An AI Chatbot For Healing, Growing, and Waking Up With IFS
I'm excited to share that I've just launched IFS Chat. It's an AI chatbot that helps you heal, grow, and wake up by using the innovative psychospiritual modality Internal Family Systems (IFS).
After years of studying and practicing mindfulness and Buddhism and non-duality, I've found that IFS is the most effective, practical, and minimal means to gain both psychological and spiritual freedom. I'll be writing another essay explaining why soon.
While IFS has been gaining in popularity, especially among therapists and coaches, it hasn't reached anywhere near the scale of a psychospiritual modality like mindfulness. To be fair, IFS is a new modality, but there are some obvious reasons why IFS isn't yet widely used by individuals.
The first is that IFS is generally offered through 1-1 therapy or coaching. Finding and paying for a therapist or coach is a high barrier to entry, and there will never be enough therapists or coaches to meet the massive global demand for mental health solutions.
And IFS has not been easy to practice alone. It's hard to keep track of the IFS model and decide the right steps to follow while simultaneously focusing on the triggered and wounded parts of you.
Jay Earley's book Self-Therapy has been the best guidebook for those who do want to try practicing IFS alone. But most people do not have the patience to read an entire book before getting a true taste of the solution being offered.
Conversely, to start practicing mindfulness you can just search for a free guided meditation on YouTube and immediately begin practicing alone to instructions as simple as "focus on your breath."
IFS Chat makes practicing IFS frictionless, accessible, and simple. You don't need to find or pay for a therapist or coach, you don't need to keep track of the IFS process while working with parts -- you don't even need to know anything about IFS to get started. It's as easy as going to IFS Chat, starting a session, and focusing within. IFS Chat will guide you through the IFS process just as an IFS therapist or coach would so that you can give all of your attention and care to your parts.
Will IFS Chat replace therapists and coaches? The clear structure of IFS and the model's recognition that the true Self within each of us already has the internal resources to heal our parts makes IFS an effective model to use for therapeutic AI chatbots, but no, there is still immense value in human-to-human relationship, especially for those with more severe trauma. And while IFS Chat and AI will improve with time, it's not as creative or dynamic as a great human therapist or coach.
But again, there are orders of magnitude more people who want help than there are therapists and coaches who can provide it. IFS Chat is one means of closing this gap.