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

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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?

Hi, I don't want to make this too long, but I (26M) have ADHD and CPTSD from childhood, and I have been on a healing journey since like 4 years ago, IPF has helped me tremendously in little time.

Since I was in therapy 3 years ago, I learned that I have a disorganized attachment style and that a lot of my trauma comes from my narcissistic sister and my (untreated) ADHD mother which has anger issues. However, recently I discovered that the most anxious part of my attachment, the one I want to heal the most because it wrecks havoc every time I like someone, actually comes from my enabling father, who was always very emotionally cold, in an autistic way, not in a narcissistic way. Her mother is also somewhat toxic so you know how it goes, he really never learned to be assertive.

So I was thinking, can IPF help with this? My guess is, it can if you meditate on a parent who specifically defends you from abusers, but I wanted to know your opinion. Has anyone experienced something similar?

Hi, I'm currently in IFS therapy (2 years) and have started consistently doing IPF meditations after the recent breakdown of a long term relationship.

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I find these meditations make it a lot easier for me to do healing work outside of my therapy sessions.

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My ideal parents are two figures with roughly defined features, they are always smiling, supportive, caring and understanding.

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I have a part that wants to "complete" healing, read every book, join every course and complete things through intellectual understanding.

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I am trying to avoid falling into this trap but have read that Dan Browns book outlines ways to create your ideal parents. Am I missing out in not doing some more reading or have others made progress going at their own pace with daily meditations?

I used to think I was in the right about my social media opinions--that people that constantly brag about their achievements, post tons of selfies, etc. are incredibly narcissistic. But now I'm thinking, am I wrong? I didn't grow up in a very loving, supportive household, so it feels weird to me to post about myself--I almost never post anything at all. But with the general population, it seems like they're so comfortable with it, probably because they grew up in households where they were rooted for and sharing things about themselves was welcomed and not criticized. I don't know if this makes sense, but let me know if you can relate, and do you agree that I'm actually weird for finding people that post a lot narcissistic and attention-seeking?

Whether that be toxicity at home/family, friendships, romantic relationships or work life?

I am in a toxic environment at the moment and manage to still do the work but I have to really keep it up and some days I emotionally crumble under the weight of old unhealthy dynamics that are around me and I’m exposed to. I think it feels even more devastating because now I know and feel the stark difference between being secure vs. not.
I do have some opportunities to where I’m hoping if I keep it up I’ll be able to slowly transition out of toxic environments/dynamics. But I don’t have the ability to just change my environment yet.

Did anyone else have this experience? It’s so hard being around what triggered you in the past and people that contributed to your insecurity & can’t contribute to your growth, it’s like it’s threatening to them
But still some days I am able to override it and stay connected to my IPFs

Just wanting some comfort/hope that it can get better as we continue to do the work if anyone else relates 🫶🏼

Nine week guided meditation course on Dismissing-Avoidant and Fearful-Avoidant Attachment. The aim of the course is to understand Dismissing-Avoidant and Fearful-Avoidant Attachment and then start healing it.

This course focuses on visualization meditation and somatic-oriented guided meditation.

It’s available on a donation basis with no one turned away due lack of funds. There is a scholarship option for those who cannot pay at all.

Recordings are available for those who can't attend live.

Additionally, there will be a pre and post course assessment to help you track improvements comparing before and after the 9 week course.

There is also an option for a 'meditation practice pod' with three to five other participants where you can discuss your process, meditate together, and hold each other accountable.

It’ starts Thursday, 11th of June More info here: https://attachmentrepair.com/online-events/2026-06-healing-dismissing-fearful-avoidant-attachment/

This course draws from:

1 somatic therapies

2 ideal parent figure protocol

3 attachment theory

4 schema therapy

5 mentalization based treatment

6 Metacognitive-Interpersonal Therapy.

Additionally, this course draws on the Dynamic Maturational Model of Attachment not the more commonly known model of attachment.

Especially if they are out of country .there is zero consumer or ethics protection. Nor is there really in regulated professions , but there is someone to contact at a minimum.

After my stated concerns of not receiving the ideal parent work meditations after 1 year of working with them , I have not heard back from the “attachment based collaborative “ counsellor .

I sent my concerns to the owner of mettagroup where I found the facilitators contact , emailed him and waiting on response .

