The Spirituality of IFS: Reflections on Richard Schwartz’s Sounds True Course
Reflections on The Spirituality of IFS (Sounds True)
Richard C. Schwartz | Sounds True
(Completed 2026)
One of the things I've noticed over the past few years is that I've become increasingly curious about where therapy and spirituality meet.
That's actually a little surprising to me.
I've always tended to approach the world from a fairly scientific perspective. I like research. I like evidence. I like understanding why something works. At the same time, I also spend my days listening to people's lived experiences, and those experiences don't always fit neatly into what science currently knows how to measure. I have found myself personally be drawn to learning more about spiritual practices and how these influence our lives. Sometimes I dream about going back to school for my 3rd Master’s degree, a Master’s in Divinity.
That curiosity eventually led me to The Spirituality of Internal Family Systems, an online course taught by Dr. Richard Schwartz, the founder of IFS.
I wasn't looking for answers as much as I was looking to better understand a conversation that seems to come up naturally in therapy. Clients often talk about spirituality, intuition, religious experiences, dreams, ancestors, symbolic experiences, or feeling connected to something larger than themselves. Whether those experiences are understood psychologically, spiritually, or somewhere in between, they matter because they matter to the person experiencing them.
I wanted to be able to meet those conversations with curiosity rather than uncertainty.
What the Course Explores
If you're familiar with Internal Family Systems, you probably know it as a therapy model centered around parts and the healing qualities of Self. Most of the time, IFS is taught as a psychological model. We learn about protectors, exiles, firefighters, burdens, and the process of helping parts heal.
This course begins there, but it also explores experiences that sit outside what many people think of as traditional psychotherapy.
Topics included things like:
spiritual experiences in therapy
inner guides and wisdom figures
ancestral connections
unattached burdens
mystery and the unknown
the relationship between healing and spirituality
Some of these ideas will feel familiar to people with spiritual or religious backgrounds. Others may feel much less comfortable, particularly if you tend to think about healing through a scientific lens.
I found myself experiencing a little of both.
Sitting With Uncertainty
As I moved through this course, there were moments that felt deeply meaningful and others where my skeptical, science-loving parts became very active.
Ideas like unattached burdens or spiritual guides aren't things we currently have strong empirical evidence for. At least not in the way we think about evidence in psychology.
At the same time, people throughout history and across cultures have described experiences that sound remarkably similar. I found myself wondering what to do with that. Not because I felt pressured to believe or disbelieve any particular explanation, but because I don't think uncertainty is something we need to rush past.
I've become increasingly comfortable saying,
"I don't know."
And I actually think that's a valuable place for a therapist to be sometimes. There are things we understand remarkably well about the brain, trauma, attachment, and the nervous system. There are also experiences that remain mysterious. For me, those two truths must exist together.
How This Influences My Therapy
One of the reassuring things about this course was that it never made me feel like therapy has to become spiritual.
It doesn't. But, it can.
IFS works beautifully whether someone understands their experience psychologically, spiritually, religiously, symbolically, or through some combination of those lenses. I don't believe therapy should require anyone to adopt a particular worldview. Some clients naturally talk about protectors, nervous systems, attachment, and trauma. Others describe intuition, prayer, ancestors, dreams, God, energy, or spiritual practices. My role isn't to decide which framework is "correct."
It's to understand the framework that already feels meaningful to the person sitting across from me.
Sometimes psychological language fits best.
Sometimes spiritual language does.
Sometimes both are describing the same experience from different directions.
It is important to me that I hold that kind of curiosity.
Learning Alongside Other Therapists
One unexpected gift of this course was taking it alongside several people from my IFS Level 1 training. Which was a real pleasure. We met throughout the course to talk about what we were learning, what challenged us, and what we weren't quite sure what to make of. I appreciated those conversations just as much as the course itself. Even among therapists who had received the same IFS training, there was a wide range of reactions. Some people resonated immediately with the spiritual material. Others remained more skeptical. Most of us landed somewhere in the middle, curious enough to explore without feeling like we needed to arrive at certainty.
What I Keep Coming Back To
As I've continued reading, taking courses, and reflecting on spirituality, one thing has become increasingly clear to me. I'm less interested in finding definitive answers than I am in becoming a better listener. I've also noticed that my curiosity about spirituality has grown alongside my awareness of religious trauma. Those might seem like opposite directions, but they don't feel that way to me.
I've met many people whose religious experiences have been profoundly healing. I've also met many whose experiences caused deep pain. Both realities exist. I don't think the answer is to dismiss spirituality altogether, nor do I think it's to accept every spiritual claim uncritically. Instead, I find myself trying to hold both curiosity and discernment at the same time. That feels like a place where I can continue learning.
A Personal Reflection
One of the things I value most about being a therapist is that I don't have to have every answer. In fact, I think therapy often works best when neither of us is pretending certainty where certainty doesn't exist. Black and white thinking can feel safe and true, even when it is not.
This course reminded me that healing sometimes includes experiences that are difficult to categorize. Whether someone understands those experiences psychologically, spiritually, symbolically, or in another way entirely, what matters most to me is approaching them with respect, curiosity, and care.
My exploration of spirituality will continue for a long time. Not because I'm searching for one final answer. But because I've come to appreciate that some of the most meaningful questions in life aren't meant to be solved once and for all.
Digging Deeper
If this post resonated with you, you might also enjoy exploring:
Internal Family Systems (IFS) – An introduction to parts work and the model that has most shaped the way I think about healing.
Culture, Power & Belonging – Exploring how our identities, communities, and larger systems shape the way we experience ourselves.
Trauma Therapy – Understanding healing through the lens of the nervous system, compassion, and curiosity.
Narrative Therapy – Reflecting on the stories we inherit and the stories we choose to carry forward.
Mindfulness – Cultivating awareness without judgment and making space for all parts of ourselves.
Religious Trauma – Exploring the impact that spiritual communities and belief systems can have on identity, safety, and belonging.
Contact Me – If you'd like to explore any of these ideas together, I'd be happy to connect.