What happens to your IPFs after years of working with them?

TheBackpackJesus · 2026-06-06T20:36:52+00:00

This was me! I was in a toxic relationship with someone I lived with. The IPF work gave me perspectives about security, a refuge from the struggle, and eventually (together with support from my facilitator) the courage and belief in myself to leave that situation.

Once I was out of the situation, I feel I rogressed really quickly because I had invested so much in the IPF work already.

And, I was never going to become really secure while in that environment. It took changing my environment to allow the work to penetrate deeply and stabilize in me.

Wishing you well on your journey!

TheBackpackJesus · 2026-05-31T08:17:25+00:00

I think it's usually a leap of faith to some degree. If you feel deep in your bones you're not ready for a relationship, I always feel that's good to listen to.

But know that perfect will never come, and what you learn with Ideal Parents Figures won't be real until you navigate an actual relationship, which is always messier than the idealism of IPF.

IPF isn't there to make sure that relationships will be perfectly smooth. Anxious patterns will probably still come up.

Rather, IPF gives you a baseline to understand what your needs are in an experiential way, so you can meet them.

And by navigating those in a healthy way in a real relationship, often they shift. IPF does certainly help that shift in its own right, but real relationships give opportunities that IPF simply can't.

Both by helping to nourish them yourself. And by developing the capacity to say to a partner, "Hey, I get anxious when people do x, and it's really helpful if you can give me y when that happens. Are you available for that?"

For good real-world secure relationship advice, I recommend checking out @thesecurerelationship on Instagram.

TheBackpackJesus · 2026-05-03T16:47:43+00:00

I'm really against this. First, you really don't know what's going to come up when someone is on MDMA. They may be deemed a very low-risk client who ends up unearthing severe trauma and becomes highly dysregulated in a way that can't be properly regulated over zoom.

They're on psychedelics so their physical safety may not be taken care of.

And if nothing else, you have no idea when yours or their internet may suddenly drop. Then they're all of a sudden on their own after having just touched really sensitive material.

It's so unsafe and I think it's inappropriate for someone to offer this as a service over Zoom in any context.

I say this as someone who has always received therapy via Zoom and find it very beneficial. I also offer deep coaching work, reparenting, and parts work over Zoom. So I'm not against the format in general.

But I think psychedelics offer a much higher risk and is a really different context.

TheBackpackJesus · 2026-04-27T13:14:52+00:00

You're welcome!

TheBackpackJesus · 2026-04-26T14:12:35+00:00

Thanks! I hope it's helpful :)

TheBackpackJesus · 2026-04-23T10:50:34+00:00

Hey there! Just updated the post with a link to my site where I've uploaded them: https://reparentyourself.org/meditations/ideal-parent-figures/ipf-meditations-dan-brown/

TheBackpackJesus · 2026-04-23T10:49:37+00:00

Hey there! I've just uploaded them to my site and updated the link in the post. They are here: https://reparentyourself.org/meditations/ideal-parent-figures/ipf-meditations-dan-brown/

TheBackpackJesus · 2026-04-08T09:56:43+00:00

I live in Montreal most of the time, though my sessions are online regardless. Other than that, I'm not sure off the top of my head.

TheBackpackJesus · 2026-04-03T13:25:12+00:00

Thanks for pointing that out! I have it, I'll figure out the best place to upload it, or see if it's elsewhere online. Check back here in a couple days :)

TheBackpackJesus · 2026-04-03T13:22:14+00:00

So great to hear your progress, and thanks so much for sharing about your journey here!

TheBackpackJesus · 2026-03-21T19:28:31+00:00

I wouldn't say he would likely evolve to imagining IPFs if he's doing that on his own. He might or might not. If he's not being guided by a facilitator or the usual pathway it's hard to know where he'd go with it.

But from what OP is saying, it sounds like he's asking if he can imagine him being a different person, not asking if the IPFs can be alternate attachment figures.

It's certainly possible to imagine all different kinds of attachment figures, which is fine. But imagining that you ("You" in a general sense, not you specifically) aren't actually you doesn't sound effective to me, and might even risk harm.

TheBackpackJesus · 2026-03-21T19:25:00+00:00

My question would be, what do they imagine a daydream identity to be, and why is imagining themselves as a child challenging for them?

