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Grief counseling with IFS (Internal Family Systems)
Throughout our lives we experience changes that involve loss – of loved ones, familiar places, health, jobs or important roles. Such experiences can trigger deep grief that needs time and space. Grief counselling with IFS (Internal Family Systems) is a gentle and effective way of supporting these processes and integrating the loss.
IFS assumes that every person has a self – an inner core full of calmness, curiosity and compassion. Surrounding this Self are inner parts that protect us or react to painful feelings. During grief, internal parts become particularly active: some suppress the pain, while others are overwhelmed by feelings of loss, anger or helplessness.
In IFS, the Self serves as a stabilising core that helps us to recognise and connect with these parts. This allows us to approach our – often conflicting – feelings without being overwhelmed by them. Over time, the different parts feel seen and understood and can relax.
Connecting with the Self strengthens the mourner's self-compassion. They learn to be increasingly kind to themselves, to accept their inner world and to give space to painful feelings.
It is about integrating grief and accepting loss. Which leads to a new balance in which both grief and love have their place,
... without losing sight of life.
Your grieving process
As you read this, you may feel overwhelmed by pain and loss, or you may feel that you have no access to your grief. Both are perfectly OK.
I can be with you. I can listen and allow you to be who you are. There is no right or wrong way to grieve. Every grief is different – It needs space, time and above all compassion to heal.
Sometimes grief is so overwhelming that we suppress it because we don't have a safe space where it can really come out. Together we will create that space where all feelings have their place: Pain, anger, helplessness, guilt – even the emptiness that can sometimes feel so threatening. I can help you to see that you are not your anger, your guilt or your despair - you can recognise the inner parts that carry the feelings, hold them lovingly and build a relationship with them.
When extreme parts are deeply seen and heard, they can begin to relax.
I can help you to integrate your loss. So that you can learn to trust yourself more and to find your way back to life, step by step ...
... while preserving the love and connection to what you have lost.
I feel close to sorrow
My mother died in a car accident when I was six. Because of this tragic event, my father was so preoccupied with himself that there was no real space in his life for my grief. And yet, loving support from the outside is so essential to a successful grieving process.
Just a few weeks later, I started school and was under additional pressure. For my own protection I suppressed all my feelings and instead desperately tried to be the child who was in control.
It was only decades later that I realised how much of my unresolved grief was still inside me and affecting my life. With IFS, however, I had the opportunity to actively address the issue. With the support of a counsellor, I turned to my inner protectors and asked them to allow me to make contact with my grieving parts. Through my empathic connection with them, the tears could finally flow ...
... and my deep heaviness was gradually transformed into love.
It is this experience that gives me the ability to empathise with people in situations of grief and to hold them in intense moments. It is at these times in life that what is really important to people usually comes to the foreground. It is these honest & authentic encounters that I find most precious.
RaumSchaffen Coaching & Consulting
Internal Family Systems
Worldwide online & in Hannover in person
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Important NOTE!
Coaching and counseling are means of personality development with the goal to improve the life situation. This happens e.g. by activating individual Self-Resources and dealing with individual or social conflicts, provided they are below the threshold of illness. My coaching does not replace a clinical diagnosis or treatment by a doctor, psychotherapist or psychiatrist.
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