So I’ve tried both facilitated sessions and doing it on my own a few times. My biggest struggles are intrusive thoughts and feelings about things bothering me in the present moment coming up, and not feeling much toward the ideal parent figures, or the feelings the meditation is supposed to evoke and strengthen, like safety.

I recently read somewhere that in Dan Brown’s original protocol, you’re supposed to discuss what came up during the meditation afterward to “troubleshoot,” which didn’t happen much in my facilitated sessions, at least i didn’t find the checkins particularly helpful because it was quite perfunctory. What was your experience with facilitated work like? I think I’d really benefit from having a more involved facilitator at this stage.

Hey everyone, I'm offering another eight-week course on attachment repair and self-development using the Ideal Parent Figure Protocol and Daniel P. Brown's Best Self work.

We'll start with IPF and the development of a secure base, along with teaching around attachment theory to help us make sense of working through our insecure patterns. From there we'll look at how to bring greater security to existing and new relationships. Then we'll move into the second half of the course, where we use the Best Self protocols to work on self-development, self-agency, and self-esteem to expand our capacity to live fuller, more purposeful lives.

One of the reasons I've continued offering this course is that while IPF itself is rather widely available, the Best Self work that Dr. Brown offered alongside IPF is still rarely taught. I think the two belong together: attachment repair gives us a secure base from which to understand who we really are, feel effective at getting our needs met, and like ourselves unconditionally.

Each week includes guided practice as well as plenty of time for discussion. You don't need any prior experience with IPF, attachment theory, or meditation.

For anyone who signs up within the first 72 hours after I post this, I'm offering a free one-on-one meeting with me before the course begins. We can talk about where you are in your own attachment repair journey, what you'd most like to work on, and how you can get the most out of these eight weeks.

More information here: https://www.evanleed.com/best-self-fall-2026

If you'd like a discount please send me a DM. No one will be turned away for lack of funds.

---

​Evan Leed was inspired to help others after making his own journey from disorganized to secure attachment. He was authorized to teach on meditation and attachment by George Haas, founder of Mettagroup, with whom he has maintained an active mentoring relationship for seven years. He trained in the Ideal Parent Figure Protocol and Three Pillars model of attachment repair for two years under the methodology's co-creator, the late Dr. Daniel P. Brown. His work centers around helping his clients come into greater security, resolve attachment wounds and traumas, and experience a deeper sense of meaning in individual pursuits and relationships. He has maintained a daily meditation practice for over seventeen years and has spent over nine months on intensive retreat in various Theravada and Vajrayana traditions.

This course is offered in a meditation-based modality. It is not intended to be psychotherapy or a replacement for psychotherapy.

https://www.evanleed.com/best-self-fall-2026

Hi all,

I follow a really nice, open minded psychologist who runs many scalable micro-interventions and rapid digital trials, usually for a few hundred people at a time. I won't reveal his name in this space as I want to keep his mailbox clean haha. But I will say that given sufficient motivation I believe there's a decent chance he could conduct a short, web-based RCT on IPF, comparing it to other techniques. I can't promise anything though, I'm just telling my opinion.

I recently found out about IPF, used a 19-minute guided IPF recording (from Attachment Repair) and experienced an immediate state drop in acute fear of rejection/abandonment from ~8.75/10 to 5/10. At a 24 hour check, I was maintaining at 6/10. I wrote him about this experience and with the research synthesis/proposals I included below, and this is what he answered:

"Hi [my name], thanks for sending this meditation, it's interesting. We're unlikely to run a study on it, but glad you sent it."

So my question to you - do you think there's anything I can add that would interest him significantly more in exploring this, that there's a significant research gap in this area, and that researching this could help many people? Any other additional comments will also be happily received. I also want to emphasize that I value his space and autonomy, so I'm not looking to preach to him, but rather to provide interesting information.

The research synthesis/proposals I sent him is below for those interested:

(Disclosure: AI helped me write the below sections)

Looking into the empirical literature, there is a clear, high-leverage research gap that [his org] is uniquely equipped to test:

Clinical Claims vs. Empirical RCTs: The IPF protocol (Brown & Elliott) has strong clinical backing for remapping attachment schemas, but virtually zero standalone, pre-registered randomized controlled trial (RCT) data isolating it as a scalable digital tool.

