The Healing Power of Embodied Presence
Embracing the Wholeness of our Parts
What happens when two systemic approaches to our human system come together? That was the question we were trying to explore in our workshop “SPT meets IFS” (Social Presencing Theater meets Internal Family Systems).
Don’t pay attention to your thoughts, just come back to your body, says one approach (SPT). Befriend your thoughts, inquire into them, all parts have good intentions, says another (IFS). They seem like opposites and both are valid in their own context but can we bring them together? Are there any points of contact? Yes, there are, and we will showcase how. Both point to something similar at the core of their teachings: the existence of a healthy core, the fundamental belief that human beings are naturally wise, compassionate, and good. In SPT we tend to call it “innate basic goodness”; in IFS we use the term “Self”, with a capital letter s, to distinguish it from the “small self”.
Both approaches have at their core the fundamental belief that human beings are naturally wise, naturally compassionate, and naturally good.
Before we move forward, what is SPT and is IFS?
Social Presencing Theater (SPT) is a methodology, developed at the Presencing Institute under the leadership of Arawana Hayashi, for understanding current reality and exploring emerging future possibilities. SPT can be practiced at the individual, group, organizational, and larger social systems levels. It is not “theater” in the conventional sense but uses simple body postures and movements to dissolve limiting concepts, communicate directly, access intuition, and make visible leverage points for creating profound change. If you want to know more about SPT we recommend checking the official website or watching this short video:
The Internal Family Systems Model (IFS) is an integrative approach to individual psychotherapy developed by Richard C. Schwartz in the 1980s. It combines systems thinking with the view that the mind is made up of relatively discrete sub-personalities (normally called “parts”), each with its own unique viewpoint and qualities. IFS uses family systems theory to understand how these collections of sub-personalities are organized and offer a process to identify the roots of complications and achieve greater well-being. If you want to know more about IFS we recommend watching this short video or going to the following webpage:
Our starting point
My colleague Dirk Bräuninger and I are both official SPT teachers. We also share an interest in our inner world and how we are all shaped in one way or another by our events in the past. I‘ve been doing a “deep dive” into the IFS model, being a level-3 certified practitioner, and Dirk is doing his “deep dive” from the angle of Compassionate Inquiry with Dr. Gabor Maté, a methodology that has many points of contact with IFS.
One day we were talking about IFS and I shared with him some of the experiments I had been doing by bringing SPT and IFS together and that I was inspired by the impact it had on the participants. He got really curious and invited me to deliver an introductory workshop on IFS to people from his network. We started having dialogues and from a simple IFS workshop, we started co-creating a flow for a program that would explore bringing these two streams of knowledge together instead of just focusing on IFS. As they say, the “wind was in our back” and the inspiration took over our conversations and something new and fresh started to emerge from that “we-space”, something bigger than both of us and that included and transcended both models. The idea was not to create something conceptual or academic but really an experiential lab where people could sense the integration of both approaches on their own skin. Dirk created a website and we launched the following invitation out to the “world”:
In today’s world, we often find ourselves caught in an endless, sometimes looping flow of thoughts. It can be perceived as a continuous inner dialogue, not rarely associated with strong emotions such as fear, anger, or sadness.
According to the IFS model, our mind works as a system composed of different parts that tell us various narratives that impact how we navigate life. What would happen if we combined the systemic approach and practices of SPT, which are mostly used to make systems more visible (or to see and sense themselves), with this lens of the inner personalities/parts? That’s what we are going to explore in this workshop, a half-day dedicated to making visible our inner dynamics and, mostly, to uncover possible paths that reveal the inherent sanity within our internal system (also called Self) so it can expand to the external systems we are connected to, generating higher well-being for all.
In this workshop we will combine the Internal Family Systems (IFS) systemic approach of the person and their mind, with Social Presencing Theater (SPT) which uses simple body postures and movements for social systems awareness, to create a safe space that allows initiating profound change.
Our middle point
A group of around 17 people came together for the first pilot, from places as diverse as San Francisco, Boston, Lisbon, Vienna, Cologne, and many others. Their background around these topics was also diverse since some people didn’t know anything about IFS or SPT, while others were very familiar with one of these methodologies. None was a practitioner of both, at least on a deeper level. That diversity created in us the following inquiry: how to make something deeply experiential but at the same time that allows a proper introduction to both approaches? What is the minimum information necessary to share in order to create a safe space that allows our “protector parts” to dive in safely into the experiment? How to bring something, at the same time, that is fresh and that adds something new to everyone?
The workshop was divided into four main segments. The first part was devoted to inclusion, creating a safe space that allowed people to step into a common generative social field, with practices like meditation, “duets”, dialogues, and many others. Then we moved into a short segment where we did a brief introduction to both of the approaches of no more than 10 min each (once again, just the minimum “dosage”). After a short break, we came back for the most “juicy” part, where we were going to “dive” into our systems and explore a polarization between two of our parts with a variation of a SPT exercise called Stuck. That allowed people not only to externalize these parts into some visible form but also to explore and witness the sanity/innate basic goodness/Self that exists inside the system. For the majority, it was quite an insightful and liberating flow. Finally, we finished with an exploration of that “Self space” that lies inside all of us with a flow inspired by Susan McConnell’s work of Somatic IFS and ended with a poem by David White (and lots of smiles).
Our ending point
After the workshop we received numerous positive feedback from the participants, like the following ones:
“It was a very interesting experience. Also very empowering somehow. I know it was not intended as therapy, but I did felt a deep relaxation and more clarity afterward. I was impressed how fast the 3,5 hours went by! And last but probably the most important is that I felt really safe in the space you both created online. Not only safe, but it was also a very human and warm place. I felt welcomed, even if I didn’t really know anyone, and I had 0 experience with these two methods!” (Claudia V.)
“I was really able to move through something stuck into a very significant reframe, and realized a part that needed some attention. Thank you so much for creating this space for reflection and growth.” (Steph. S.)
We felt that we had touched upon something that has a lot of potentials to be further explored. Although SPT was not designed for therapy it can be therapeutic, as many people normally mention after workshops, so bringing a systemic approach like IFS can maybe allow us to explore some applications of SPT into the fields of psychotherapy and healing by inviting people to come more into their bodies in a very safe context and allowing them to explore their systems with these awareness-based practices, it can catalyze a faster and deeper integration of their inner world. An exploration we’ll continue to hold in our minds, our hearts, and our bodies.
Feel free to join us next October and let’s continue to co-discover these new streams of integration for the purpose of a Greater Good.
Thank you to all parts of you that allowed reading this reflection until here,
Vasco Gaspar (vascogaspar.com) | Dirk Bräuninger (dirkbraeuninger.de)
