IFS Therapy in Cincinnati
For the parts of you.
Part of you wants closeness. Part of you wants distance. Part of you wants to rest. Part of you won't let you. Part of you knows the boundary you need to set. Part of you is already apologizing for setting it.
You're not inconsistent. You're not broken. You're a person made up of parts, each one shaped by experiences you didn't choose, each one trying to do its job, sometimes at cross purposes with the others.
Internal Family Systems therapy, IFS, is the work of meeting these parts, understanding what they've been carrying, and finally healing what's underneath them.
What IFS Actually Is
IFS was developed in the 1980s by Dr. Richard Schwartz, who noticed that his clients consistently described their inner worlds the same way: as having different "parts" with different feelings, different agendas, different ages. The harsh inner critic. The exhausted caretaker. The protector who keeps people at arm's length. The part that numbs out with food or work or scrolling when things get hard.
These weren't metaphors. They were accurate descriptions of how the mind is actually organized.
The IFS model maps the inner world into three layers:
Protectors are the parts of you that work hard to keep you safe. They come in two flavors. Managers are proactive: the perfectionist who plans for every contingency, the inner critic who finds your flaws before anyone else can, the people-pleaser who reads the room before you've even walked in. Firefighters are reactive: the part that pours a third glass of wine when the feelings get too big, the procrastinator who shuts down the laptop, the binge, the scroll, the impulse that takes over when something underneath feels threatened.
Exiles are the parts of you carrying the original pain. The young part who didn't feel safe. The one who learned love had conditions. The one who absorbed the shame. The one who's been waiting, sometimes for decades, for someone to notice they were there. Protectors try to keep exiles from ever being touched again.
Self is the core of you that isn't a part at all. The calm, curious, compassionate presence underneath all the noise. The part of you that, when you can finally find it, can lead the system. In IFS, Self is not something you have to build. It's something you uncover.
The work isn't about fighting your parts, fixing them, or trying to be rid of them. It's about meeting them, understanding what they've been doing for you, and helping them trust that they don't have to work so hard anymore.
What Makes IFS Different
Most therapy works from the outside in. You talk about what's happening, gain insight, develop strategies, try to apply those strategies in your life. That model has helped a lot of people, and we're not against it.
But there's a particular kind of suffering that doesn't respond to it. The anxious part that knows, intellectually, that you're safe, and still won't let you sleep. The inner critic that has heard all your evidence and still says you're not enough. The pattern you've understood for years and still keep repeating.
This is where IFS does something different.
CBT works on thoughts. It helps you identify cognitive distortions and replace them with more accurate ones. It works from the top down: change the thinking, change the feeling.
Psychodynamic therapy works on insight. It helps you understand the origins of your patterns and how they show up in present relationships, especially with the therapist. The understanding itself is meant to be healing.
IFS works on relationship. Not your relationships with other people, your relationship with the parts of yourself. You don't just talk about your inner critic. You meet it. You ask it how old it is. You ask it what it's afraid would happen if it stopped. You find out what it's been protecting. You give the wounded part underneath the attention it never got the first time around.
It's experiential, not explanatory. It happens in the room, in the body, in real time. And it tends to reach material that talking about it from a distance never could.
What IFS Treats
IFS is effective for a wide range of concerns. At Lumenso, we use it most often with:
Anxiety, especially the kind driven by an inner protector working overtime to keep you safe.
Trauma, including developmental trauma where the wounds were built into the system before you had words for them.
Depression, particularly when there's a part of you that has gone quiet or shut down to protect against something underneath.
Self-criticism and self-worth struggles, where the inner critic has taken over the system and the younger, wounded part underneath has never been met.
Relationship patterns and attachment wounds, where the parts of you that learned how to love (or how to protect yourself from loving) are still running the show.
People-pleasing and perfectionism, often the work of manager parts that learned early that approval was conditional.
For gay men and the broader LGBTQ+ community, the parts that developed to survive a closeted childhood, the performer, the people-pleaser, the inner critic, can finally be met and understood instead of fought.
If your concern isn't on this list, it doesn't mean IFS isn't a fit. The model is flexible because the inner world is universal.
IFS and EMDR Together
At Lumenso, we often pair IFS with EMDR. Most practices offer one or the other. Drew is trained in both, and the combination is intentional.
IFS builds the internal relationship. It helps you locate the parts, understand what they're carrying, and begin to lead from Self. This is the relational, structural work, the architecture of the inner world.
