PrairieLights – [Virtual Event] Nancy Sowell in conv. with Melissa Febos – Internal Family Systems Health Therapy: Treating Trauma-Related Physical Illness & Toxic Stress

[Virtual Event] Find the link on PrairieLights website 

Nancy Sowell, LICSW, will read from her new book co-authored with Martha Sweezy, PhD, and Richard C. Schwartz, PhD: IFS (Internal Family Systems) Health Therapy: Treating Trauma-Related Physical Illness & Toxic Stress. She will be joined in conversation by bestselling author and daughter, Melissa Febos. (Note: This will be a virtual event on Zoom and will start at 6:30 PM CDT.)

The publisher, PESI Publishing, offers this introduction for IFS Health Therapy:

Many chronic health conditions–from inflammation and digestive disorders to metabolic syndrome and autoimmune     diseases–are increasingly linked to the lasting effects of chronic stress and trauma. But how do these experiences become embedded in the body, and how can we help?

In IFS (Internal Family Systems) Health Therapy, Nancy Sowell, in collaboration with Martha Sweezy and IFS founder Richard Schwartz, draws upon thirty years of clinical practice and behavioral medicine experience to present a groundbreaking mind-body approach that views protective and vulnerable inner “parts” as key drivers of physical health concerns. From this perspective, relief emerges as clients support these internal parts and release trauma-related burdens.

Through vivid case examples, experiential exercises, and practical tools, clinicians will learn how to use a clear three-phase framework to:

• Understand how trauma and chronic stress contribute to illness
• Conduct an IFS-informed health therapy assessment
• Identify and befriend protective parts that affect physical symptoms
• Help vulnerable parts release trauma-related burdens
• Collaborate with other health professionals to support whole-person care

Adversity can alter a person’s mind and body, but it does not extinguish the Self’s capacity to heal. This book equips you with the tools to support that capacity.

Nancy Sowell, LICSW, is an IFS senior trainer, consultant, and speaker who teaches internationally and in the US and maintains an IFS health therapy practice. She is a Harvard Medical School teaching associate at the Center for Mindfulness and Compassion at the Cambridge Health Alliance, where she has served for many years as a clinical consultant and IFS trainer. Her work integrates personal history, mindful awareness of the body, emotions, thoughts, and deeply held beliefs that influence our mood, behavior, relationships, and health. As the Behavioral Medicine program manager in the Division of Rheumatology, Immunology, and Allergy at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, she co-created an IFS program that demonstrated positive outcomes for patients with rheumatoid arthritis. She knows both personally and professionally the power of the Self in healing and restoring health. Visit her website: www.nancysowell.com.

Melissa Febos is the national bestselling author of five books, including Girlhood—winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism, Body Work: The Radical Power of Personal Narrative, and a new memoir, The Dry Season. She is the recipient of awards and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, MacDowell, LAMBDA Literary, the Black Mountain Institute, the British Library, and others. Her work has appeared in The Paris Review, The New Yorker, The Best American Essays, Vogue, and The New York Times Magazine. She is a Professor at the University of Iowa, where she teaches in The Nonfiction Writing Program (melissafebos.com).