather than a decision this page makes for you. Neither approach can be promised to work for any particular person.
Can I do IFS on myself?
Partly. Noticing your parts, naming them, and getting curious instead of critical about them is something you can practise on your own, and some people do that for months before they ever talk to anyone. Working with the young parts that carry old pain is safer with a trained person in the room, because protective parts can push back hard when that material is approached without their agreement, and the point of the therapist is to notice that happening and slow down.
The longer answer, including what a self-guided practice can reasonably include and where it should stop, is in Can I do IFS on my own? on our blog.
Mohamad Shabib
Founder of TEO Counselling Services Inc., he has completed IFS Level 1 and Level 2 training.
He holds an MACP and is a Canadian Certified Counsellor, with additional training in Advanced EMDR (EMDRIA), Gottman Method Levels 1 and 2, CBT for Trauma Levels 1 and 2, and hands-on addictions experience. He served as a Trauma Counsellor at Edgewood in Nanaimo with concurrent trauma and addictions, including first responders, and began counselling in 2020. Sessions available in English and Arabic.
Read Mohamad’s full bio →Our other clinicians, Alison Shaji (RCC, British Columbia) and Rola Shbib (RSW, Ontario), bring different training and do not offer IFS.
If you are in Ontario and want to see how the model is practised across the province, IFS Ontario is a community and directory of psychotherapists, social workers and other practitioners who use Internal Family Systems. Mohamad works with Ontario clients online.
Session details
Clinician registrations differ — Mohamad as a CCC with the CCPA, Alison as an RCC in British Columbia, Rola as an RSW in Ontario — and because Alison sees British Columbia clients only, where you are affects which clinician you can see. Receipts are provided for extended health plans. TEO is an approved provider with BC’s Crime Victim Assistance Program.
Book a Free ConsultationIf things are unsafe right now
Therapy sessions are scheduled appointments, not a crisis service, and no page can assess your situation.
- If you or someone else is in immediate danger, call 911
- For the Suicide Crisis Helpline, call or text 9-8-8 (Canada, 24/7)
If someone in your home is being hurt, that needs a faster response than scheduled therapy — 911, or a local crisis or victim services line. And if you are the one worried about your own behaviour toward someone else, that is still a legitimate reason to seek help, and saying so is not something you will be shamed for here.
A free tool for this
Two printable parts-work handouts from our library, written as between-sessions practice, with nothing to sign up for.
Getting to Know Your Parts
The IFS map of your inner family, and nine gentle questions for meeting one part of it.
Open the tool →Getting to Know Your Inner Child
Questions you can ask the younger part of you — and how to listen to what comes back.
Open the tool →Questions about IFS therapy
Is IFS the same as having multiple personalities?
No. Dissociative identity disorder is a specific clinical diagnosis with its own features. The "parts" language in IFS describes ordinary internal multiplicity — the same thing you are doing when you say part of you wants one thing and part of you wants another. Nothing on this page is a diagnosis, and only an assessment with a qualified professional can address that question.
I can’t sense any parts — is IFS still for me?
Not being able to sense parts is not a reason to rule IFS out. "Hearing" parts is a metaphor, not a requirement: many people start with a body sensation, an urge, or a sentence they say to themselves. The first sessions are spent finding the language that fits you, not testing whether you have parts. If nothing comes for a while, that is not failure; in IFS terms it may be a cautious protective part deciding whether this is safe, and that gets worked with too.
Will I have to relive what happened to me?
IFS does not require a detailed retelling. The model deliberately works with protective parts first and moves toward more vulnerable material only when those parts agree. If they do not agree, that is the work, not an obstacle to it.
How many sessions does IFS take?
There is no fixed number, and anyone quoting you one is guessing. Some people notice a change in how they relate to a familiar reaction within the first few sessions. Longstanding protective patterns can take longer. This is reviewed with you as you go rather than decided in advance.
Can you do IFS therapy online, and does it work?
It adapts well to online sessions. The work happens in your own attention, and being in your own space, with the option to stay there afterward instead of driving home, can help rather than hinder. The honest limit is evidence: research on IFS as a whole is still small, as the evidence section on this page sets out, and it has not established that online IFS performs the same as IFS in a room, so the case for online sessions is practical rather than proven. Sessions run on Jane, with Zoom or Google Meet as a backup, and the free 15-minute consultation is a fair way to find out whether working like this suits you.
How much does online IFS therapy cost?
At TEO Counselling, online IFS therapy is $150 for a 60-minute individual session with Mohamad Shabib, MACP, CCC, who has completed IFS Level 1 and Level 2 training. There is no intake fee, and the first step is a free 15-minute consultation. Direct billing is available with Mohamad for Pacific Blue Cross and TELUS eClaims plans such as Canada Life and Manulife; otherwise you receive an insurance-ready receipt after every session.
Is it covered by insurance?
That depends on your plan and on which practitioner registrations it recognises, which varies more than people expect. Receipts are provided for extended health plans, and it is worth confirming the specifics with your insurer before booking rather than after.
Is IFS therapy covered by insurance in BC?
