Internal Family Systems Research Fellowship

About the Fellowship

This prestigious fellowship will support a postdoctoral fellow or junior faculty researcher in psychology or psychiatry whose work advances rigorous scientific understanding of the Internal Family Systems (IFS) approach as a psychotherapeutic modality. While the fellowship will prioritize applications from psychologists and psychiatrists, strong candidates from all related fields are also able to apply.

Fellowship Intent

As Internal Family Systems (IFS) has become more widely used by clinicians, it is imperative that high-quality clinical research be conducted to develop an empirical understanding of this approach, evaluate its efficacy and its limitations, and evaluate its safety for various populations.

Hosted within the Department of Psychiatry at Cambridge Health Alliance (CHA), a Harvard Medical School affiliate, the Fellowship aims to expand the number of clinical researchers currently investigating IFS and its role in treatment for major public health concerns, such as PTSD, depression, anxiety, substance use, suicidality, and/or eating disorders. The fellowship is looking for fellows with a strong commitment to scientific integrity and impartiality who are seeking to deepen their experience with high-quality empirical investigation methodologies, including clinical trials. The fellowship supports studies designed to investigate potential neural and psychological mechanisms underlying IFS, recognizing that these are currently hypotheses under active exploration.

Fellow Responsibilities

The selected Richard C. Schwartz Research Fellow will receive an annual stipend aligned with NIH postdoctoral research fellowship standards, along with research-related travel and training funds. The fellow will be expected to conduct IFS-oriented research, publish in peer-review journals, and present findings at academic conferences while also engaging in formal IFS clinical training. In fulfillment of fellowship requirements, clinical practice for 10 scheduled clinical hours a week will be facilitated through CMC’s Mindful Mental Health Service and PARTS Program, which currently uses an IFS-group model for treating PTSD/CPTSD.

The Fellowship will be full-time from August 1st, 2026 to July 31st, 2027 with the potential for an application renewal for up to one year.

The selected Fellow will be mentored by Zev Schuman-Olivier, MD who is the Founding Director and Research Director for the Center for Mindfulness and Compassion (CMC) in the Department of Psychiatry at CHA. They will be able to participate in the clinical post-doctoral training opportunities associated the CHA Department of Psychology post-doctoral training program and receive a post-doctoral fellowship academic appointment to Harvard Medical School Department of Psychiatry (unless they already have a Harvard Medical School appointment). The Fellow will be mentored by CHA faculty with expertise in IFS interventions (Martha Sweezy, PhD, Hanna Soumerai, LICSW, Mary Catherine Ward, LICSW, Larry Rosenberg, PhD) and will be able to engage with Dr. Richard Schwartz, PhD, who will serve as an IFS mentor.

Unless they have already completed an approved prior IFS training, the clinical research Fellow is expected to participate in a formal Level 1 or Level 2 training during the post-doctoral year with financial support from the Foundation for Self-Leadership. Level 1 training participation will be encouraged to have started prior to the start of the fellowship year, when possible. After acceptance in the fellowship, CMC and the Foundation for Self-Leadership will collaborate with fellows to schedule an online Level 1 training if it has not already been completed by the applicant.

Eligibility

Our sponsor the Foundation for Self-Leadership, and CMC expect the selected post-doctoral researcher to be a highly qualified researcher with great potential in the field. The selected researcher should either be fully credentialed in a field of specialty or have completed a dissertation for a PhD in psychology (or equivalent), and seeking a full-time post-doctoral placement. Recruitment for the fellowship will prioritize applications from psychologists and psychiatrists, but strong candidates from all related fields are also able to apply.

The identified Fellow should be willing to engage in extensive, IFS-focused research that will be vetted through publications in peer-reviewed journals and presented in reputable forums and conferences. The Fellow is expected to apply for external funding from leading granting agencies where applicable and pursue development as an independent investigator.

Fellowship Funding

The Fellowship, which is made possible by a grant from the Foundation for Self Leadership, provides an annual stipend in line with NIH post-doctoral research fellowship salaries and commensurate with the applicant’s past post-doctoral research experience. Additionally, the Fellow will receive from the Foundation a research-related travel fund of up to $5,000 per year for presentations at conferences or added professional development. Applicants are expected to work an average of 10 weekly clinical hours per year in order to receive the full annual stipend.

This Fellowship grant will be awarded for one-year with a renewal application available in some cases with a requirement that continuation for a second year be based on progress in the first year of the fellowship.

Application Process

Applicants are expected to complete the online application form and submit the following materials to asanousi@challiance.org by Monday 12/15/2025 at 11:59PM.

Materials to submit include the following:

-Application Form

-Updated CV (in PDF format)

-All Relevant Transcripts from Clinical Internship and PhD Program with GPA

-Writing Sample (e.g., PDF of a first author paper in a peer-reviewed journal)

-Three (3) Signed Letters of Support (Including at least one from a research supervisor and one from a clinical supervisor)

This Fellowship grant will be awarded on a yearly basis with a renewal application required to continue for a second year based on progress demonstrated in the first year of the fellowship.

