In this special livestream episode of Empowered Through Compassion, David and Heather are joined by an extraordinary panel of contributors from the book IFS-Informed EMDR: Creative and Collaborative Approaches for an amazing conversation exploring foundational frameworks that shape trauma healing.

Together, Bridger Falkenstien, David Archer, Michelli Simpson, Athena Phillips, and Laura Kosak discuss the relational and systemic dimensions of healing, including: intersubjectivity, anti-racist psychotherapy, dissociation and spirituality. We even bring up topics such as predictive processing, structural dissociation, and revolutionary joy! We look at the role that culture and identity plays in therapy.

Throughout the conversation, a shared thread emerges: healing does not happen in isolation. Trauma exists within systems, relationships, histories, and bodies. As a result, healing often requires compassionate attunement within a relational space.

This discussion explores how therapists can move beyond techniques and toward a deeper understanding of the therapeutic relationship itself as part of the healing process. The panel reflects on the importance of slowing down, listening to protective systems, cultivating consent and of course being mindful of co-regulation. We can honor spirituality by understanding how people make meaning of their surroundings and their inner world.

This episode is for therapists, healers, and anyone interested in the evolving intersection of EMDR, IFS, attachment, dissociation, systems thinking, and relational trauma healing.

THEMES DISCUSSED

GUEST HIGHLIGHTS

Bridger discusses Somatic Integration and Processing (SIP), intersubjectivity, and the importance of understanding therapy as a relational field rather than a one-person psychology. He explores the “window and mirror” metaphor and how therapists must remain aware of both the client’s experience and their own presence within the room.

Website: https://beyondhealingcenter.com

David Archer explores anti-racist psychotherapy, systems awareness, predictive processing, and the relationship between trauma, oppression, dissociation, and culture. He emphasizes the importance of understanding clients within broader systemic and historical contexts.

Website: https://archertherapy.com/

Michelle highlights the importance of recognizing the systems surrounding both therapist and clients. She speaks about cultural identity, embodied dissociation, and how therapists can become allies to disempowered and subjugated people. Specifically, she shares importance of being a compassionate witnesses and advocating for clients who are threatened by the larger culture.

Website: https://www.spirosperopllc.com/

Athena shares powerful insights on structural dissociation, fragmentation, consent, pacing, and co-regulation. She explores how dissociation can be understood as an adaptive survival strategy and emphasizes the importance of slowing down and gaining permission within trauma work.

Website: https://athenaphillips.com/

Laura discusses spirituality, meaning-making, transpersonal healing, and the importance of helping clients reconnect with a larger sense of belonging and connection. She also reflects on the emerging relationship between AI, emotional support, and the human longing for connection and meaning.

Website: https://laurakosak.com/

ABOUT THE BOOK

IFS-Informed EMDR: Creative and Collaborative Approaches explores the evolving integration of Internal Family Systems (IFS) and Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR). Featuring a diverse group of contributors, the book highlights relational, creative, somatic, systemic, and spiritually informed approaches to trauma healing.

Edited by David Polidi. Published by Routledge.

ABOUT EMPOWERED THROUGH COMPASSION

Empowered Through Compassion is a trauma-informed therapy and educational platform co-created by David and Heather Polidi. Through therapy, consultation, podcast conversations, livestreams, and trainings, ETC explores the integration of Internal Family Systems (IFS), EMDR, Motivational Interviewing, attachment theory, and relational healing.

The Empowered Through Compassion podcast brings together clinicians, authors, researchers, and healers to explore compassionate and integrative approaches to trauma healing and human connection.

Learn more at: https://www.empoweredthroughcompassion.com

In this episode, I sit down with Bryan Post to explore a simple yet powerful idea: that all behavior arises from a state of stress, and beneath that stress is either fear or love.

What stood out to me in this conversation is how Bryan’s work and model aligns with IFS, Motivational Interviewing and EMDR. There is an understanding through all of this work how healing does not happens just through technique, but through presence. As we process distress, we are able to bring more awareness and love to our inner systems.  

Bryan and I explore how trauma becomes interwoven with our personality and shapes the states of being we move through in our daily lives. These states influence how we perceive ourselves, others, and the world. How we react to a given situation is usually based more on past experiences than on the present moment.

Bryan speaks of the importance of relationship and co-regulation in the healing process. Love is something that becomes the most powerful change agent. He defines this love as presence and breath. 

This conversation holds a beautiful invitation for us to slow down, and become more aware of how we can move from fear to love in our lives. 

