Conference Agenda

This workshop aims to provide a space for a dialogical exchange between Dialogical Self theory (DST) and Internal Family systems theory (IFS) with the intention of highlighting ways in which both models through their confluences and contradictions can cross-fertilize and inform each other in the context of multiplicity informed psychotherapy.

DST views the mind as a landscape inhabited by multiple I-positions which converse, converge, diverge, conflict and negotiate. Out of these dynamics, counter positions, promoter positions and meta-positions may emerge enabling the system to reorganize as a result of increased multivoicedness. (Hermans, 2001, 2024; Hermans & Gieser, 2012). Emphasis is placed on how the ‘external’, societal and cultural landscape influences, forms and reforms internal dynamics which are in constant interplay with the external environment. The IFS model also conceptualizes the psyche as multiple, comprising of a system of parts which occupy relative stable functional ‘positions’ within the internal system (for example ‘protectors’ and ‘exiles’) and operate in characteristic patterns of relationship to one another (Schwartz, 1987; Schwartz & Sweezy, 2020). IFS additionally proposes the presence of Self, which is not a part or I-position, but a qualitative different mode of awareness that can act as a wise, compassionate observer and healer of the internal system (Schwartz & Sweezy, 2020). Although IFS acknowledges the influence of external context, it places greater emphasis on internal dynamics and on how the therapist can facilitate a reconfiguration of the internal system through Self-to-part relationships.

This workshop will explore how both models can shed light on the same incident and how a combined view may enrich client case conceptualization and psychotherapeutic intervention. Giannis Antetokounmpo’s famous “there is no failure in sports” post-game interview will be used as a vivid live example of inner multiplicity, vulnerability and public meaning-making and reconstruction in real time.

In the first part of the workshop, participants will be briefly introduced to the core concepts of IFS therapy centering on the structural dynamics of the internal system (the distinction between protectors -managers and firefighters - exiles, and Self) and key practices of IFS therapy such as Self-to-part relationships. Parallels and contradictions from DST will be additionally mapped.

In the second part, participants will work in small groups with a transcript and video excerpt of the interview with the aim to analyse and reflect on the segment from DST and IFS perspectives. From a DST perspective, we will identify the act of positioning and counter-positioning, the presence of promoter and meta-positions, the external voices that shape the inner dialogue and the unfolding meaning making process. From an IFS perspective, we will map exiles, protectors, the presence of Self and the ways the system attempts to regulate in the face of crisis. Groups will use simple guiding questions (‘Who is speaking here?’, ‘What are they trying to accomplish?’ , ‘What are they protecting?’, ‘Who/what are they speaking to?’ , ‘What global narratives are they drawing from?’ ,‘How successful is that meaning making process?’) and briefly note emerging hypotheses about how the two models illuminate different aspects of the same incident.

In the third part, the whole group will engage in an interactive dialogue on integration: how IFS can expand DST’s view of vulnerability and processes of therapeutic change, and how DST can, in turn, significantly inform IFS practice by foregrounding audience and cultural narrative. Participants will be invited to leave with the seeds of a possible integrative framework that both honours the inner family of parts and remains attuned to the wider dialogical field within which these parts – or I-positions – are brought to life and transformed.