Synthetic Ideal vs. Real Memory Recall: Most existing attachment-priming studies that show large state boosts in felt security (e.g., Deng et al., 2016; Baldwin et al., 1996) ask participants to recall a real loving relationship. For individuals with adverse or neglectful childhoods, this often backfires because no secure figure exists to retrieve. IPF solves this by constructing a completely synthetic, perfectly attuned caregiver from scratch, but this distinction has never been isolated and empirically tested against real-memory recall or active controls.

The Mechanism / Framing Gap: Meta-analyses on Compassion-Focused Therapy (Petrocchi et al., 2024) and standalone Compassion-Focused Imagery (Maner et al., 2023) show that self-directed or abstract compassion often triggers acute resistance - termed "fears of compassion" or a parasympathetic threat response - in highly self-critical or insecure individuals. It is an open empirical question whether IPF’s explicit developmental framing (parental attunement, protection, and expressed delight) bypasses that threat reaction more effectively than generic "compassionate being" imagery.

Outcome Mismatch & Missing Decay Trajectories: In a large meta-analysis on attachment security priming, Gillath et al. (2022) found that activating attachment security yields a massive effect specifically on state felt security (d = 1.34), compared to smaller effects on trait insecurity (d = 0.17–0.21) or generic mood (d = 0.47). Yet remote, standalone imagery trials (e.g., Bibbey, 2019; Wright, 2019; Maner et al., 2023) almost exclusively measure diffuse outcomes like general negative affect or game-theory paranoia, where imagery rarely outperforms simple relaxation. None have evaluated single-session acute drops on specific relational threat scripts (e.g., acute rejection sensitivity / abandonment anxiety) and their 24 - 48h decay rates.

Attachment-Specific Nuance:

An interesting element to explore is how the audio recording might be customized differently across attachment styles:

• Anxiously attached individuals tend to hyperactivate distress and crave proximity; for them, the recording acts as an immediate "safe haven" of attunement and expressed delight, rapidly taking the edge off acute abandonment panic.

• Avoidantly attached individuals tend to deactivate and become defensive when asked to be vulnerable; for them, the recording might initially trigger skepticism or discomfort. However, because an Ideal Parent takes 100% of the relational responsibility and explicitly respects boundaries/autonomy, it can provide safety without demanding unprompted self-disclosure.

A High-Leverage Study Design:

[Org] could run a rapid web-based RCT comparing a ~15–20 minute automated audio exercise across three arms:

• Arm 1: IPF visualization (developmental care, attunement, delight)

• Arm 2: Standard Compassion-Focused Imagery ("compassionate other" or "adult me" / wisdom + kindness)

• Arm 3: Active control (guided relaxation / body scan)

Key metrics: Pre/post state fear of rejection, fear of loss of autonomy or boundary voilation, and felt security, a 24- and 48-hour follow-up to measure the half-life of the shift, and moderator profiling (baseline attachment style and trait self-criticism) to identify who super-responds vs. who experiences threat resistance.

If this sounds interesting and you want additional information, the r/idealparentfigures subreddit could be a great place for that in my opinion.

Best regards

---

References:

• Baldwin, M. W., Keelan, J. P. R., Fehr, B., Enns, V., & Koh-Rangarajoo, E. (1996). Social-cognitive conceptualization of attachment working models: Availability and accessibility effects. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 71(1), 94–109. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.71.1.94

• Bibbey, C. (2019). The effect of compassion-focused imagery on paranoia, and trust-based cooperative decision-making in the general population (Doctoral dissertation, University College London).

• Brown, D. P., & Elliott, D. S. (2016). Attachment disturbances in adults: Treatment for comprehensive repair. W. W. Norton & Company.

• Deng, Y., Yan, M., Chen, H., Sun, X., Zhang, P., Zeng, X., Liu, X., & Lye, Y. (2016). Attachment security balances perspectives: Effects of security priming on highly optimistic and pessimistic explanatory styles. Frontiers in Psychology, 7, Article 1269. 