Bryan Post is a clinician, author, and expert in trauma-informed care, known for his development of the Stress Model. His work focuses on helping children, adults, and families understand how stress and trauma shape behavior, and how healing can occur through relationship, awareness, and connection.

Empowered Through Compassion is a podcast exploring the integration of Internal Family Systems, EMDR, and Motivational Interviewing. Through these compassionate conversations, we aim to deepen our understanding of trauma and healing. We hope that information here can inspire connection and support to both clinicians and individuals.

In this episode of Empowered Through Compassion, I sit down with Sarah Cameron to explore the heart of Motivational Interviewing (MI) and how it comes alive not just as a technique, but as a way of being. Our conversation moves beyond skills and into something deeper, "the spirit", and how it parallels "Self-energy" in Internal Family Systems.

We talk about Sarah’s work at Amiga and her passion for helping clinicians embody the spirit of PACE in real-world conversations. This is a feeling of Partnership, Acceptance, Compassion and Empowerment, which is foundational for MI. We discuss how these words are not just "check boxes" we have to fill out and "do", but rather, that are qualities that we continue to access and live throughout our lives.

MI can be added to IFS-informed EMDR, not as a competing model, but as a complementary path that adds more dimensions of what can be possible through therapy. I share my own journey with MI, and how it provided me with a language which opened up space for me to really listen and reflect change as it was happening in the therapy space. Sarah and I connected around what it means to build bridges across models, and disrupt feelings of being in a community without integration might feel siloed.

This conversation is about presence, about hope, and about what becomes possible when we begin to embody the spirit of the work we are doing.

Sarah Cameron is a Motivational Interviewing trainer and leader within the MINT community. She is deeply involved in advancing MI as a developmental and relational practice, helping clinicians move beyond technique into embodiment of MI spirit. Through her work with Amiga, she focuses on cultivating real-world application of MI in a way that is sustainable, human, and transformative.

Sarah has contributed to several important works in the field of Motivational Interviewing:

Empowered Through Compassion is a podcast exploring the integration of Internal Family Systems, EMDR, and Motivational Interviewing. Through these compassionate conversations, we aim to deepen our understanding of trauma and healing. We hope that information here can inspire connection and support to both clinicians and individuals.

This special episode was recorded in front of a live audience. Heather and David Polidi host an incredible group of contributors to IFS Informed EMDR: Creative and Collaborative Approaches. We explored the foundational sections of the book. In this gathering we expressed our thoughts on healing, and how it is not a technique. Instead, it begins with awareness and with a relationship.

Each contributor reflected on their chapter, and what stood out for them. In the introduction, David hoped to convey how everyone can healing their trauma wounds, no matter how much suffering someone carries. There is an inner wisdom that knows how to move toward healing when the right relational space is created. Our role as therapists is to help create that space. 

Zandra Bamford shared how impacted she has been through by IFS and its non-pathologizing nature. Particularly, Zandra felt it was a very gentle model to understand protectors. Then, we discussed the foundations of combining the two models in a unified way. 

Integration becomes a way of holding multiple perspectives at once. A key shift that emerges in IFS informed EMDR is focusing on "parts" as the true focus of healing, rather than memory networks. "Parts" hold pain, parts and organize around protection. As we deepen relationships with these parts, we can offer EMDR, and bilateral stimulation, to unburden these parts. 

Annabel McGoldrick emphasized how IFS invites us to stay aware of our own parts, our assumptions, and our internal responses as we sit with another. This awareness becomes part of the healing field itself.

Bruce Hersey articulated the Syzygy model, which integrates EMDR, IFS, and Coherence Therapy. Bruce shared that instead of calling this work "parts work" he understands it as "Self work." Recognizing the importance of Self in the system, opens up a new way to appreciate necessary elements of dual awareness.

Michelle Richardson expanded Syzygy's “Discovery” phase, and how valuable this is when working with highly protective systems. Peggy Kolodny’s shared how the integration of art, somatics, and Jungian active imagination, can also add so much to these trauma healing models.

What emerges is not just a model, but a way of being. A way of practicing therapy that is slower, more relational, and deeply respectful of the complexity of the human system.

Bruce Hersey

Annabel McGoldrick

Peggy Kolodny

Zandra Bamford

Heather Polidi (co-host)

Empowered Through Compassion is a podcast where conversations about trauma healing meet the crossroads of Internal Family Systems, EMDR, and Motivational Interviewing. Through dialogue with leading voices in the field, we explore how compassion, connection, and relational presence can transform the way we understand and heal trauma.