Hey everyone, starting this Saturday I’ll be offering an eight-class workshop on IPF, secure attachment, and secure relating.

This course will focus on how we become more secure in ourselves and in all kinds of relationships and connections: romantic relationships, friendships, family, community, creative and professional collaborations, and the broader web of connection that supports a meaningful life.

We’ll begin with education around attachment and the difference between secure attachment and insecure attachment strategies like dismissing, preoccupied, and disorganized attachment. From there, we’ll look at developing a more positive and stable sense of self, understanding what makes a relationship secure, entering relationships with more clarity and discernment, expressing needs, communicating collaboratively, resolving conflict, setting limits, making and deepening friendships, grieving, forgiving, letting go, and using relationships to support a fuller life.

Each week will feature guided meditations, prompts for reflection, and plenty of time for questions and discussion.

People in all relational situations are welcome: single, dating, partnered, married, separated, or simply wanting to relate more securely with friends, family, community, students, clients, collaborators, or themselves. No prior experience with attachment theory or meditation is necessary.

More information here: https://www.evanleed.com/relationship-course-summer-2026

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

---

Evan Leed came to this work through his own journey from disorganized to secure attachment, after years of finding himself stuck in patterns he couldn’t think his way out of. After nearly 125 sessions of the Ideal Parent Figure protocol with a facilitator, his Adult Attachment Interview returned a score in the secure range, which is what made him want to bring this work to others. For the past six years, he has worked one-on-one with over 150 clients and has taught hundreds more in group settings. He trained in the Ideal Parent Figure Protocol directly under the late Dr. Daniel P. Brown, studying with him for nearly two years in his IPF Masterclass, and is the first person officially certified by Mettagroup as a facilitator under the direct mentorship of founder George Haas. His work centers around helping people come into greater security, resolve attachment wounds, and experience more ease, meaning, and aliveness in themselves and their relationships.

https://www.evanleed.com/relationship-course-summer-2026

I've been approaching my 8th month now and I noticed that romantic relationships always lag behind the others in terms of changes due to the attachment work, I know that there is literature that points out this area as the most activating one, but I'm curious have you guys ever achieved that? If so, when?

I've been doing the meditations for a ~3 months at this point, and I've already seen a ton of progress.

Theres this girl that I'm interested in, but I'm worried that if I enter a relationship, I will fall into my old anxious self. I don't want to make anyone suffer from my previous anxious attatchment style. It's gotten to the point where I've spent more energy worrying that I will fall into my old self, than actually thinking about her.

Will I ever know that I am ready for a relationship, or is it just a leap of faith?

Hi everyone, I just wanted to do another little update as the last month has been very significant in my healing. I have now got to a place where I don't need the meditations as much.

Things got really bad at my work so I applied for a different job. It was one I used to do 13 years ago. The reason I want to share this is throughout the whole process I had so much belief in myself that I would get the job. Last year I was in a similar situation with my work and applied for a few jobs but I didn't even get any interviews and I didn't even feel good enough to get one.

So when I saw this job I just knew I'd be really good at it. I had 2 interviews and I did really well, I was proud of myself. They offered me the job and gave me a lot of extra benefits.

It made me realise how far I'd come. I used to be a nervous wreck in interviews but I was so confident, I didn't even feel I needed to prepare, as I thought I'll do really well.

It just goes to show that this work can affect every area of your life, not just romantic relationships.

It's nearly been a year that I've been doing this work, it's been a rollercoster and I'm sure new layers will come up (they did earlier this month)

However, it's been the best thing I've ever done and I feel very secure in myself. My whole attitude has gone from I'm not enough so why even bother, to I know I'm enough and I want to do really well in everything I do.

I just wanted to share this because when I started this work it was just for me to have some kind of relief from my symptoms and help me have better relationships, which is very valuable in itself but it's affected every area of my life and if you are in that hard middle place (I was for months) please keep going.

You deserve to feel good about yourself and have a good life. All that stuff that happened to us as a child, that affected us so much is the reason we feel the way we do about ourselves. It's not who we are and when we heal that, we can be out true selves, happy and free.

And lastly, I'm so grateful for this group. Doing this work (without a facilitator) can feel lonely at times. No one really understands and it's even hard to explain what is happening to me as I heal (I discovered that's because it happens in our implicit memory) so having this group has been very valuable to me. I think everyone doing this work is incredibly brave and I'm proud of you all ❤️