EMDR processes the specific events that wired the system in the first place. The memory that still fires when something present-day reminds your nervous system of it. The image, the moment, the look on a parent's face, that's still encoded in the body. EMDR helps your nervous system reprocess that material so the past stops running the present.
The two work great hand in hand.
What to Expect in an IFS Session
You don't need to know your parts before you start. That's what we do together.
A typical session begins with a check-in: what's been alive for you this week, what came up, what part of you might be wanting attention. From there, we slow down. We notice what's in your body, what's in your mind, what's pulling for focus.
When we identify a part, the work isn't about analyzing it. It's about getting curious about it. How old does it feel? Where do you sense it in your body? What's its job? What's it afraid would happen if it stopped doing that job? What does it need?
Most clients are surprised by how distinct their parts feel once they slow down enough to notice them. The inner critic isn't an abstract concept. It has an age, a tone, sometimes even a posture. So does the part that gets anxious before social events. So does the part that wants to disappear.
As you build relationship with your parts, something shifts. The critic softens because it's finally been heard. The anxious part settles because it knows you're paying attention. And eventually, with care and pacing, you can access the younger, wounded parts the protectors were guarding, and offer them what they didn't get the first time around.
You don't have to be vulnerable on day one. You don't have to know what's wrong. Rather, in IFS we simply invite you to get curious about your own inner world
Sessions are available in-office at our Cincinnati location or virtually across Ohio and Kentucky.
Who This Work Is For
Adults in Cincinnati, across Ohio, and across Kentucky who are tired of fighting themselves and ready to do something different. Specifically, this work fits if:
You've been in therapy before and felt like you understood your patterns but couldn't change them.
You've read about IFS or done parts work briefly and want to go deeper.
You have a loud inner critic that hasn't responded to affirmations, CBT, or trying to "just be kinder to yourself."
You're working with trauma, anxiety, or relationship patterns that feel older than your conscious memory.
You're drawn to depth-oriented work that respects the complexity of your inner world.
You want a therapy that doesn't just talk about your patterns but actually meets them.
You don't need a diagnosis. You don't need prior IFS experience. You just need to be open to the possibility that the parts of you that have been giving you a hard time might be trying to help.
Drew Simri, LPCC-S, LICDC-CS
Sara Krueger, LPC
Frequently Asked Questions
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Yes. IFS was added to the SAMHSA National Registry of Evidence-Based Programs and Practices in 2015, and has been studied in randomized controlled trials for depression, PTSD symptoms, and rheumatoid arthritis. Research on IFS continues to grow, particularly in the trauma field. More importantly for most clients, IFS has decades of clinical track record with the kind of long-standing patterns that other approaches often can't reach.
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CBT works on thinking. The premise is that if you change your thoughts, your feelings and behavior will follow. It's useful, and for many issues, especially situational anxiety or skill-based concerns, it's a great fit.
IFS works on relationship. The premise is that the parts of you with those difficult thoughts and feelings aren't malfunctioning, they're protecting something. Rather than challenging or replacing the thought, IFS gets curious about what the part holding the thought is trying to do for you. For clients who've done CBT and still find themselves stuck in the same patterns, IFS often reaches material CBT couldn't.
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No. IFS is effective for trauma, but it isn't trauma therapy specifically. People come to IFS for anxiety, self-criticism, relationship patterns, perfectionism, life transitions, and a wide range of other concerns. If you have parts of yourself with different agendas (and everyone does), IFS has something to offer.
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It depends on what you're working with and how deep you want to go. Some clients begin to feel meaningful shifts within a few months, especially in how they relate to their inner critic or their anxiety. For deeper work, particularly when trauma or long-standing patterns are involved, the work tends to unfold over a longer arc. We check in regularly so you can decide what makes sense at each stage.
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Yes. IFS is well-suited to virtual sessions. The work happens internally, in your relationship with your parts, so the physical location of the therapist matters less than in some other modalities. Many clients actually prefer doing IFS from a familiar, private space at home, where they can settle more deeply into the work.
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Individual sessions at Lumenso Wellness range from $125 to $175 depending on your provider. We are an out-of-network practice and can provide a superbill for you to submit to your insurance for potential reimbursement. For more details, visit our Rates and Payment page.
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We are out-of-network with all insurance providers. Many clients receive partial reimbursement through their insurance's out-of-network benefits. We are happy to provide a superbill so you can pursue reimbursement directly with your insurer.
Ready to meet the parts of you that have been working so hard?
The protectors, the critics, the people-pleasers, the parts that have been holding everything together, they don't need to be fought. They need to be understood. The work from here is meeting them where they are, and finally tending to what's underneath them.