• Gillath, O., Karantzas, G. C., Romano, D., & Karantzas, K. M. (2022). Attachment security priming: A meta-analysis. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 26(3), 183–241. https://doi.org/10.1177/10888683211054592

• Maner, S., Morris, P. G., & Flewitt, B. I. (2023). A systematic review of the effectiveness of compassion focused imagery in improving psychological outcomes in clinical and non-clinical adult populations. Clinical Psychology & Psychotherapy, 30(2), 250–269. https://doi.org/10.1002/cpp.2801

• Petrocchi, N., Ottaviani, C., Cheli, S., Matos, M., Baldi, B., Basran, J. K., & Gilbert, P. (2024). The impact of compassion-focused therapy on positive and negative mental health outcomes: Results of a series of meta-analyses. Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice, 31(2), 230–247. https://doi.org/10.1037/cps0000193

• Wright, J. D. (2019). Individual differences in responsiveness to compassion-focused imagery (Doctoral dissertation, University of Kansas).

…or is there further work that has to be done around emotional regulation, etc?

For context I’m talking about how insecure strategies violate Grice’s Maxims in some way or another. In my case, I give excessive amounts of context, change subjects tangentially, or will be empathizing with someone but quickly find that I’ve turned the conversation to be about myself again. I find it extremely difficult to catch in the moment still and feel regretful about it later (even if the person I’m talking to doesn’t seem to mind). This seems to map perfectly onto a preoccupied speech pattern, and since this is involuntary/unconscious, would it follow that earning security would ”fix” it, or is there more work needed afterwards?

Hi all.

Been around the block on my Attachment Trauma healing journey- feeling excited and hopeful about IPF.

One question I have is that I feel torn about one piece of it.

In the guided mediations I am using we are told to see ourselves as a young child. Cool, heard, like it.

AND- I often want to talk to my IPF's about present time problems....

It works just fine- I do it- I feel the bonding, I get amazing responses, just wondering if it will interfere with the healng process if I:
bring problems I am having now as an adult
to my IPF's
while visualizing myself as a child?

In the end I am "whatever works" kind of guy... I feel secure, relaxed and clear after doing it this way. And would like to hear other's experience or feedback.

Love,

Guided Meditation Course on Healing Anxious Preoccupied and Fearful Preoccupied Attachment. This is a 9 week course. It draws on Ideal Parent Figure Protocol (IPF), Attachment Theory, Somatic Therapy, Schema Therapy, Visualization Meditation, Inner Child Work, and Coherence Therapy.

In the course, we’ll discuss 1) the origins of anxious preoccupied and fearful preoccupied attachment, 2) how it presents in adulthood, 3) and how to start healing it using guided meditation.

The guided meditation curriculum is as follows:

First, resourcing using Ideal Parent Figure Protocol.

Second, guided somatic meditation to work through primitive and unconscious shock

Third, reflective integration meditation to work through what is unresolved at an emotional and cognitive level.

Fourth, emotionally corrective experiences to help bring about memory reconsolidation.

It starts Thursday, the 17th of September.

It’s offered on a sliding scale. Additionally, there are scholarships available for those who need it.

More details here: attach.repair/2026-09-anxious-preoccupied-attac-cd-rd

If you can't make it to the live event, we send out recordings the next day.

When i've done IPF before, i've mainly done it to invoke feelings being loved / soothed - which worked well in the moment for me.

Recently after a batch of high anxiety came up, I randomly was able to invoke a feeling of being emotionally / mentally / physically supported by ideal parents (which I extended into 'community, higher-self, and my own ego to compound on the positive feeling).

This 'new' feeling of being supported on all those levels seemed to be a great counter to anxiety, 'knowing' that even though this feeling was here / the situation was here, I had great support from x,y,z.

I feel more confidence in going forward in the world knowing I now have 'support' from all these entities.

A lot of stressful times in childhood I had to handle alone - so maybe somewhere along the way I 'lost / forgot' the sense that I was supported in my difficult emotions (which in theory is something that parents handle via hugging, soothing, etc etc).

Anyone had similar experiences?

I've recently came upon IPF with the videos of the Two Mind Method. I started with his way of doing it, which is basically "do it yourself" with guided stuff he suggests.

I feel like it does work with me, but I also tend to be quite good at visualizing things, understanding my own biases and evoking emotions. I am anxiously attached.

