The Spirituality of IFS: Reflections on Richard Schwartz’s Sounds True Course

Reflections on The Spirituality of IFS (Sounds True)

Over the past year, I’ve found myself increasingly curious about how spirituality and therapy intersect, particularly within the framework of Internal Family Systems (IFS). One place that curiosity led me was The Spirituality of IFS, an online course offered through Sounds True and taught by Dr. Richard Schwartz, the founder of IFS therapy. This course explores the spiritual dimensions of parts work, including ideas that stretch beyond what traditional psychological science directly explains.

What The Spirituality of IFS Explores

IFS is widely known as a compassionate, evidence-based, parts-oriented therapy that centers the presence of Self. In this course, Richard Schwartz expands the model to include spiritual and transpersonal experiences that frequently arise in healing work, such as encounters with inner guides, ancestral wisdom, and what IFS calls unattached burdens. These are experiences some people describe as energies or influences that do not originate from their own personal history but still affect their internal system.

The course includes a mix of teaching, guided experiential exercises, and reflections drawn from clinical work. Some of the material revisits core IFS concepts that are also taught in Level 1 IFS training, while other sections venture into territory that sits more clearly in the realm of spirituality, mystery, and the unknown.

My Honest Experience of the Course

I want to be transparent that I struggled with parts of this course. In some ways, it felt like a review of IFS principles I had already encountered through formal training. In other ways, it pushed me into areas where my more science-oriented parts became uncomfortable. Concepts like working with unattached burdens or spiritual guides make intuitive sense to me on one level, especially when I listen to how clients describe their lived experience. At the same time, there are parts of me that notice the lack of direct scientific language or empirical grounding and feel uncertain.

Rather than seeing that discomfort as a problem, I’ve come to understand this course as part of my practice of staying present with the unknown. Healing does not always follow the same path for every person, and not all meaningful experiences fit neatly into existing research frameworks. Sitting with that tension has been an important part of my own growth as a therapist.

How This Learning Influences My Clinical Practice

Taking The Spirituality of IFS has not shifted my practice into something prescriptive or spiritually directive. Instead, it has expanded my capacity to meet clients where they already are. Some clients experience their inner world through psychological language. Others experience it through spiritual, religious, symbolic, or intuitive frameworks. This course gave me additional tools and language to support clients who feel accompanied by inner guides, who describe burdens that don’t feel entirely their own, or who draw meaning from spiritual or religious traditions.

Just as importantly, it reinforced the ethical stance that no single framework is required for healing. IFS can be practiced without spiritual language at all, and therapy with me never requires holding any particular belief system. My role is to support your process, not to impose an interpretation.

Community, Reflection, and Shared Meaning

One of the most meaningful parts of this course was taking it alongside several members of my IFS Level 1 cohort. We met multiple times to talk not only about the teachings themselves, but about our individual reactions, doubts, and points of resonance. Those conversations deepened my appreciation for how varied our relationships to spirituality can be, even among clinicians trained in the same model.

Spirituality, Religion, and Ongoing Curiosity

In the past year, I’ve noticed a growing curiosity in myself around spirituality and religion, even as I carry awareness of religious trauma and harm that has been present in my life and in the lives of many clients. I find myself drawn to wisdom traditions for the stories, metaphors, and insights they offer, while also holding a careful, critical lens. This course sits within that larger exploration. I don’t experience it as an answer, but as an invitation to continue asking thoughtful questions.

I expect this exploration to remain ongoing. As I continue learning, reflecting, and consulting, I hope to deepen my ability to support clients whose healing includes spiritual or existential dimensions, while also remaining grounded, ethical, and responsive to each individual’s needs.