#EmpoweredThroughCompassion #IFS #EMDR #IFSInformedEMDR #TraumaHealing #PartsWork #SelfEnergy #RelationalHealing #SomaticHealing #CoherenceTherapy #TherapistsOfInstagram #TraumaTherapy #HealingIsPossible #CompassionInPractice #AttachmentHealing

In this deeply moving and expansive conversation, David sits down with Soulla Demetriou, author, coach, and founder of Soulshine Retreats, to explore the heart of self-compassion and what it means to truly feel “enough.”

Soulla shares how her work integrates Internal Family Systems (IFS), somatic awareness, mindfulness, and ancient wisdom traditions to help people reconnect with their inner world. At the center of her approach is a powerful idea: that the body holds deep wisdom, and that healing begins when we learn to listen.

Together, David and Soulla explore the natural alignment between IFS and somatic practices, including yoga, and how both invite us into a more compassionate relationship with ourselves. They reflect on how safety, presence, and awareness open the door to new ways of responding to our inner experiences, rather than reacting from old patterns.

Soulla also shares vulnerably about her own journey with complex trauma and how it shaped her path toward this work. Her upcoming book, You Have Always Been Enough, was born from a core question many of us carry: Am I enough?

This conversation offers a grounded and hopeful path forward, highlighting how healing is not about fixing ourselves, but about building a compassionate relationship with the parts of us that have long felt unseen.

Key Themes

About Soulla Demetriou

Soulla Demetriou is an author, transformation and somatic coach, and founder of Soulshine Retreats. With over 15 years of experience facilitating transformational work, she integrates Internal Family Systems, mindfulness, somatic practices, and ancient wisdom traditions to support deep healing and self-connection.

Her work centers on self-compassion and the belief that we are inherently worthy and whole. Drawing from her own lived experience, including complex trauma and neurodivergence, Soulla offers a deeply embodied and relational approach to healing.

Her upcoming book, You Have Always Been Enough: An Inner Guide to Self-Love and Inner Freedom, releases April 9, 2026.

Resources Mentioned

Pre-order links:

Bonus: Pre-orders before April 23 include access to a complimentary one-day Self-Compassion Retreat (April 24)

The Empowered Through Compassion podcast explores trauma healing at the crossroads of Internal Family Systems (IFS), EMDR, and Motivational Interviewing. Through meaningful conversations with leading voices in the field, David and Heather create a space for reflection, learning, and connection, helping therapists and humans alike deepen their understanding of healing, relationship, and compassion.

In this conversation, David Polidi speaks with author and cultural critic Soraya Chemaly about the cultural mythology of resilience and what it means to truly heal after hardship.

In much of Western culture, resilience is framed as an individual trait. We are encouraged to bounce back quickly, return to productivity, and prove our strength by pushing through pain. Soraya challenges this narrative and invites us to reconsider resilience through a relational lens.

What if resilience is not primarily about individual toughness, but about connection?

Throughout the conversation, Soraya explores how narratives of resilience have been shaped by individualism, gender conformity, colonial thinking, and dominance based hierarchies. These narratives often isolate people rather than helping them heal. When resilience becomes synonymous with endurance and productivity, it can reinforce systems of power that separate us from one another.

David and Soraya explore how healing requires something very different. Healing often emerges through relational energy. It grows when people feel understood and connect with one another.

The conversation also explores how cognitive flexibility allows us to adapt to life’s changes rather than attempting to return to a past version of ourselves. Ultimately, the myth that resilience is only an individual achievement, is not only inaccurate but dangerous. Instead, we can understand resilience is something that also grows through relationship, compassion, and shared humanity.

• The cultural myth of resilience and the pressure to “bounce back”

“You have to be a daily pessimist but an eternal optimist.”

Soraya Chemaly reflects on the importance of holding both realism and hope at the same time. Strategic pessimism allows us to plan, organize, and act collectively, while long term optimism helps sustain movements for change and healing.

Soraya Chemaly is an award winning writer, speaker, and cultural critic whose work focuses on gender, power, culture, and social justice. She is the author of Rage Becomes Her and The Resilience Myth. Her writing has appeared in publications including The Atlantic, Time, The Guardian, and The Washington Post. Her work examines how cultural narratives shape our understanding of emotions, power, and identity.

Soraya Chemaly’s website

The Resilience Myth by Soraya Chemaly

Empowered Through Compassion explores trauma healing at the crossroads of Internal Family Systems, EMDR, and Motivational Interviewing. Through conversations with therapists, researchers, and thought leaders, the podcast examines how compassion, relational attunement, and integrative approaches to therapy can support deeper healing for individuals, couples, and communities.