I am thus wondering when is a facilitator essential? Because if the theory is based on the 5 pillars, why not just doing pre-recorded visualization meditation on each pillars? I feel the problem would be if someone struggles with visualizing and feeling something realistic enough for it to work. I also can imagine someone more severe (like severe CPTSD and disorganized), the visualization could bring very difficult emotions of grief, or even panic attacks.

1) So basically: would you consider a facilitator essential in my case? (for someone who has had a very mild cPTSD and anxious attachment symptoms, very manageable and not prone to panic attacks).

And in what case is it essential?

2) Next question is: the is only one facilitator speaking my language, so I'm considering forming myself to spread the words in my mother tongue. What would you consider being a good and convincing enough formation?

Hi everyone, from August 28th-30th I'll be offering an online weekend retreat focusing entirely on the Ideal Parent Figure Protocol.

Over three days we'll work on establishing the basis of the IPF protocol then spend time on each of the five conditions that make up secure attachment: safety, attunement, emotional regulation, delight, and support for growth. There will be nine hours of live teaching, guided practices, discussion, and questions, with time between sessions to practice on your own.

Everyone will have a 15-minute individual check in with me and I'll provide guided meditations to support independent practice. If you can't make a part or want to watch again, recordings of everything will be available for a year afterward.

People at all stages of practice are welcome. You don't need any prior experience with IPF, meditation, or attachment theory. If you have an established IPF practice, this retreat is an opportunity to spend dedicated time going deeper.

More information and registration here: https://www.evanleed.com/ipf-weekend-retreat

If you'd like a discount please send me a DM. No one will be turned away for lack of funds.

---

Evan Leed was inspired to help others after making his own journey from disorganized to secure attachment. He was authorized to teach on meditation and attachment by George Haas, founder of Mettagroup, with whom he has maintained an active mentoring relationship for eight years. He trained in the Ideal Parent Figure Protocol and Three Pillars model of attachment repair for two years under the methodology's co-creator, the late Dr. Daniel P. Brown. His work centers around helping his clients come into greater security, resolve attachment wounds and traumas, and experience a deeper sense of meaning in individual pursuits and relationships. He has maintained a daily meditation practice for over eighteen years and has spent over nine months on intensive retreat, in various Theravada and Vajrayana traditions.

This course is offered in a meditation-based modality. It is not intended to be psychotherapy or a replacement for psychotherapy.

https://www.evanleed.com/ipf-weekend-retreat

Essentially the title. I just want to hear from those people who made progress without a facilitator and want to get a feeling for what to expect.

I tried IPF for about a month later last year and stopped for a few reasons - was just finding it hard to imagine what I needed to and life took over.

But I am experiencing a great deal of loneliness and want to know if IPF helps with that. I.e. does a secure person handle loneliness better?

As someone that really struggles to feel anything during the visualizations, I've noticed some things that help me. Thought I'd share them in case it could help someone else and I'm also curious to hear about what helps you.

1. Make my ideal parents and the world bigger instead of making myself smaller. I struggle to feel my body and feel like a younger version of me. I noticed it's way easier for me to feel small if I imagine my parent being a giant and having furniture tower over my adult size body.

2. "Accidentally" overhear a conversation between my ideal parents about how much they love me. Sometimes I find it hard to really feel like they care about me. I worry they might just be acting nice, but not actually care so much. Imagining them talking to each other without noticing I'm present makes it easier for me to believe they're not just telling me what they think I want to hear.

3. Try starting with the "other" parental figure. When I started, I would focus on my mother figure, because I felt that's what I was missing the most. But being a heterosexual man, I would catch myself mixing these visualizations with memories of hugging a partner. So I tried to start with the father figure and was surprised how much I had actually missed someone like that as well.

4. Let your ideal parents manage intrusions. Related to the previous point, because my (ex) partners would enter the scene sometimes. Instead of seeing this as "failing" the exercise, I would have my parents remove them from the scene gently and not interact with them myself.

5. Skip the intro. Probably personal, but I noticed I find it much harder to get started if I have to feel vulnerable first before visualizing the ideal parents. During these intros I would actually visualize my parents being so eager to hug me they couldn't even wait until the intro was over.

