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- Online Therapy in Seattle, WA and Across Washington
Patterns keep repeating. I guide you into deeper internal work.
I’m Cuyler Simmons, a trauma therapist supporting people throughout Washington State. I use Internal Family Systems to help clients understand the parts that learned to protect them. When inner conflict feels overwhelming or old patterns keep surfacing in relationships, this approach offers a compassionate way to explore what’s underneath. We work at a pace that feels steady and sustainable, helping your system build trust with the process rather than forcing change.
The same patterns keep returning, even when you understand why, I help you work beneath them.
You’ve tried to understand why certain patterns repeat. You’ve worked on yourself, read the books, and done the reflection. But something inside still reacts the same way when closeness feels risky, when criticism lands too hard, or when parts of you seem to work against what you actually want.
It’s not a lack of insight. It’s that your system learned to protect you long before you had the words to describe what was happening.
Internal Family Systems recognizes that inner conflict is part of being human. Different parts of you developed at different times, shaped by what you needed to survive. Some parts push you to perform, stay safe, or avoid vulnerability.
Others carry pain you’ve tried to move past. IFS helps you understand these parts with curiosity instead of judgment, so they no longer have to operate in extreme ways.
You’re learning to lead them, not eliminate parts of yourself. Insight alone hasn’t shifted it because what’s driving it isn’t fully conscious.
Relationships feel off and hard to navigate. I help you understand what’s driving that.
IFS resonates with people who’ve done personal work but still notice patterns they can’t quite shift:
Internal patterns shift when you understand what's beneath them
IFS helps you understand what’s actually driving your reactions, not just manage them. We look at the parts of you that learned to take on protective roles, whether that’s staying in control, shutting down, or reacting quickly when something feels off.
This isn’t forced or rushed work. It happens at a pace your system can actually tolerate, so change is steady and lasting.
Here’s what the work actually involves:
I’m a licensed clinical social worker and trauma therapist offering IFS therapy to people throughout Washington State, including Seattle and Redmond. For years, I lived from a people-pleasing place without realizing it. I monitored others’ moods and softened my needs to preserve the connection. IFS changed how I related to those patterns.
I learned to see my people-pleaser as a protective part rather than a flaw, and as I met my deeper wounds with care, that part no longer had to manage everything. This work shaped how I now support others. This wasn’t surface-level work; it required going deeper into what was underneath those patterns.
What I Offer:
Childhood trauma keeps shaping how you show up. I help you resolve what’s underneath it.
IFS serves as a foundation for restoring wholeness by helping the internal system feel safe, understood, and guided by the Self. Other modalities can be integrated to support regulation and processing, while respecting the wisdom of parts and allowing healing to unfold at a sustainable, tolerable pace.
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)
IFS complements EMDR by helping you feel more prepared, supported, and grounded throughout trauma processing. What this looks like in sessions:
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
IFS and ACT work well together because they both support a respectful relationship with inner experience. What this looks like in sessions:
Trauma-Focused CBT
IFS and Trauma-Focused CBT work together by supporting both emotional safety and practical skill-building. What this looks like in sessions:
Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy (KAP)
IFS can complement KAP by offering a steady, compassionate framework for understanding what emerges during and after sessions. What this looks like in sessions:
IFS therapy supports a wide range of emotional and relational patterns by helping you understand the parts carrying them. When protective parts feel seen and exiled parts are unburdened, the system reorganizes around Self-leadership.
Anxiety shows up as parts staying on high alert, scanning for what might go wrong. Panic happens when those protectors believe the system is at immediate risk and escalate their efforts to regain control. IFS helps you understand what these parts are afraid would happen if they stopped working so hard. As you build trust with anxious parts and strengthen your access to Self, the nervous system begins to soften its high-alert stance. Emotional reactivity decreases, and steadiness grows.
Depression often reflects parts that slow the system to conserve energy. Shutdown emerges when parts believe distancing or numbing is the safest option. These responses developed in environments where there wasn’t enough support, safety, or choice. IFS views these as intelligent adaptations shaped by necessity, not signs of something broken. As you help shut down and depressed parts release what they’re carrying without being retraumatized, presence and emotional range gradually return.
Complex trauma and PTSD are held by parts shaped by repeated or overwhelming events, often without enough safety or support. These parts learned to carry fear, shame, and vigilance so you could survive. Trauma responses aren’t signs of damage. They reflect intelligent survival strategies. IFS helps trauma-related parts feel safer without forcing memories or emotional flooding. Burdens release at a tolerable pace while internal leadership strengthens.
