Releasing Personal and Intergenerational Trauma: IFS and Legacy Burdens

By Richard C. Schwartz, PhD

Richard C. Schwartz’s transformative course, “Releasing Personal and Intergenerational Trauma: IFS and Legacy Burdens,” introduces the Internal Family Systems (IFS) model for addressing both personal and inherited trauma. This specialized program provides a deep dive into how legacy burdens—emotional patterns and traumatic experiences passed through generations—affect individuals and families. Using IFS techniques, participants will learn to identify, process, and release these burdens, fostering profound healing and breaking cycles of dysfunction.

✨ What You’ll Learn

According to the Internal Family Systems model, legacy burdens encompass beliefs and emotions absorbed from family, cultural, and societal influences. These burdens are powerful organizers of our minds and behaviors, shaping how we relate to ourselves and others. This course explores the following:

• How to help clients release personal and intergenerational burdens tied to traumatic experiences.
• Techniques to ensure clients’ internal parts feel safe, enabling them to embody confidence, compassion, and openness.
• Methods for supporting Self-led activism while addressing burdens triggered by political conflict and societal unrest.
• Strategies to guide clients in healing their own internal parts and achieving emotional liberation.

Understanding Internal Family Systems (IFS)

The IFS model, developed in the 1980s by Richard C. Schwartz, revolutionized psychotherapy with its non-pathologizing approach. By recognizing the multiplicity of the mind and focusing on the concept of “Self,” IFS empowers clients to create inner harmony. This evidence-based model is widely used for trauma therapy and beyond, including in corporate and educational settings.

Legacy burdens are a critical focus of this course. These burdens often perpetuate trauma across generations, but with IFS techniques, participants can uncover their sources and release the fears that keep them trapped. The result is a transformative shift toward peace, compassion, and less divisiveness in a fractured world.

Key Objectives

• ✔️ Theorize the principles of mind multiplicity as applied to trauma therapy using IFS.
• ✔️ Explore the effects of intergenerational trauma, or “legacy burdens.”
• ✔️ Identify the three major roles traumatized parts play in clients’ inner experiences.
• ✔️ Compare internal and external attachment styles and their impact.
• ✔️ Use IFS techniques to help clients recover from intergenerational trauma.
• ✔️ Employ methods to keep clients grounded and Self-led during trauma work.

‍ About the Speaker

Richard C. Schwartz, PhD, is the founder and president of the IFS Institute. With decades of experience as a family therapist, academic, and practitioner, Schwartz has reshaped trauma therapy with his groundbreaking Internal Family Systems model. His contributions include:

• Developing the IFS model based on client insights and practical therapy techniques.
• Founding Trade Management LLC, a successful options trading firm, showcasing his versatile expertise.
• Serving as a faculty member at Harvard Medical School’s Department of Psychiatry.

His professional background combines psychotherapy, philosophy, and clinical psychology, creating a unique and effective approach to trauma healing.

Course Curriculum

Introduction to IFS and Trauma

• Overview of IFS principles and applications
• Understanding legacy burdens and their origins

Practical Techniques

• Identifying and working with internal parts
• Creating safe spaces for clients’ parts to relax and heal
• Addressing intergenerational trauma through guided processes

Applications and Case Studies

• Real-world applications of IFS in trauma therapy
• Case studies demonstrating client transformation

Target Audience

This course is ideal for mental health professionals and others working in therapeutic or caregiving capacities, including:

• ✅ Counselors
• ✅ Social Workers
• ✅ Psychologists
• ✅ Marriage and Family Therapists
• ✅ Addiction Counselors
• ✅ Physicians and Nurses
• ✅ Other Mental Health Professionals

Transform Your Approach to Trauma Therapy

By participating in this course, you’ll gain valuable insights and practical tools to support profound healing for yourself and your clients. Whether you’re a seasoned professional or new to trauma therapy, the techniques taught by Dr. Schwartz offer a compassionate, effective, and evidence-based path forward.