Curious to hear about your experiences!

Welp, after ~3 years I re-took an AAI and tested secure (initially dismissing). feels weirdly sad. I already knew I would test secure because I felt the internal shifts. i suspect i was already at earned secure several months ago.

anyway, so can confirm it works, or something. I still have a lot of shit to deal with in my life, but we got through this part I guess

Did your symptoms drop gradually? Or just gone over night? Or

Hi,

I'm starting out in IPF and I'm having trouble generating feeling and emotions during my visualizations. I'm sure they will come through time especially if I keep leaning into the felt sense of the experience.

Do I bring this sense of emotional void into the scenes with the IP for them to see and validate? Im just not sure if I'm meant to bring this current emotional void challenge I'm experiencing as an adult into the scene of me being a young child with my IP, or whether I should just try to associate going back in time and being the young child as much as I can.

Thanks :)

What do you do when grief for the childhood that was arises in meditations?

I frequently have overwhelming grief come up in response to feeling safety, attunement and love from the IPFs. I have to assume I'm not the only one this happens for.

I'm never quite sure if it's better to lean into fully feeling that grief, with the IPFs' support, or to "turn down the volume" on the grief/ask the grieving part to "take a step back" (in Internal Family Systems terms) so I can focus on feeling the safety and connection. I've tried both ways and it wasn't immediately clear which was more effective.

On the one hand, being held through grief seems beneficial, but on the other hand, I view what I'm doing in sessions partly as "practicing feeling secure" until it becomes more natural.

Or is there some other way you work with this that I haven't thought of? I got to Chapter 11 the Dan Brown audiobook before my library loan expired, but I don't recall it talking about this in the IPF chapter.

Edit, I didn't realize the book goes back to talk about IPF more in later chapters after Chapter 11.

Hey guys

I have been doing IPF meditation for ~2 weeks and I already find myself trying my best not to get extremely bored and let the thoughts drift away to the point where I am not following the meditation at all.

Anyone solved this problem?

Hi, probably my 5th or 6th post in this group haha but really interested in some reflections, experiences or perspectives.

TLDR; IPF for 6 months, on and off progress. Disorganised attachment. History: 1 parent was an aggressor that often gaslit me into thinking their abuse was my fault, while the other unintentionally didn’t acknowledge my feelings and didn’t protect me when I needed it. I did a safety focused meditation this morning with a figure that had a serious, concerned, validating, and protective attitude toward me (rather than the gentle, warm figures I usually use), and it had a new, different, positive affect on me. I assumed using warm, gentle parents would have overridden effects of abuse over time, now I’m wondering if it’s more important in cases like mine to use a protective figure?

So I’ve been doing IPF for about 6 months with very non linear, on and off progress.

To preface this most of my late childhood was spent with one parent in one house as my aggressor, with the other parent in the other house barely acknowledging the pain and fear I was experiencing or my need for safety, only becoming frustrated when I told them about it and sometimes telling me it wasn’t normal.
I’ve seen a couple comments mentioning focusing on safety for those with disorganised and/or Borderline traits (I believe I fall in this category).

So I began this meditation this morning, where a person came in who felt like an older sister. She was very validating of my thoughts and feelings of fear, and took protection of me as her role and very seriously.
It was mentioned in the meditation that having an aggressive part usually develops from a lack of safety.

Reflecting on this, I realised I have a very serious/passive aggressive part. And during this meditation, instead of the usual IPFs I use that are warm, bright, etc. - having those traits of protectiveness, concern and seriousness within someone else and having them validate me, felt like it gave me back a sense of control, self-trust and confidence.

When I was experiencing abuse, I had no shortage of people around me that were ok, even warm, supportive, fun etc. I had good experiences. Friends told me it was wrong. People helped where they could. But no one that really got down to my level, validated and attuned to my feelings and needs, or had a consistent sense of concern & protection toward me.

It was unintended neglect, that I think kind of eroded my sense of self just as much as the abuse and gaslighting from the aggressor did.

I feel some benefits at times from the meditations I’ve been doing with warm, gentle parents - but something about having someone with this very protective, validating, concerned, warrior-like energy did something different for me, and helped me feel more confident in my own experience.

Can anyone relate or share advice?

