Stacy Donn Cristo, LMHC

Internal Family Systems (IFS) psychotherapy, a (w)holistic + embodied approach

Stacy Donn Cristo has been practicing holistic + embodied psychotherapy dedicated to the art of healing independently for nearly twenty years. She is passionate about assisting others in finding and living their authentic life with courage and grace.

Consultation

I hope to offer you, as your consultant, the ability to deepen your therapeutic impact by way of co-creating more ease in your system as you sit with clients, of learning how to create more space for the emotional body in your client to safely emerge without fearing it and to assist clients in relaxing the blame cycle and moving from the intellectual understanding of impact into healing. We work together to assist you in accessing more ease in your sessions by way of exploring where you feel stress and/or are working harder than you’d like to. I hope to help you put into place measures of practice to prevent burnout and/or assist you in your journey to recover from burnout and make your practice fun and engaging and life-affirming again. Being a therapist is not easy and we often do not learn sufficiently enough how to keep ourselves feeling safe and feeling alive in the presence of clients.

You don’t have to be an IFS therapist to benefit from working with an IFS consultant. Working with an IFS consultant offers guidance from a place of understanding one’s therapist and learning parts and what they might need to feel safe in the consultation space. When we have parts that fear judgement and criticism in learning spaces this can become a barrier to growth. It is a courageous act to allow a consultant into your process and into your practice. I aim to co-create a safe and relaxed space where we can together assist you in deepening your therapeutic potency by way of creating more ease in your system, cultivate curiosity and to locate stuck points within the therapeutic alliance.

A bit about me: I identified early on in my career as a holistic psychotherapist with a distinct interest in the body both as a messenger and as a tool for healing. Before coming to identify as a therapist I identified as an artist and decided to study art therapy within an Expressive Arts Therapy Program. Art for me, especially in my undergraduate studies, is where I (unconsciously) discovered the unconscious and my very alive childhood experiences living within. Studying within a multimodal disciplined program allowed me to explore other healing modalities and I started to become very interested in the body and how the body holds and expresses our story from an unintellectual and non-verbal place—the place where trauma lives. I actively pursued yoga and the intersection of mental health as well as the Discipline of Authentic Movement: both practices remain vital in my life today. My therapy practice has grown and deepened with use of the Internal Family Systems model which is now my primary vehicle for understanding and treating trauma, mental health and offering personal growth.

Credentials for consultation: I have been practicing in the field for nearly 25 years with a focus on embodiment and healing. I have been exploring and learning IFS for the last 8 of these years. I am Level Three trained, the highest of training levels for IFS, and I am also Certified with the institute. This means that I have met their standards of practice. I also have and will continue to work as a Program Assistant for the IFS-Institute. This means that I assist the Lead and Assistant Trainers run the trainings and teach the model to participants within the small group practice sessions with approximately 10 other program assistants for every training I am apart of. And because I love learning, I have and will continue to take IFS workshops in certain areas/spokes of the model.

Consultation to IFS Informed practitioners: you've taken the Derek Scott course or you've completed Online Circle with the Institute. You have information on the model and you are interested in gaining support as you continue to practice and insights into your stuck points both internally and with clients.

Consultation for IFS curious practitioners: you've been wondering what the buzz is all about! I love to teach and introduce the power of the model! There is no better way to learn it than to experience it. We begin here with exploring what shows up for you in the presense of your most challenging to you clients.

Consultation to address burnout: Burnout is real! We often lead with the parts of us that care deeply and work extra hard to help our clients. As reasonable as this sounds without realizing it we are likely over efforting and lmay be eading from anxious parts or Fix It parts—the parts of us that believe we have a responsibility to fix, heal or change our clients. This may then lead to frustration and a sense that we are ineffective. Maybe we start to resent some of our clients. Maybe we want to check out. Maybe we are chronically tired, in physical pain and developing digestive problems. These feelings and ailments can lead to and already be a sign of burnout. Learn how to lead from a place of effortless Calm Compassion + Curiosity.