Internal Family Systems Therapy
Integrative Medicine · Herbal Healing · Earth-based Spirituality
This work is not for everyone. It tends to find people who…
Can’t keep pretending not to see.
You notice patterns – in yourself, in others, in the world – and once you see them, you can’t unsee them.
Are done forcing themselves to function.
You’ve tried discipline & pushing through – and something in you no longer agrees to live like that.
Feel more than they were taught how to hold.
And something in you is starting to see this was never a flaw — only something that wasn’t met.
Are in the middle of something changing.
Big inner & outer life transitions. Not fully who you were. Not yet who you’re becoming. But you can feel the shift is real.
It makes sense that you learned to protect yourself. Your way of being is not a mistake.
what is ifs therapy?
“We rarely hear the inward music, but we’re all dancing to it nonetheless”
Coleman Barks, The Essential Rumi
Internal Family Systems is a way of hearing your inner music more clearly – not forcing the dance. Not trying to control the beat. But becoming a conscious dance partner to what’s already moving. Your mind is not one thing. It is a system of parts – each with its own role, its own history, its own way of trying to protect you. Instead of trying to eliminate what you feel, we begin to listen to it. And when these parts are finally understood, they stop working so hard.
Something begins to reorganize – not because you forced it, but because the system no longer needs to fight itself. In my work as a medical doctor and therapist, IFS has been the most potent, precise and safe way I’ve found to work with the human system, helping people heal in ways that are deep and lasting.
Hi there, I am Ana.
MEDICAL DOCTOR | IFS THERAPIST | AWARE PARENTING INSTRUCTOR | WOMEN’S CIRCLE FACILITATOR
I am a medical doctor and Internal Medicine resident, and a certified Internal Family Systems Level 3 therapist, with extensive training in integrative medicine, clinical herbalism, and trauma-informed care. My work is rooted in both science and relationship – to the body, to the nervous system, to the land, to ancestry, and to the wider web of life.
There is room here for complexity. For personal grief and collective grief. For the many voices that live inside us. For healing that is both deeply intimate and inseparable from the world we belong to.
I work with individuals, couples, and families online, worldwide.
What my clients say
BOOK AN APPOINTMENT
If something in you recognizes this, all of you is welcome here.
My consultations offer a safe, ethical and compassionate space where you can explore your inner story with presence and depth. I use the approach of the IFS (Internal Family Systems) model, combined with clinical experience, somatic practices and a keen listening to your needs – on a path of reconnection with yourself, your rhythms, parts and cycles.
Blogs & Resources
Reflections and resources to help you meet your inner world with curiosity and compassion.
What Do You Mean, “Turn Inward”? There’s Nothing There
For many people, the beginning of IFS is not difficult because they are broken, blocked, or incapable of inner work. It is difficult because they were never taught what it actually means to turn inward.
How Internal Family Systems helped me prepare for Birth
I moved through birth the way you move through a storm you’re trying to survive. Bracing. Enduring. Praying for it to have mercy on me. Birth, as I understood it then, was something to get through. Something to manage. Something to survive. I didn’t question it.
How to Help Children Transition to a New School
What a school transition taught me about grief, safety, and alternative education in Portugal. Starting a new school is not merely adjusting to a new timetable or teacher. Something far more delicate is taking place.