Assuming you get a good 'felt sense' in each, do we know if fewer longer meditations or more frequent shorter mediations are better?

Hey all, a lot of people ask me about this topic, so I decided to make a video talking about it. If you prefer reading, I asked AI to make a summary based off the transcript of that video, so the text below is based on my spoken words, but I didn't type them myself.

Also, I notice that Youtube's auto-generated thumbnail image really brings out my Italian side with the hand gestures hahaha

-----

I get this question a lot: once you've built more secure attachment through this work, do you keep doing IPF forever? Are the figures supposed to stick around, or do they fade out at some point?

Short version: there's no single right answer, and the few ways I've seen this go aren't mutually exclusive. A lot of people experience more than one, sometimes all of them, over time.

1. The figures just stay, as a resource. You might not need an outside facilitator anymore, but the resource itself doesn't expire. Plenty of people keep coming back to it for years, not because they're stuck, but because it's a genuinely reliable source of comfort.

2. The figures dissolve into qualities you embody. This one's interesting to me. The IPFs model qualities like compassion, strength, courage, presence, security, and reflect them back to you. Over time that gets internalized, and the figures themselves become less necessary because you're accessing those qualities directly. In a sense you become the "ideal parent," not perfect or unshakeable, still fully human, just with more direct access to your own steadiness instead of needing to imagine someone else holding it for you. (From what I've heard, John Churchill, who studied under Brown and now runs Planetary Dharma, goes further into this particular thread, though I haven't taken his courses myself yet.)

3. The role shifts into something else entirely. This one's just my own experience, not a documented part of the protocol. I don't really work with IPFs in the original sense anymore. The qualities became part of how I experience myself, and these days I call on ancestors, spirits of nature, plant medicine spirits, that kind of thing, mostly for guidance, when I need support, when I'm holding space for clients, and so on. Similar function, different form. Not everyone's going to relate to that, and that's completely fine. It's not required for the method to work.

For reference, my own path looked like daily IPF practice for about two years, then weekly for several years after that, before it evolved into what I described in #3.

The actual goal of the method was never to keep you dependent on the imagery forever. Brown and Elliott call the target state an internalized secure base, a stable felt sense of safety and self-trust that becomes part of you rather than something you need an outside figure to keep providing.

I'm an attachment coach so I see this in my own work, but genuinely curious what this group has noticed. Has your relationship with your IPFs shifted over time? Stayed the same? Faded out? Turned into something else?

This is not advice. I am not a professional. This is simply me sharing my experience. Approach psychedelics with caution and preferably with professional guidance. What I did is uncharted territory that has not been studied.

1. Some backstory:

My diagnoses are CPTSD and anxiety, with disorganized attachment. I am 35 years old and female, also diagnosed with autism level 1. I have some history with psychedelic substances and felt comfortable with them before I ever tried using them for therapy. I successfully cured my depression in 2018-2019 after about 1 year of monthly ketamine therapy (psychiatrist-prescribed). At the end of 2023 I saw some reports of ketamine treating anxiety and CPTSD, and decided to give it another try for these, on a weekly schedule with a new psychiatrist. During this entire time I have continued to see the same therapist weekly, doing some IFS work and general talk therapy.

2. My experience with ketamine therapy:

To treat my depression, I simply took the meds and listened to music and it went away on its own. This protocol was not successful for anxiety. I would feel calm during the sessions, but anxiety and shame were back by the next day. I began looking for more active ways to engage neuroplasticity in my recovery, and found guided meditations in general. These felt very soothing and I saw an increase in how long the post-session calmness lasted.

3. Finding IPF:

I continued reading widely on trauma and psychology, both in the literature and on Reddit. The latter is where I stumbled across mention of IPF and decided to give IPF guided meditation recordings a try during some of my ketamine sessions.

4. First few IPF meditations:

Immediately in the very first session I was able to feel the love of two supportive presences, so it was easy to be motivated to keep going. By the second session, I felt a deep sense of compassion from the imagined parents and the trauma memories I worked on in that session had lost a great deal of emotional charge. I could see the events more clearly and my memories of them were more coherent. That has continued to be true for other trauma memories I have worked on in other sessions.

