A reader asks:

I have read your biography, on your website, and am very impressed by (amongst other things) the fact that 1) you have already been a successful practicing psychotherapist for years before adopting IFS, and 2) you switched careers after already having made your mark in computer science, which would seem to be a drastically different field from psychotherapy, though I suspect that it’s not as different as it would first appear. Once I finish your book and have a bit more time to reflect on it, I will have some specific questions for you. In the mean time, I would like to know more about how you came to switch from computer science to psychotherapy and how you came to discover and adapt IFS into your practice.

Jay replies:

Back in the early 70’s, when I was teaching and doing research in computer science, I was enjoying my work, but I didn’t feel that it fit my life purpose. It didn’t feel like the kind of contribution I wanted to make to the world. I had been in therapy myself and got a great deal from it, so I was drawn to becoming a therapist, both to further my own growth and to make a contribution to the world that felt aligned with my higher purpose. So in 1973, I went back to school to get a PhD in psychology and started practicing therapy. I still use those mind qualities that made me a good computer scientist in my writing and theorizing about psychotherapy.

Many years later in 2003, when I had been practicing therapy for 30 years, a friend and colleague told me about IFS and how effective it was. I wasn’t looking for a new form of therapy, but it seemed like IFS was good with trauma, so I checked it out. I was totally intrigued with what I discovered, so I proceeded to get trained in IFS and started using it in my practice. It was so incredibly powerful that I completely changed the way I was working, and I adopted IFS completely. My work is still informed by all that I learned in the 30 years prior to IFS, but IFS is almost completely all that I do. It is that good. Since then I have been teaching classes and writing books about IFS to bring it to the larger world of people who aren’t in therapy.