About Dr. Richard Schwartz, Developer of the Internal Family Systems Approach

A featured speaker for national professional organizations, Dr. Schwartz has given thousands of workshops and keynote addresses. He published many books, including Internal Family Systems Therapy (Second Edition, Guilford, 2020), The Mosaic Mind (Trailheads Press, 2003), and No Bad Parts (Sounds True, 2021) as well as over fifty articles about IFS. Dr. Schwartz founded and led the IFS Institute, which is a vibrant and rapidly growing organization today. Dr. Schwartz is a teaching associate in the Department of Psychiatry at Cambridge Health Alliance, which is affiliated with the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.

About the IFS Psychotherapeutic Modality

IFS offers a clear, non-pathologizing, and empowering view of human cognitive and emotional life. The Center for Mindfulness and Compassion conducts rigorous research to establish the feasibility, acceptability, safety, and efficacy/effectiveness of the IFS therapeutic approach across different clinical presentations. Emerging evidence from small randomized clinical trials and quasi-experimental single-arm studies has highlighted the potential that IFS holds, with positive pilot studies among patients with depression and/or post-traumatic stress disorder. Multiple studies have demonstrated increases in self-compassion. The current body of research remains limited in scope, so well-designed randomized controlled trials (RCTs) with replication for each specific mental health condition are required to establish IFS as an evidence-based intervention for condition-specific mental health treatment indications. To date, reductions in depression are the only mental health condition that has demonstrated statistically significant improvement across multiple pilot RCTs. Larger fully-powered clinical trials are needed for each clinical indication. Finally, though several studies report high levels of acceptability, the risk of harm or adverse events needs to be systematically studied. The studies conducted thus far have provided valuable preliminary insights and represent a strong foundation for future research.

Sources:

1. Ally, D., Tobiasz-Veltz, L., Tu, K., Comeau, A., Bumpus, C., Blot, T., Rice, F. K., Orr, B., Soumerai Rea, H., Sweezy, M., & Schuman-Olivier, Z. (2025). A pilot study of an online group-based Internal Family Systems intervention for comorbid posttraumatic stress disorder and substance use. Frontiers in Psychiatry, Volume 16-2025. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2025.1544435

2. Buys, M. E. (2025). Exploring the evidence for Internal Family Systems therapy: a scoping review of current research, gaps, and future directions. Clinical Psychologist, 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1080/13284207.2025.2533127 

3. Comeau, A., Smith, L. J., Smith, L., Soumerai Rea, H., Ward, M. C., Creedon, T. B., Sweezy, M., Rosenberg, L. G., & Schuman-Olivier, Z. (2024). Online group-based internal family systems treatment for posttraumatic stress disorder: Feasibility and acceptability of the program for alleviating and resolving trauma and stress. Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy, 16(Suppl 3), S636–S640. https://doi.org/10.1037/tra0001688

About the Foundation for Self Leadership

The Foundation for Self Leadership’s purpose is to foster greater emotional and relational healing and wellbeing—leading to a more peaceful world—through the practice of Self Leadership as identified by IFS. The Foundation has funded four independent research studies and IFS-oriented projects in K12 schools. It has recently launched a leadership-development initiative to support present and prospective agents of social change in marginalized communities and continues to engage in incubating innovative applications of the IFS model in various professional settings and societal contexts. The Foundation’s operation and programs are entirely funded by charitable giving from members of the extended IFS community.

About Cambridge Health Alliance and the Center for Mindfulness and Compassion

The Cambridge Health Alliance (CHA) is a non-profit, Harvard Medical School affiliated, healthcare provider serving Cambridge, Boston, and their metropolitan areas with 3 hospitals, 12 outpatient primary care clinics and 3 teen health clinics situated across 5 metro-north Boston region cities. The CHA Department of Psychiatry is a full academic department of the Harvard Medical School, with nationally prominent adult and child psychiatry faculty and residency programs. In order to perform the many tasks necessary to provide high quality patient care, teaching, and research, CHA employs more than 4,000 people in professional and support positions. CHA outpatient psychiatry clinics record over 130,000 outpatient visits per year. CHA ambulatory services record over 2,000,000 outpatient visits a year. The child and adolescent outpatient service provides almost 14,000 visits per year. Psychiatry Department staff is also engaged in numerous clinical trials, including work on addictions, adolescent mental health, trauma, opioid use, chronic pain, mindfulness, depression and anxiety, and health equity.

The Center for Mindfulness and Compassion (CMC) is a vibrant multi-disciplinary center integrated into the Cambridge Health Alliance (CHA) system in the CHA Department of Psychiatry, affiliated with Harvard Medical School. CMC is dedicated to enhancing the health and well-being of CHA’s diverse community by integrating evidence-based mindfulness and compassion into health care. CMC’s mission is realized across three main arms: clinical innovation, professional training, and scientific training. CMC was founded in 2014 with broad support.