Increase your self-awareness, grow in your own human formation, and bond deeply with other like-minded Catholic therapists in an Internal Family Systems-informed Foundations Experiential Group (FEG).

Are you seeking:

• Greater insight into yourself as a clinician and better self-care?
• Better human formation on the natural level as both a person and a therapist?
• Deep, personal connections within a community of other Catholic therapists who understand the unique demands of our lives?
• New therapeutic skills to help your clients help themselves, especially those with complex trauma?
• And do you want this all in a Catholic community of therapists committed to grounding clinical practice in a Catholic worldview?

 If so, read on. I have a special opportunity for you.

Get More Details Now

Register for upcoming groups

In this video, I discuss the Interior Therapist Community at length.  Find out more!

See what ITC members are saying about their experience.

Listen to Catholic therapists Virginia Charlesworth and Adele Huculak describe what it's like in the ITC.

Get More Details Now

Register for upcoming groups

 I don’t have to tell you that distress levels are spiking in our culture.

You don’t need survey after survey to tell you that anxiety, depression, loneliness, and feelings of worthlessness, alienation, and helplessness are all on the rise.  You feel it, you sense it. 

• You see these symptoms in your clients.
• You feel your clients’ burdens of insecurity, confusion, and distress.
• You also know that the demands on you are high and getting higher.
• And you also have your own troubles, concerns and problems. We all do.

The bottom line is this:  We are not supposed to “go it alone.”

We Catholic clinicians need help to live out our profession for our clients in a healthy way.

• We need grace and the love of God our Father and Mary our Mother, first and foremost in prayer and sacrament. That’s a given.
• We also need each other, in the Body of Christ -- we need to “Bear each other’s burdens” as St. Paul tells us (Galatians 6:2).
• We clinicians sometimes try to minimize these realities, and that’s understandable because we naturally focus on others.  But if we neglect caring for ourselves and loving ourselves in an ordered way, sooner or later, we get into trouble.  You know this.

So, what can we do to help ourselves, to care for ourselves, to love ourselves in an ordered, Catholic way?

Here is an answer for you. The Interior Therapist Community within Souls and Hearts. Souls and Hearts will be opening up new Foundations Experiential Groups for Catholic therapists and graduate students in mental health fields during the summer of 2024, with groups beginning in September. No previous IFS training is necessary to participate.

These groups:

• Are limited to nine Catholic clinicians with experienced IFS-trained psychologists as leaders
• Meet via Zoom for 90 minutes for each of 10 sessions, over the course of five months
• Practice IFS techniques, working on our own real issues within our own internal systems, in the holding environment of the group and in independent practice in triads
• Engage in interpersonal processing among the members, based on an IFS understanding of parts and self, harmonized with our Catholic faith
• Provide discussion space for the two recorded lectures that cover a chapter of Internal Family Systems Therapy (2nd ed.) by Schwartz and Sweezy.
  • In one lecture, the main points of the chapter are summarized
  • In the second, Dr. Peter provides his “Catholic take” on the chapter, discussing where the IFS model departs from a Catholic anthropology and how to make appropriate adjustments to harmonize it with a Catholic worldview.
• Include a sequence of 10 sessions (15 hours total) at only $700 per person, which works out to only $70 per session (in addition to the $40 per month basic subscription fee to join the Interior Therapist Community).
• Are a gateway to advanced groups that focus on specialized topics for more experienced members.
• Allow you to join inner circle groups with other FEG members for additional practice working with your internal system and others’ systems. These are free!

You might be familiar with Internal Family Systems as a trauma treatment from Bessel van der Kolk’s best-selling book on complex trauma, The Body Keeps the Score, where he devotes all of chapter 17 to IFS. That chapter is available free online here, and it is well worth reading (the books is quite good and a best-seller in the trauma world).

For those unfamiliar with IFS, please note that IFS focuses primarily on intrapsychic dynamics in one person in individual psychotherapy, counseling or coaching. IFS is not primarily a model of doing family therapy, despite “Family” being in its name.

For a quick summary of IFS, check out this video or a description here.

So, in a nutshell, we are nourishing our minds conceptually, learning new approaches to therapy that we can bring to our clients to help them lead their own lives more effectively through our own experiential learning and growth. All grounded in a Catholic worldview.

The Interior Therapist Community is open to Catholic therapists, counselors, interns, and graduate students in mental health-related programs. 

The ITC was established in 2020 by Dr. Peter Malinoski, Ph.D.  Dr. Peter has completed IFS Levels 1, 2, and 3 training, as well as the IFIO marriage/couples therapy training.  Dr. Peter leads some of the FEGs and actively participates in the online community.

D. Peter Martin, Psy.D., is IFS-trained with extensive consultation experience and much experience leading groups, may be leading some FEGs as well. Dr. Martin will also be available for individual IFS related consultations.

Check out IFS in Action in this 60-minute Demonstration 

Watch Dr. Peter as he works with a Christian therapist to unveil how this therapist's parts see God.

What are Catholic clinicians
saying about the ITC?

 When I discovered IFS, I was intrigued and curious but also nervous about how it may or may not align with my Catholic worldview. I also quickly realized that I would have to do my own inner work when I discovered the reality of parts. I am so thankful for the ITC and Peter’s guidance to help me understand myself better and begin to do parts work effectively with my clients. My Inner Circle group has also been a source of support and encouragement.

 Jody Garneau, RCC, Maple Ridge

ITC allows me the place and space to journey with Catholic therapists. God works in and through the relationships.

Adele Huculak, RCC, Kamloops, British Columbia

Joining the Interior Therapist Community has been transformational. Not only has it improved my clinical practice, but it has also offered me invaluable emotional support, consultative guidance, and ongoing education from wise clinicians who share my faith and worldview. Most of all, I have learned to know myself in a deeper way. I recommend Interior Therapist Community to any serious Catholic clinician looking to grow individually and professionally.

Sam Guzman, Tulsa, OK