When closeness involved inconsistency, criticism, neglect, or emotional harm, parts adapted by guarding vulnerability, anticipating rejection, or staying hyper-aware of others’ needs. These patterns weren’t mistakes. There were ways of surviving relationships that weren’t secure. IFS helps you recognize how attachment wounds shape connection today. Reactive patterns rooted in past trauma soften while younger parts holding fear of abandonment or rejection receive care.
Chronic shame from emotional abuse is held by parts that learned to internalize harmful messages. When criticism, rejection, or emotional harm came from people who were supposed to love and protect, parts often took on blame as a way to preserve connection or make sense of what was happening. IFS helps you understand chronic shame as something parts learned to carry, not who you are. Inner criticism that once served a protective purpose begins to soften.
Substance use and compulsive behaviors often develop as ways to cope with emotional pain and stressors that feel unsafe and inescapable. In IFS, these are understood as firefighter parts trying to manage overwhelming emotions. IFS reframes addiction as protection, not failure. The work addresses trauma underlying substance use, reduces shame and self-blame, and builds a compassionate relationship with cravings while strengthening the calm, grounded Self.
Unresolved grief is often held by parts that didn’t have the space, safety, or support to fully mourn. When loss happened alongside trauma, responsibility, or the need to keep going, parts often stepped in to contain grief so life could continue. IFS helps you understand unresolved grief as something parts carried to survive. It creates safety to approach grief without overwhelm while honoring parts that set grief aside to keep going.
Things look stable on the outside, but I help you resolve what still feels unsettled inside.
The first IFS session focuses on understanding what brought you to therapy and beginning to introduce the language of parts.
What we will explore:
Things look fine on the outside, but I help you resolve what's unresolved within
IFS is a trauma-informed, evidence-based approach to mental health treatment that understands the mind as a system of different parts. These parts develop in response to life experiences, especially trauma, stress, and attachment wounds. IFS focuses on restoring balance and internal leadership rather than fixing or eliminating parts.
The Three Types of Parts
IFS identifies three categories based on protective roles:
Managers
Managers are proactive protectors focused on preventing pain, rejection, or loss before it happens. Common manager parts include the people-pleaser, inner critic, perfectionist, overworker, caretaker, controller, planner, and conflict-avoider.
Firefighters
Firefighters step in when feelings feel too intense. These parts react quickly through numbing, dissociating, substance use, compulsive behaviors, rage, shutting down, escaping through distraction, risk-taking, or self-soothing through food, sex, or substances.
Exiles
These are often younger parts that carry pain from trauma, neglect, or attachment disruptions. They hold shame, worthlessness, fear, terror, grief, loss, loneliness, abandonment, feeling unwanted, helplessness, powerlessness, sadness, hopelessness, and longing for connection.
The Self
The Self is the calm, grounded, and compassionate core within every person, separate from all the parts. The Self naturally knows how to heal. IFS therapy helps strengthen access to the Self so it can guide the internal system. When the Self is leading, parts no longer need to operate in extreme or exhausting ways.
IFS therapy works by helping you build relationships with different parts of yourself. Rather than trying to eliminate problematic thoughts or behaviors, IFS helps you understand why those parts developed and what they’re protecting. The process involves accessing Self-energy, getting to know protective parts, gaining permission to approach vulnerable exiled parts, witnessing their pain, and helping them release burdens they’ve been carrying.
As parts feel seen and understood, they begin to trust that the Self can lead. Protective parts soften their extreme roles. Exiled parts release what they’ve been holding. The internal system reorganizes around Self-leadership, creating more harmony, flexibility, and emotional regulation.
The timeline varies based on the complexity of your internal system, how many parts need attention, and how quickly protective parts feel safe enough to allow deeper work. IFS is not brief therapy, but it also does not require years of weekly sessions for everyone.
Some people notice meaningful shifts within the first few months. Others need more time to work through layers of protection and trauma. Meaningful, lasting change often takes six months to a year or longer. The pace is guided by your nervous system’s readiness, not a predetermined timeline.
Progress in IFS often shows up as subtle shifts before major changes become apparent. You may notice less emotional reactivity to familiar triggers, more ability to pause before responding, increased awareness of when parts are active, reduced shame or self-blame, feeling more grounded or present in daily life, and greater internal calm even when life is stressful.