Coverage depends on the credentials your plan recognises, not on the method, so the question for your insurer is whether your plan covers a Canadian Certified Counsellor (CCC), the designation Mohamad holds. MSP does not cover counselling in private practice. With Mohamad, Pacific Blue Cross and TELUS eClaims plans can be billed directly, as can sessions approved by BC’s Crime Victim Assistance Program (CVAP), whose eligibility is decided by the program; for any other plan you receive an insurance-ready receipt after every session.
What IFS training has Mohamad completed?
He has completed IFS Level 1 and Level 2 training.
What is the Self in IFS?
In Internal Family Systems, the Self is not another part — it is what is present when the parts step back a little: curiosity instead of judgment, some steadiness, some perspective, and the capacity to be with something difficult without being swallowed by it. The model works from the assumption that this exists in everyone and cannot be damaged, only crowded out. That is a premise of the approach rather than a proven fact about the brain, and it is worth naming as such.
Is IFS good for trauma?
IFS is widely used with trauma, particularly relational and childhood material where the difficulty is a long-standing pattern rather than one discrete event, and its structure suits that: protective parts are worked with first, nothing more vulnerable is approached without their agreement, and no detailed retelling is required. The published research base is small compared with CBT or EMDR, so the honest position is that it is a well-specified model some people find clarifying, not that it is established for a specific diagnosis. It is not the right starting point during acute crisis, unstable housing or safety, or substance use that needs a higher level of care.
Does IFS therapy actually work?
That is not something this page can promise for you. What the sessions do is concrete: you name one reaction, find the part producing it, notice how you feel toward it, and get curious with it, moving toward anything more vulnerable only when the protective parts agree. The published research base is small and early, and IFS is not in the major PTSD guidelines. Whether it fits you is judged in the free 15-minute consultation, where hearing that it is not the right fit is a normal outcome.
What is the difference between IFS and CBT?
CBT works with the content of thoughts — whether a thought is accurate, what the evidence is, what changes when the behaviour changes — and is structured, commonly time-limited, and involves practice between sessions. IFS works with the relationship between parts: less interested in whether the critical thought is accurate, more interested in who is saying it, how old that voice is, and what it believes would happen if it went quiet. They are not incompatible; Mohamad has training in IFS Levels 1 and 2 and in CBT for Trauma Levels 1 and 2, and Alison Shaji holds CBT training.
Can I do IFS alongside another therapy?
It can work. The question tends to be sequencing rather than the combination itself — if structured trauma processing is already underway elsewhere, adding a second approach at the same time can pull in two directions. Mohamad’s training includes EMDR and Gottman Method as well as IFS, so where approaches would overlap it is worth raising in the consultation before starting rather than midway through.
What is the IFS controversy?
The main criticisms are that the research base is small and does not yet match how widely the model is practised; that IFS does not appear in the major PTSD practice guidelines the way trauma-focused CBT and EMDR do; that the idea of an undamaged core Self is a premise rather than a finding; and that parts language needs care with dissociative disorders and psychosis, and gets used loosely in self-help and coaching settings the model was not designed for. Those criticisms are fair, and this page states them rather than arguing them away.
Is IFS a cult, and is IFS therapy dangerous?
IFS is a psychotherapy model, not a cult, though not risk-free. A 2025 scoping review by Buys called its research promising but limited in scope. A 2024 article for the Society for the Advancement of Psychotherapy said IFS has spread beyond its evidence base, that splitting the self into parts might be disorganizing for people who struggle to tell what is real, that parts work without enough care could be dangerous for some, and that past clients have sued practitioners alleging false memories were introduced. In 2025, The Nation reported some critics likening IFS unburdening to an exorcism. A trained clinician can slow down or stop if someone is overwhelmed or dissociating. Mohamad is trained in IFS Levels 1 and 2. TEO does not offer specialty care for dissociative disorders; raise past dissociation or psychosis in the free consultation.
What are the 6 F’s of IFS?
Find, focus, flesh out, feel toward, befriend, and fear. They are the steps an IFS therapist uses to help you get to know one protective part: locate where it shows up in or around your body, keep attention on it, let it take shape, notice how you feel toward it, build a working relationship with it, and ask what it is afraid would happen if it stopped doing its job. That last answer is where the part it is protecting comes into view.
Which is better, EMDR or IFS?
Neither, and it is not a ranking. EMDR targets a specific memory and works on how it is stored, so it tends to be used when there is a clear memory, or a small set of them, that still carries a physical charge. IFS works on the relationship between the parts of you that manage a difficulty and the parts carrying it, so it tends to be used when the problem is a long-running inner conflict or a protective pattern with no single event behind it. Both are offered online at TEO with Mohamad, who is trained in both, and the choice, and the order, since some people do both in sequence, is discussed in the free consultation.
Can I do IFS therapy on myself?
Partly. Noticing your parts, naming them, and getting curious instead of critical about them is something you can practise on your own, and the free Getting to Know Your Parts handout on this site walks through it. The deeper end, working with the young parts that carry old pain, is therapy: protective parts can push back hard when that material is approached without their agreement, and a trained person is there to notice that and slow down. A longer answer is on our blog.
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