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Internal Family Systems

A therapist sits across from a client in a bright, sunlit therapy office, holding one finger upright as a visual focus point while the client looks calmly toward it. Headphones rest nearby on the table, suggesting a Brainspotting session setup in which focused eye position and steady attention are used to support deeper processing.

Free Brainspotting Course

Explore this free Brainspotting course from IFS Academy, written in plain language for everyday people. Learn what Brainspotting is, how fixed eye position connects to the nervous system, and how the course covers setup, locating techniques, the Resource Model, therapist stance, specialty applications, and daily practice.

Free IFS Academy Courses

1 min read

A woman sits alone on the floor in a bright, sunlit room with one hand resting on her chest, practicing quiet self-awareness beside a low wooden table with a journal, pen, headphones, mug, and grounding stone. The image represents bringing Brainspotting principles into daily life through simple self-spotting, body awareness, and reflective practice outside the therapy office.

Module 11 — Bringing It Into Your Own Life: Self-Spotting and Daily Practice

This free Brainspotting lesson introduces self-spotting and daily practice. Learn how self-resource spotting, natural gaze practice, biolateral music, and gentle body awareness can support grounding and regulation while understanding when deeper trauma work belongs with a trained Brainspotting practitioner.

Brainspotting Course

5 min read

A client sits peacefully in a bright therapy office with one hand resting on her chest while the therapist observes and writes nearby. The warm daylight, calm posture, and grounded atmosphere represent what Brainspotting reveals about healing: that the body can process, integrate, and settle in ways that words alone may not reach.

Module 10 — What Brainspotting Reveals About Healing

This free Brainspotting lesson explores what the modality reveals about healing itself. Learn why insight is not always the active ingredient, how the body already knows where material is held, why slowness and silence matter, and how the therapist creates conditions for the brain’s own healing capacity to unfold.

Brainspotting Course

4 min read

: A client reclines comfortably in a bright therapy office wearing headphones and a black eye-cover goggle over one eye while a therapist sits nearby in attentive support. The image represents a specialty Brainspotting application in which one eye is covered so the work can be done through either the right eye or the left eye, showing how Brainspotting extends into more specialized forms of practice.

Module 9 — Specialty Applications: Where Brainspotting Extends

This free Brainspotting lesson introduces specialty applications that extend the foundation of the work. Learn how One-Eye Brainspotting, Z-Axis Brainspotting, Convergence Therapy, Partspotting, and performance-focused Brainspotting are used for specific situations like complex trauma, dissociation, high activation, and performance blocks.

Brainspotting Course

5 min read

A client reclines on a therapy chaise in a bright, sunlit room, wearing headphones with her eyes closed and one hand resting on her chest, while the therapist sits nearby in calm, attentive presence. The image represents the Brainspotting stance that holds the work, showing how grounded, steady, nonintrusive support can create the conditions for deep processing.

Module 8 — The Stance That Holds the Work

This free Brainspotting lesson explores the stance that makes the work possible. Learn how Dual Attunement, uncertainty, Tail of the Comet, therapeutic silence, the No Assumptions Model, and nervous system awareness shape the way a practitioner holds a Brainspotting session.

Brainspotting Course

5 min read

A client wearing headphones sits calmly in a bright therapy office with one hand resting on her chest while the therapist sits nearby in quiet support. The image represents Brainspotting’s Resource Model, where a sense of calm, steadiness, and body-based safety becomes the doorway into deeper therapeutic processing.

Module 7 — The Resource Model: When Calm Becomes the Doorway

This free Brainspotting lesson introduces the Resource Model, a stabilizing approach that helps locate where calm, groundedness, or strength lives in the body. Learn how resource spots can support nervous system regulation, complex trauma work, dissociation, anxiety, and sessions where stability needs to come first.

Brainspotting Course

5 min read

A woman sits quietly in a warm, sunlit room with her gaze fixed toward a small glowing object on the floor, while a soft golden line visually traces the direction of her focus. The image represents Brainspotting’s use of eye position and fixed gaze as a way of accessing deeper body-based processing beyond ordinary conversation.

Module 6 — Gazespotting: The Spot the Body Already Found

This free Brainspotting lesson introduces Gazespotting, a gentle locating technique that follows where the eyes naturally settle during charged material. Learn how the body may already find the brainspot before a pointer is used, and why this approach can be especially helpful for tender, easily flooded, or early-session work.

Brainspotting Course

4 min read

A client wearing headphones sits in a bright therapy office with one hand resting on her chest while the therapist observes and takes notes nearby. The image represents the Inside Window frame in Brainspotting, where the client’s own felt sense, body awareness, and inner signals help guide where the session begins.

Module 5 — Inside Window: When the Client's Felt Sense Leads

This free Brainspotting lesson introduces Inside Window, a locating technique where the client’s own felt sense leads the way. Learn how body sensations, internal activation, and moment-by-moment awareness help identify the brainspot.

Brainspotting Course

4 min read

A client wearing headphones sits in a bright therapy office, gazing quietly out the window while the therapist observes and takes notes nearby. The scene represents a Brainspotting session using the Outside Window frame, where the client’s body, gaze, posture, and subtle responses help show the therapist what may be emerging beneath words.

Module 4 — Outside Window: When the Body Shows the Therapist

This free Brainspotting lesson introduces Outside Window, the original technique David Grand discovered. Learn how a trained practitioner watches for subtle body cues, eye reflexes, breath shifts, and micro-movements that help locate the brainspot.

