First, let's start with something important
If you're a client of mine, you may have noticed that I sometimes talk about parts , sometimes about your window of tolerance , sometimes about something called bilateral stimulation , and sometimes I'll ask you to slow down and notice what's happening in your body right now, in this moment. It might feel like different languages being spoken in the same room.
If you're a colleague wondering how these four approaches — IFS, TIST, EMDR, and Sensorimotor Psychotherapy — fit together in my practice, and why I might lean on one more than another at any given time, this is my attempt to map that out.
Here's the short answer: they exist on a continuum. And where someone sits on that continuum at any given moment guides which approach — or which blend — I'll reach for.
Imagine your nervous system has a thermostat
Every one of us has what therapists call a window of tolerance — the zone where we feel activated enough to engage with difficult emotions, but not so overwhelmed that we shut down or fly off the handle. Think of it as a Goldilocks zone for emotional work.
When someone has experienced trauma — especially the kind that happened repeatedly, early in life, within relationships — that window can become very narrow. Things that feel manageable to someone else can send the nervous system into overdrive or into a frozen flatness.
"Healing doesn't happen outside the window. It happens within it — gently, and over time."
The whole question of which approach I use — TIST, IFS, Sensorimotor, or EMDR — comes down to one thing: how wide is your window right now, and what does it need?
So, what do each of these approaches actually do?
TIST — Trauma-Informed Stabilization Treatment
Think of TIST as laying the foundation. Developed by Janina Fisher, it's designed for people whose nervous systems have been significantly shaped by trauma — often early, relational, or repeated trauma. TIST teaches clients to notice their parts (the survival responses that live in the body) without being swept away by them. It builds the internal platform everything else rests on.
If IFS is a deep conversation with your inner world, TIST first makes sure you have a safe enough room to have that conversation in.
IFS — Internal Family Systems
IFS, developed by Richard Schwartz, takes a similar parts-based view but goes deeper into the relationship between those parts. There are Exiles(wounded parts carrying old pain), Managers(parts that try to keep things under control), and Firefighters(parts that react fast when things feel dangerous). At the center is Self — the compassionate, curious core that every person has, no matter what.
IFS invites clients to turn inward, meet their parts with curiosity and care, and ultimately unburden the wounds those parts have been carrying. It's profound, gentle work — but it asks the nervous system to tolerate sitting with difficult material for longer periods.
EMDR — Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing
EMDR, developed by Francine Shapiro, works differently from the other two. Rather than talking about trauma or building a relationship with parts, EMDR uses bilateral stimulation(alternating eye movements, taps, or sounds) to help the brain fully process traumatic memories that got "stuck." Think of it as helping the brain file things properly — so the past stops feeling like the present.
EMDR is targeted and often faster-acting than the other approaches, but it also asks the nervous system to briefly connect with painful material. Having enough stability and resourcing before doing trauma processing matters a great deal.
Sensorimotor Psychotherapy — SP
Developed by Pat Ogden, Sensorimotor Psychotherapy starts where talk therapy often ends: in the body itself. The premise is that trauma isn't just stored in memories or thoughts — it lives in posture, movement, breath, muscle tension, and physical impulses that never got to complete. A person might notice their shoulders brace every time they feel threatened, or their chest collapses when they feel shame, without ever connecting that to a past experience.
SP works with these somatic narratives directly — slowing down to notice physical sensations, tracking how the body responds moment to moment, and helping incomplete survival responses (the fight that never happened, the flee that was impossible) finally move through and resolve. It's especially powerful for trauma that was preverbal or pre-symbolic — experiences that happened before language, or that words simply can't reach.
SP sits alongside TIST as an early-to-mid continuum tool: it doesn't require a wide window, but it does require enough present-moment awareness to notice what the body is doing right now.
The continuum: where does someone sit?
Here's the most useful way to think about how these four approaches relate in my practice. They aren't competing schools of thought — they're tools for different moments on the same healing journey.
The Healing Continuum
Importantly, this isn't a straight line from Point A to Point B. People move along it, and sometimes back, depending on what life is throwing at them. A client who has been doing beautiful IFS work may go through a period of crisis that calls for more TIST-style stabilization. In my practice, that's not regression — it's attunement.
For clients: what this might look like in our work together
If you notice I seem to shift gears sometimes — slowing things down, bringing your attention to your body or your breath, or pulling back from deeper emotional territory — that's not because the work isn't going well. It's because I'm reading your nervous system and adjusting accordingly. Following your window is one of the most important things I do.
You might hear me say things like:
Things you might hear me say...
💬 "Let's just notice that part from a little distance today — we don't need to go all the way in."
💬 "Before we go any further, let's check in with your body. Where are you feeling this right now?"
💬 "Notice what happens in your shoulders when you say that. Can we just slow down and stay with that for a moment?"
💬 "It sounds like a part of you got quite activated this week. Let's spend some time with that before we go anywhere else."
💬 "I'd like to try something a little different today — following your eye movements while we hold this memory lightly."
💬 "What does that impulse in your body want to do? What movement might it be reaching for?"
All of these are signs that I'm working with your window of tolerance — meeting you exactly where you are, rather than where the theory says you "should" be.
For colleagues: how I think about this clinically
The continuum isn't just conceptually useful — it's how I orient in the room. A few principles that guide the way I work:
Stabilization is never a detour. With complex trauma presentations, TIST-informed stabilization isn't the thing I do before the "real" therapy. It often is the therapy — sometimes for a long time. The capacity to observe parts without merging with them is itself a profound healing shift, and I try never to rush past it.
Sensorimotor work is often the bridge. For clients whose trauma lives below the level of language — in the brace, the collapse, the freeze — SP gives me a way in. Tracking somatic responses in real time can help parts become visible before the client has words for them. It also integrates beautifully with IFS: parts often have physical signatures, and learning to notice those sensations can be a natural on-ramp into parts dialogue. A client who notices "my chest goes hollow when that part shows up" is already doing IFS-adjacent work.
IFS Self-energy, the TIST Adult Witness, and SP's mindful present-moment awareness are all cousins. In my experience, they're all pointing at the same capacity — a part of the person that can be curious, compassionate, and grounded in the present without being overtaken. The language differs; the destination overlaps significantly. Clients who've built somatic awareness through SP and observational capacity through TIST often find the transition to IFS language quite natural.
EMDR works beautifully alongside all three. Once stabilization is solid and the body feels safer, I'll often bring EMDR in to accelerate the processing of specific memories or beliefs that are holding parts in their burdened states — helping the whole system update its information: the past is really over, the threat is really gone. SP resourcing and grounding techniques also pair well with EMDR preparation and between-set settling.
I follow the window, not the protocol. Perhaps the most important principle across all four models: the client's nervous system is always the guide. When the window is wide and there's good resourcing, I'll go deeper. When it narrows, I bring us back to the body and the present moment. Every session is a recalibration.
The bottom line
IFS, TIST, Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, and EMDR aren't rivals. They're companions on the same journey — each one suited to a particular moment in the arc of healing. TIST builds the ground. Sensorimotor listens to what the body knows. IFS tends the inner world. EMDR clears what's been stuck.
Most importantly: all four approaches share a deep belief that symptoms are not disorders — they're survival strategies. The parts of us that seem most difficult, most self-destructive, most confusing, are almost always doing their best to protect us from something old and painful. The work, in all four models, is to meet those parts — and the bodies that hold them — with curiosity rather than judgment, and to help them finally feel safe enough to rest.
Questions about which approach might be right for where you are right now?
Please bring it into the room — I welcome that conversation.
