2025 IFSCTraining

Escaping the Prison of Secondary Emotions
Your clients arrive already fluent in the language of defense -- anger, resentment, fear, anxiety, etc. Secondary emotions emerge when we are prevented from experiencing the full range of our primary ones as children. In this session, we will consider when and how that happens. We will highlight ways to increase clients’ sense of capacity so that they can break the cycle of frustration and defense and find greater optimism and ease. I will offer exercises to anchor understanding.

Students will explore:
Ways for clients to move out of defensiveness into responsiveness
Building client capacity and confidence
The differences between secondary and primary emotions and their impact on reality
Questioning ourselves: How caught are we in secondary feelings