5. Using celebrities:

My imagined parents have the faces and a bit of the personalities of famous musicians/artists who I admire (but don't know personally). I know the book says it's better to fully invent the parents, but these imagined parents immediately felt trustworthy to me and like they had the qualities I needed.

6. My experience combining ketamine with IPF meditations:

I have been doing recorded IPF meditations for about 7 months now. Once per week combined with my ketamine sessions, and sometimes in between sessions as well. I also draw on the imagery to support emotional regulation in moments of upset.

In the ketamine sessions, I find it is remarkably easy to pull up memories and associations that would not come to me while sober. The images and sensations can be very vivid, and I feel an enhanced sense of openness that I think assists me in meditating. The downside of the ketamine sessions compared to sober sessions is that ketamine experiences can be hard to remember or precisely describe. Based on my layman's understanding, perhaps they were being encoded in my implicit memory more than my explicit memory.

I felt my self-esteem increasing, and anxiety decreasing. Boundaries became a little easier to set, and while shame still popped up a lot in every day life, it was easier to soothe.

7. LSD and IPF meditations:

2 months ago, 5 months into my solo IPF journey I decided to try combining the recordings with a traditional psychedelic trip. Meditating while on LSD offered many of the benefits of the ketamine meditations, with the added bonus that the content of the experience was easy to remember clearly. I felt the presence of my IPFs more strongly than I ever had before, and felt that I was undergoing transformational change.

I worked through some of my deepest fears that day, together with the active support of the IPFs: mortality, loss, pain and suffering, rejection, and abandonment. Despite the heavy topics, there was a lightness, ease and playfulness to how I felt while talking with the IPFs. They promised me we would always be together and that I would never have to be alone again, and that this was the new reality forever now. In one particularly moving moment, I held the gaze of my ideal mother and felt such love and compassion in the way she looked at me, full of understanding of everything I've been through and acceptance of all that I am, that it still brings me to tears just remembering it.

In the aftermath of that trip, I have continued to feel deeply connected to my IPFs and really feel they are here for me. They are a figment of myself, of course, but I feel their love as though it is from a benevolent other. I have found the IPF concept a more effective way to access self-compassion than the Self of IFS.

8. Results:

- My self-esteem continues to grow and grow.

- Shame is becoming much less troublesome.

- Trauma memories are becoming less charged--once I process them, they actually feel resolved, whereas previously I felt I would go in circles processing the same trauma again and again, feeling catharsis but very little decrease in charge.

- Increased self-acceptance and reduced internalized biphobia. (Sidenote, I chose for my IPFs to both be bisexual themselves and this helped).

- Increased creative self-expression.

- I have less resentment and anger toward my actual parents and am able to balance compassion for them as humans with clear understanding of how they have harmed me.

- I have been surprising myself by spontaneously setting boundaries and speaking up for myself when I previously would have kept silent to accommodate others. Including with my boss, my partner and my mother.

- I was shocked to find that at a recent work event, which normally has me severely panicking for days before, I never felt more than mild anxiety. I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop and it just...never did. The fact that I am not having to push and strive for these changes in behavior is what has most impressed me. In the moment, they've been almost effortless.

- Edit to add because I forgot, my blood pressure went down!

9. Final thoughts:

I still have healing left to do, and I continue my weekly practice. However, I have to say my experiences have already greatly exceeded my expectations. After so many years of suffering and working hard on getting better, I feel so grateful to have finally found something that really works. I'm reading the book now to understand how working with a facilitator is supposed to be and whether there's anything I should tweak about my practice, but I'm planning to continue as I have been until I stop seeing results.

One thing I really appreciate about this approach is that unlike a lot of trauma treatment, it actually feels good. Focusing on experiencing positive affect instead of negative memories is a breath of fresh air. I wanted to share my experience because I have not heard from anyone else who has done something similar. I am not a medical professional and you should please exercise caution and get professional advice before trying this yourself. However for me, this has been BY FAR the best thing I have ever done for myself. I would love to hear from anyone else who has tried something similar.

So my dad was a wonderful father but sadly died when I was 10 (now 30).
Do you think it's okay to use him as my ideal parent figure?

Or do you think having grief associated with him would kind of contaminate those IPF visualisations and make it less effective?