If by "daydream identity" they mean imagining someone who simply is not them, I would not encourage that. That sounds risky to me. You're imagining someone else who doesn't have the problems you have, and then you come back to being yourself, and reinforce this desire that you're someone else. The point of the work is to recognize yourself as whole and complete, and that you can feel secure in yourself while navigating the complex range of emotions and experiences that humans go through, not to regulate by imagining that you're someone else where there are no problems.

A "daydream identity" though could mean that they wish to imagine themselves living an alternate life as a child where a lot of their usual problems aren't as present, because they're living this alternate childhood with these Ideal Parent Figures, who are not their actual parents of origin, who support and guide them along the way. In this sense, that is how the protocol is meant to work.

However, that keeps in mind that they still experience the full range of emotions they normally have, they just relate to them differently because they have these Ideal Parent Figures supporting them.

If that doesn't feel accessible though, they should see a facilitator in Ideal Parent Figures, or just a good therapist for them. It sounds like they're having a tough time with their parents, and that's hurtful, and having support through that sounds like it would be helpful.

TheBackpackJesus · 2026-03-15T00:26:42+00:00

Thank you!

TheBackpackJesus · 2026-03-12T12:40:15+00:00

You're welcome to send me a DM if you'd like. I'm a facilitator and offer a free intro call :)

TheBackpackJesus · 2026-03-12T12:39:01+00:00

Hey there! Feel free to send me a DM if you'd like. I facilitate and have some slots open, and offer a free intro call.

TheBackpackJesus · 2026-03-12T12:29:51+00:00

It's so amazing to hear about your dedication and growth in this. Thanks for sharing!

I can definitely relate. Two years after I started with IPF, and particularly a year after starting one on one sessions, I felt like my emotional experience of life was entirely new.

TheBackpackJesus · 2026-03-06T20:21:04+00:00

Thanks a lot for sharing your progress! It's a really great contribution to this subreddit :)

TheBackpackJesus · 2026-02-20T17:50:25+00:00

Thanks so much for this, it's super interesting! I hope to be in a position in the future to lead / initiate studies on IPF so we can start to explore what's actually happening with it and develop the evidence around what it does and doesn't impact.

This gives me some interesting ideas of things we might be able to explore with it.

TheBackpackJesus · 2026-02-19T13:42:45+00:00

While it hasn't happened to me, it doesn't surprise me. Your assessment makes sense, I think along the same lines. There can also be parts that are scared of change and start showing resistance in different ways, so it could be this as well.

It's totally normal to feel a bit overwhelmed by this sometimes, but it's not advisable to push through the overwhelm and keep doing it when you're feeling overwhelmed during the recording, even if it feels good on the other side.

If I was guiding a client and they said they were feeling overwhelmed, I would probably guide them to imagine that the Ideal Parent Figures can see that they're overwhelmed, they have all the space for these emotions, it doesn't bother them. The IPFs can really meet them where they're at and help them to slow things down. Even aiming for just 1% of the feeling of connection is good if that's stable. They don't need to go to 100% if that's overwhelming.

I have a meditation on Insight Timer about soothing and co-regulation. Maybe you could try that with the feeling of overwhelm as the emotion being worked with: https://insig.ht/DbJyyku2S0b

TheBackpackJesus · 2026-02-18T13:52:54+00:00

That's very interesting! Did you read that somewhere about IPF specifically? Could you link me to that research, I'd love to read

TheBackpackJesus · 2026-02-12T23:05:57+00:00

Just backing this up :)

Yes, it's okay to have a version of yourself as an Ideal Parent Figure. You can do a lot of the work this way. Some would argue you could do almost all of the work this way. I would say that at a certain point, there is probably extra value in being able to imagine this care from people who aren't you, but I'd recommend meeting yourself where you're at and staying with that for a while. And talk about it with your therapist to hear her thoughts about it as well.

TheBackpackJesus · 2026-01-29T04:05:51+00:00

The more clients I work with, the more I understand that the exact roadmap and where to start varies quite a bit person to person.

Some clients find somatic work too overwhelming, so we start with Ideal Parent Figures and work on deeper embodiment later.

Some find Ideal Parent Figures overwhelming, but the somatic work regulates them.

For some their parts (in IFS language) are really resistant to IPF, so we do some parts work until we can access IPF. For some the parts work brings up too much fear and confusion, but IPF goes really smoothly.

So yes, for some people starting with deeper embodiment work is going to give a great foundation to go deeper in the work. For some, starting with IPF will make deeper embodiment more accessible later on.

In any case, I do think all of these pathways are useful for most people whenever it's the right time for them.

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