Brainspotting Course

4 min read

A therapist and client sit facing each other in a bright, calm office as they get ready for a Brainspotting session. The therapist is handing the client a pair of headphones, while a nearby table holds a notebook, pen, tissues, water, and a pointer tool, showing the session setup before the focused work begins.

Module 3 — The Setup: How a Brainspotting Session Begins

This free Brainspotting lesson explains how a session begins before the brainspot is located. Learn how a practitioner helps choose a focus, asks where the issue lives in the body, measures distress with SUDs, and prepares the nervous system for deeper processing.

Brainspotting Course

5 min read

A woman sits quietly in a sunlit room with a notebook in her lap, holding a pen near her chin while her gaze stays fixed out the window. The still posture, natural daylight, and focused expression suggest the Brainspotting idea that a fixed gaze can touch deeper emotional processing beyond ordinary talking.

Module 2 — Why a Fixed Gaze Touches What Talking Can't

This free Brainspotting lesson explains why insight alone does not always change the body’s reactions. Learn how fixed eye position can help access subcortical material, why the body stores charged experiences differently than ordinary memories, and how Brainspotting works below the language layer.

Brainspotting Course

5 min read

A calm therapy office sits ready before a Brainspotting session, with a wooden desk arranged with a blank notepad, pen, headphones, and a slim pointer tool in soft natural daylight. An empty chair and large window with greenery in the background suggest the quiet therapeutic space where fixed-gaze work can begin without showing a client or therapist.

Module 1 — What Brainspotting Actually Is

Brainspotting is a brain-based, body-aware approach that uses a fixed eye position to help access and process material held below the language layer. This free lesson introduces David Grand’s discovery, the meaning of “where you look affects how you feel,” and how Brainspotting differs from hypnosis, meditation, and EMDR.

Brainspotting Course

5 min read

An older man with short gray hair sits at a wooden desk in a warmly lit study, viewed entirely from behind so that his face is never visible. Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves filled with books frame the room, while large windows overlook sunlit trees outside. Papers, books, and personal objects are arranged neatly across the desk, suggesting a lifetime devoted to learning, research, and reflection. Natural daylight fills the space, highlighting rich wood textures and creating a calm, thoughtful atmosphere. The image serves as a symbolic representation of Peter Levine and his contributions to Somatic Experiencing, emphasizing contemplation, observation, and the development of ideas rather than portraying a recognizable likeness. The composition feels scholarly, reflective, and grounded, with the unseen face directing attention toward the work and legacy rather than the individual himself.

🌊Module 2 — Who Is Peter Levine? | Somatic Experiencing Course

A free IFS Academy course on the life and discoveries of Dr. Peter Levine, the founder of Somatic Experiencing (SE): his background in medical biophysics and psychology, his work as a NASA stress consultant, the wild-animal observation behind his book Waking the Tiger, and his central conclusion that animals discharge survival energy and complete the response while humans tend to override it. Every lesson ends with a Somatic Experiencing practice so you can begin applying the

Everything IFS

A woman sits cross-legged on a floor cushion in a bright, sunlit room, writing thoughtfully in a small notebook. Around her are simple, calming objects—a candle, houseplants, bookshelves, and a singing bowl—arranged neatly within a warm and uncluttered living space. Natural daylight streams through a large window, illuminating soft textures and earthy tones throughout the room. The image conveys a sense of slowing down, careful attention, and measured engagement rather than emotional intensity. As a metaphor for titration in Somatic Experiencing, the scene represents approaching difficult experiences in small, manageable amounts rather than all at once, allowing the nervous system to process gradually and safely. The quiet act of focused reflection symbolizes working with experience one small piece at a time, emphasizing patience, pacing, and sustainable healing.

🌊Module 8 — Titration | Somatic Experiencing Course

A free IFS Academy course on titration in Somatic Experiencing (SE): how the term is borrowed from chemistry, where it means adding one drop at a time, what it means to contact only a small amount of difficult activation at once, why overwhelm is too much, too fast, too soon, what flooding is and why it backfires, touching the edge of a sensation rather than its center, and the principle that less is more and slower is better.

Everything IFS

A woman stands at the center of a landscape divided between two contrasting environments. On one side, dark storm clouds gather over a turbulent ocean as lightning flashes across the sky, creating a sense of intensity and activation. On the other side, bright sunlight illuminates rolling green hills, wildflowers, and a peaceful valley stretching into the distance. Viewed from behind, the woman faces the meeting point between these two worlds, neither overwhelmed by the storm nor lost in the calm. The image serves as a visual metaphor for pendulation in Somatic Experiencing—the gentle movement of attention back and forth between activation and regulation, discomfort and safety, allowing the nervous system to process difficult experiences without becoming overwhelmed. Bright cinematic lighting, rich environmental contrast, and expansive natural scenery emphasize balance, resilience, and the body's capacity to move between states and gradually return to equilibrium.

🌊Module 9 — Pendulation | Somatic Experiencing Course

A free IFS Academy course on pendulation in Somatic Experiencing (SE): the nervous system's natural swing between activation and settling, how activation rises and recedes like a wave, the trauma vortex as the pull of difficult sensation and the counter-vortex of resource and steadiness it swings against, and how moving between charge and calm shows the system it can recover.

Everything IFS