Healing is not linear. Some weeks bring clarity and insight. Others feel quieter or more difficult. Both are normal parts of the process. Trust that if you’re building relationships with your parts and strengthening Self-leadership, the work is unfolding as it should.
IFS is particularly helpful for people who feel inner conflict, notice self-sabotaging patterns, struggle with chronic shame or self-criticism, carry unresolved trauma from childhood or relationships, find that insight alone hasn’t created lasting change, experience parts of themselves that seem to work against their goals, want therapy that honors complexity rather than simplifying it, or seek depth work that addresses root causes rather than surface symptoms.
You don’t need a formal diagnosis to benefit from IFS. If you recognize that different parts of you have different needs, fears, and ways of protecting you, IFS can help you make sense of that internal landscape.
IFS may not be the right fit right now if you are experiencing an acute suicidal crisis, severe psychiatric symptoms needing immediate stabilization, active psychosis, severe substance withdrawal, or if you prefer highly structured, directive therapy with homework and step-by-step plans.
IFS is exploratory rather than directive. It works best when there is enough internal and external safety to support deeper parts work. If stabilization or crisis support is needed first, those foundations can be built before IFS becomes appropriate.
An IFS therapist guides you through the process of getting to know your parts with curiosity and compassion. They help you identify which parts are active, understand their protective roles, and build trust with parts that may be skeptical of therapy or afraid of change.
The therapist supports you in accessing Self-energy, helps you stay grounded when emotions feel intense, asks questions that deepen your relationship with parts, witnesses the pain exiled parts carry, and helps you integrate what shifts during sessions. The work is collaborative. You lead from Self. The therapist guides the process and holds space for whatever emerges.
The goal of IFS is not to eliminate parts but to restore balance and Self-leadership within your internal system. When parts no longer need to operate in extreme ways, the system becomes more harmonious. Self-criticism softens. Emotional overwhelm decreases. Relationships feel steadier. You respond from the present rather than reacting from the past.
IFS supports integration, not perfection. Parts remain part of you. They simply take on healthier, less burdensome roles as the Self leads with curiosity, compassion, and clarity.
Some criticisms of IFS include that it can feel too abstract for people who prefer concrete, structured approaches, the language of parts may not resonate with everyone, progress can feel slow for those seeking quick symptom relief, it requires a high level of internal awareness and emotional capacity, and accessing Self-energy can be difficult when protective parts are highly blended.
These are valid considerations. IFS is not a one-size-fits-all approach. It works best for people drawn to depth work, comfortable with internal exploration, and willing to move at the pace their system needs rather than forcing rapid change.
IFS is effective for trauma because it honors protective parts rather than trying to override them. Trauma responses are not pathologized but understood as intelligent survival strategies. IFS creates internal safety before approaching wounded parts, works at the pace the nervous system can tolerate, doesn’t require detailed trauma narratives, helps parts release burdens without retraumatization, and rebuilds trust within the internal system.
Trauma often fragments the internal system. IFS helps restore wholeness by strengthening Self-leadership and allowing parts to reorganize around safety, trust, and compassion rather than fear and reactivity.
Yes. IFS has a growing evidence base supporting its effectiveness for trauma, depression, anxiety, substance use, and relationship difficulties. Research shows IFS helps reduce symptoms, improve emotional regulation, increase self-compassion, and support long-term healing. It is recognized as an evidence-based practice by organizations like SAMHSA.
While more research is ongoing, IFS has strong clinical support and is used by therapists worldwide to help people heal from complex trauma and develop stronger internal leadership.
Yes. I provide online IFS therapy to residents throughout Washington State. Sessions are conducted via secure telehealth video, allowing you to receive care from the comfort of your own home. Online therapy offers flexibility, accessibility, and continuity of care regardless of your location within the state.
I provide online IFS therapy to residents throughout Washington State. While I have a verified business address for administrative purposes, all sessions are conducted through secure telehealth video, which allows you to receive care from anywhere in the state.
Washington State Regional Coverage
I serve clients in the following Washington State regions:
Puget Sound Region
Seattle, Tacoma, Bellevue, Redmond, Kirkland, Medina, Clyde Hill, Yarrow Point, Hunts Point, Mercer Island, Sammamish, Newcastle, Woodinville, Snoqualmie, Issaquah, Bainbridge Island, Gig Harbor, Mill Creek, DuPont, Maple Valley
Southwest Washington
Camas, Ridgefield
All Other Washington State Residents
Online therapy is available to all Washington State residents, regardless of city or county.
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