Awakened IFS Pathway
Explore Each Level of Training and Your Path to Becoming a Certified Awakened IFS Practitioner
The Awakened IFS pathway supports your development as a healing practitioner through three levels of training and a certification program.
In AIFS-1, you learn the full IFS process and begin practicing from embodied, open-hearted Presence.
AIFS-2 deepens your confidence working with complex systems while tending to your own parts that arise in the work.
AIFS-3 invites you to hold the model more lightly, integrate other healing approaches, and work with spiritual resources in liminal spaces.
Certification brings this learning into demonstrated practice through mentorship, observed sessions, and feedback.
Throughout the pathway, your own healing and awakening deepen your capacity to support the healing and awakening of others.
Note: The Institute for Healing and Awakening is not affiliated with the IFS Institute. We are, however, deeply indebted to IFS developer Richard C. Schwartz. His teachings have inspired us, and we are grateful for his generosity in sharing the model. Internal Family Systems and IFS are trademarks of the IFS Institute and used here with authorization.
The path to becoming a
Certified AIFS Practitioner
A transformational journey of healing
and awakening
Awakened IFS-1
Six-month foundational training
You must be a trained coach, therapist, spiritual director, dietitian, or other healing practitioner.
Learn the 18-step Awakened IFS protocol, including unburdening exiles.
Bring Presence to your life and work.
Awaken
Develop loving Presence
Awakened IFS-2
Six-month intermediate training
You must have completed AIFS-1 or another foundational training in IFS.
Gain competence and confidence working with complex systems.
Create relational containers conducive to healing.
Trust
Trust the wisdom of the client’s system and the process
Awakened IFS-3
Six-month advanced training
You must have completed AIFS-2.
Work with spiritual resources in liminal realms.
Hold the protocol lightly, letting Presence lead.
Surrender
Become a conduit for the Divine
AIFS Certification
Six-month, small-cohort program of mentorship, practice, and evaluation
You must have completed AIFS-3.
Allow the client’s system to teach you how it wants to heal.
Play with IFS as it reveals its magic.
Stabilize
Live and work from awake awareness
Being certified by The Institute for Healing and Awakening as an Awakened IFS practitioner signifies your capacity to practice IFS from a state of awake awareness.
What Deepens at Each Stage
AIFS-1
Foundation
- Primary focus
- Learn the full IFS process while developing your capacity to facilitate from Presence.
- What you’ll learn to work with
- Protectors, vulnerable exiles, and their relationships within the internal system, guided by a clear 18-step healing protocol.
- How your Presence develops
- Begin accessing Self directly and cultivating embodied, open-hearted, agenda-less Presence.
- Who it’s for / prerequisites
- Trained coaches, therapists, and other healing practitioners with experience working one-on-one in a helping relationship.
- What completion leads to
- A certificate of completion and a foundation for integrating Awakened IFS into your practice and continuing to AIFS-2.
AIFS-2
Deepening
- Primary focus
- Build competence and confidence working with complex internal systems.
- What you’ll learn to work with
- Polarized parts, challenging protectors, big emotions, legacy burdens, and your own parts that interfere with facilitating.
- How your Presence develops
- Stay more grounded in Self amid complexity, recognizing and tending to your own activated parts.
- Who it’s for / prerequisites
- AIFS-1 graduates or practitioners with equivalent foundational IFS training who are actively using the model.
- What completion leads to
- A certificate of completion and eligibility to continue to AIFS-3.
AIFS-3
Toward Mastery
- Primary focus
- Work more fluidly and intuitively, expanding into spiritual dimensions and integrating other healing approaches.
- What you’ll learn to work with
- Spiritual resources, unattached burdens, past-life burdens, liminal experiences, and connections between parts and physical wellbeing.
- How your Presence develops
- Let Presence increasingly guide the work, trusting your intuition and the wisdom of the client’s system.
- Who it’s for / prerequisites
- AIFS-2 graduates ready to deepen their practice and explore the spiritual dimensions of the work.
- What completion leads to
- A certificate of completion and eligibility to apply for Awakened IFS Certification.
Awakened IFS Certification
- Primary focus
- Integrate, refine, and demonstrate your capacity to embody Awakened IFS in professional practice.
- What you’ll learn to work with
- Your own client work through observed practice, self-reflection, faculty feedback, and evaluation against the Awakened IFS Core Competencies.
- How your Presence develops
- Deepen consistency in practicing from awake awareness, bringing Presence, discernment, and self-awareness into your professional work.
- Who it’s for / prerequisites
- AIFS-3 graduates actively using IFS or parts work in their professional practice.
- What completion leads to
- The Certified Awakened IFS Practitioner credential upon fulfilling program requirements and demonstrating the required competencies.
Certification is awarded based on demonstrated competency; completing the program does not automatically guarantee certification.
This credential is issued by the Institute for Healing & Awakening and is separate from The IFS Institute certification.