Learning & Loving in London! Psychologists on tour & the Internal Family Systems model with Dr Kendhal Hart

We recently went to a three day training event in London and have all come back feeling so energised, buzzing, feeling the joy, the love and all the feels for psychology, our profession, our colleagues, and the frankly fantastic women who delivered the training! The training was called ‘The Integrated EMDR & IFS model Level 1’ which sounds quite complicated and that’s because it is actually pretty complex. This blog isn’t the place to get into all the therapeutic concepts and details but we wanted to write this blog as a place to share and process some thoughts about what made the weekend so special as we come down from it all!

We have another blog about EMDR (eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing) therapy here and regularly use this approach in our practice, but IFS was new to us and we were keen to understand how these approaches could be integrated and used within therapy. IFS stands for Internal Family Systems which is a type of therapy developed by Dick Schwartz that has the concept that there are different ‘parts’ within us, like an internal family. The training helped us to understand how these parts show up for us all, what their roles are, how they protect us and what they protect us from, how to get to know them, and ultimately how to heal them. (A blog for another day!)

The training was delivered by Dr Kendhal Hart, an amazing therapist who came all the way over from the USA with her also amazing therapist colleagues Alyce Messer and Kristie Boggs. They hailed from Texas and early on in the training we were told to expect lots of ‘y’alls’ and they didn’t disappoint. Y’alls were peppered through the three days but what really made Kendhal stand out was her total authenticity, her warmth, her knowledge, her confident delivery of complex issues, her connection with the audience, her normality by ‘keeping it real’, the love, trust and wonderful energy between the Kendhal, Alyce and Kristie triangle… and we absolutely loved her liberal use of the F word throughout training. We found this to be really refreshing and liberating as normally psychology conferences and trainings are the very opposite of this! Kendhal’s whole approach was so genuine and authentic and therefore really helped the audience connect with her and made us feel like it was a safe space to do our practical role plays and ask questions. This reminded us of what it can be like for our clients and the huge importance of the therapeutic relationship- feeling a connection to (and feeling safe with) the therapist is such an important factor in engagement and subsequent change.

We also had a discussion with Kendhal about the cultural similarities between Texas and Glasgow, agreeing that we also value authenticity and engagement in our practices and like to ‘keep it real’ (after all, People Make Glasgow!). She realised that Weegie’s often like a good swear too and she left the UK happily armed with some new interesting phrases from ‘The Scotlanders’.

Another HUGE part of what made the weekend so brilliant was connecting with our psychology colleagues who normally only live online in our phones. We are part of an online psychology group called UK3P (UK Psychologists working in Private Practice) and many names have become familiar over the years. Covid put so many things into a virtual world and although this is good in some respects, it really took away that social aspect of real life connection. So finally being able to meet many psychology peers in person was really quite special and we all really felt a sense of community and connection with others. Having the resources of time, space, permission and invitation to come together is actually a really good analogy to what we were learning about regarding our own ‘parts’. Our parts are like a big family that exist together but the key to understanding and healing happens when we move towards them with curiosity, focus on and find out about them, befriend them give them time, room and space to sit with them. Just like we did in London ❤️

We often talk to our clients about the importance of a ‘values based life’ where we connect with and prioritise the things that are meaningful for us which can then lead to ‘a life worth living’. We all felt that this London trip connected us with our values in so many ways:

👭 Connection- with our psychology peers and the presenters of the training

🥰 Authenticity- led by Kendhal being so down to earth and ‘real’, this then helped us connect to this part of ourselves too.

🤨 Curiosity- to find out about a new (to us) therapeutic model and how it could help our clinical practice

🧘‍♂️ Openness- by reflecting on our own ‘parts’ and a new way of working

🤗 Courage- by recognising and exploring our own parts (and by asking Kendhal for a selfie)

🤣 Humour- helping to teach her how to swear in Scottish

🫶 Compassion- for many of the clinical and real life anecdotes and stories we heard

👭 Community- by connecting with our amazing online UK and Scottish psychology groups

🤩 Adventure- by taking in the London sights before the training (and going indoor skydiving at The O2!)

☺️ Fun- hanging out with each other and our peers

❤️ Gratitude- for all of the above plus feeling so privileged to work in this profession, for the heat wave that hit London on the exact days we were there, the freedom and ability to take in so many experiences, for absolutely everything!

The training ended on Day 3 with Kendhal getting a standing ovation which really isn’t a British thing and we love how she has now named herself the Taylor Swift of trauma therapy.  We are all still buzzing from the training and are noticing so many of our own parts wanting to take this approach forward with clients. So from all ‘The Scotlanders’ and all The Brilliant Brits, a huge thank you to Kendhal, Kristie, Alyce for providing such an amazing weekend. Take a bow… (and a beautiful breath 😆)

Thanks for reading!

From Jo, Jan & Catherine

@thewellbeingrooms