How A Deeper Understanding Of Validation Supports IFS Therapists & Practitioners

September 25, 2026—If your experience as an IFS therapist or practitioner has been anything like mine, you completed your Level 1 IFS training, but somehow those beautiful sessions you witnessed in the training demos didn’’t manifest in your therapy office.

Unlike the trainings, sometimes sessions can feel extraordinarily messy. We enter unknown territory, encounter clients’ parts and our own parts who befuddle us or refuse to unblend. Sometimes it feels a little bit like wandering through a wilderness without a map, in spite of the extraordinarily powerful map of the IFS model.

And we get stuck. 

Fortunately, many who have traveled those paths before us are providing a treasure trove of wisdom from experience for those of us who follow. I’ve been doing IFS for a minute or two, been down some wild and wooly trails, and now I feel like it’s my turn to return the favor and offer what I have learned. 

Validation is the foundation

We can whittle down the whole of the IFS model to five words—Building Self-to-Part relationship. That’s it. That’s the goal always. And that concept is based on one essential skill of relationship and communication—validation. However, serving as a Program Assistant in too many Level 1 and Level 2 trainings to count, not once have I heard anyone speak explicitly about validation. Nowhere in any of the trainings nor other supplementary workshops has anyone explored the facets and complexities of the validation process.

What it actually is. What it is not. How does it work. Where are the places in this communication process we can get stuck. How to get unstuck—

when a client’s part does not soften when we approach with Self energy;
when a part of us won’t unblend and is unable to validate the client’s situation or parts;
or when our professional ethics bump up against client’s protector parts.

These moments throw our protector and exiled parts to the forefront and we then begin wrestling to access Self energy. In IFS trainings, it happens in participants, PA’s, and trainers.

I’ve witnessed it numerous times and have long wanted to bring what I have figured out about validation to the IFS community. 

An integral understanding To Validation

I had to learn about validation from the inside out when I witnessed my adolescent clients continually being invalidated by parents in spite of the parents’ best efforts. There was something missing, a gap in the literature, an integral understanding of validation missing in the scripts provided in other models.

So I set about deconstructing this thing we call validation, then put it back together again, offering a 9-step process to guide anyone toward powerful, effective, validating interactions. 

I discovered that to truly validate someone we must first know to validate ourselves. I found that the body must be involved in an authentic validating interaction. I listened into and explored what gets in the way of someone feeling validated. (Hint: It’s not them, it’s us.) 

I learned about traumatic invalidation, which I've come to understand is the root cause of all relational traumas. As I learned more about invalidation, I found that there is an ambiguous, nebulous space between validation and invalidation—communication patterns that are not validation, but also not necessarily invalidation.

It is in this grey area that we begin to find the root cause of many cases where individuals know they were loved but don't feel like they matter—like they are invalid—and have no idea why.

Why Validation In IFS specifically

When I was working with my team to decide the next iteration of my validation workshops, we decided on offering a masterclass to IFS therapists and practitioners. It was a natural next step. I have long wanted to bring the process and practice of validation and the guiding principles of validation to the IFS community.

It is my number one tool in my tool box. Another appropriate analogy is to think of the 9-step process as the map for the IFS flow of the model, the 6 F’s, and the Healing Steps. The 9-steps of validation are the map you carry with you through the entire adventure. And you carry it out into the world—into your home, your community, your workplace. It is work that can save the world. I’ve said this about IFS and this 9-step map is fundamental to the power of the work we do. 

Validation as an advanced IFS practice

In the last workshop I presented on the process and practice of validation, (now an evergreen course for all audiences), one participant who was a recent graduate of her IFS Level 1 training asked, What wasn’t this taught in our Level 1?!? And I agreed!

As a Level 3 IFS trained therapist, I created Validation as an Advanced IFS Practice to help IFS trained practitioners and therapists to understand validation from the inside out and gain confidence and trust that any encounter can be met skillfully and in a validating way. I would offer it for free if I could. I think it’s that important. In my ideal world, everyone would have these 9-steps in their back pockets and in their hearts. It’s powerful powerful work. It’s changed my life and my relationships. It saved my relationship with my estranged son.

Participants from previous workshops have shared the power of the work in their lives as well. I’m delighted to finally share it with my IFS colleagues.

You will need to have completed your Level 1 IFS Training to attend this workshop or sign up to the next planned workshop. 

You can join the workshop here.

Photo by Westwind