In this episode of the Empowered Through Compassion podcast, David Polidi speaks with Pastor Michael Neely about domestic abuse, faith, and the responsibility of religious communities to protect those who are suffering.

Pastor Neely is the author of Black Eyes and Sweet Talk: A Biblical Perspective on Domestic Violence. Drawing from years of pastoral counseling, he challenges harmful messages that survivors sometimes hear within faith communities, including the belief that God expects people to remain in abusive marriages. Instead, Pastor Neely offers a clear and compassionate perspective: abuse has no place in a healthy relationship, and faith communities must prioritize safety, dignity, and truth.

During the conversation, Pastor Neely shares powerful stories from his ministry, including a woman who came to him in such deep distress that she was considering ending her life. These moments highlight how critical it is for pastors, counselors, and communities to recognize abuse and respond in ways that support safety rather than spiritualizing suffering.

David and Pastor Neely also explore the relationship between therapy and faith. Rather than existing in opposition, both pastoral care and trauma-informed therapy can work together to help people heal and reclaim their sense of worth and freedom.

Pastor Neely also discusses themes from his developing work examining generational trauma, including how patterns of violence in the Black community may trace back to the historical legacy of slavery and corporal punishment.

This conversation invites both therapists and faith leaders to consider how compassion, honesty, and trauma awareness can create communities where survivors are protected and healing becomes possible.

• Domestic violence within faith communities

Pastor Michael Neely is a pastor, counselor, and author focused on addressing domestic violence within faith communities. He is the author of Black Eyes and Sweet Talk: A Biblical Perspective on Domestic Violence, which challenges harmful theological messages that can keep survivors trapped in abusive relationships and encourages churches to respond with truth, protection, and compassion.

Black Eyes and Sweet Talk: A Biblical Perspective on Domestic Violence

Website

Instagram

The Empowered Through Compassion podcast explores trauma healing, compassionate leadership, and the integration of therapeutic approaches such as Internal Family Systems, EMDR, and Motivational Interviewing. Hosted by trauma therapist David Polidi, the podcast brings together therapists, authors, educators, and community leaders who are working to create spaces of safety, dignity, and healing in the world.

Each conversation invites listeners to explore the intersection of psychology, relationships, and compassionate systems change.

In this special episode of Empowered Through Compassion, I am joined by my wife and partner in life and work, Heather Polidi, LICSW. After graduating from Boston University's School of Social Work in different years, we both began our careers at Wayside Youth and Family in different departments. Heather served as Program Director of the Children’s Behavioral Health Initiative and CSA program, while I worked as an In-Home Therapist within CBHI. Today, we are co-owners of Empowered Through Compassion, a practice specializing in trauma healing and IFS-informed EMDR work.

This episode marks the beginning of something new. We are launching a free monthly Livestream series, held on the second Tuesday of each month from 12:00 to 1:00 PM EST. Our first session is March 10. This kickoff will introduce the series and our recently released book, IFS-Informed EMDR: Creative and Collaborative Approaches. Our hope is to create a thoughtful and compassionate space for meaningful conversation. In the months ahead, contributing authors from the book will join us for deeper discussions.

In this conversation, Heather takes an important step into the public side of our shared work. We talk about how Internal Family Systems has shaped not only our clinical practice, but also our marriage, communication, and shared vision for healing in community.

IFS has given us language to understand our internal worlds and how they interact. It has helped us cultivate compassion for our protector parts and develop a steadier way to stay connected during stress and conflict. Heather speaks openly about the parts that surfaced as she chose to step more visibly into this next chapter of ETC.

We would truly love for you to join us on our Livestream. Registration information for the Livestream series will be available soon on our website:

EmpoweredThroughCompassion.com

We are so appreciative of you being a part of this next chapter, in whatever way feels right for your system.

In this episode of Empowered Through Compassion, I speak with Brooke Kekos, trauma recovery mentor, clinical hypnotherapist, NLP practitioner, and author of Shattered, Broken, & Beautiful: Losing My Religion and Finding Faith. Brooke was raised in a third-generation Jehovah’s Witness family and shares her courageous journey of leaving a high-control religious environment and breaking free from patterns of emotional and relational abuse.

Our conversation explores religious trauma, identity loss, nervous system dysregulation, and the long, layered process of reclaiming self-trust. Brooke reflects on moving from indoctrination and shame toward autonomy, integration, and spiritual awakening on her own terms.

What makes this conversation so powerful is Brooke’s authenticity. She holds a deep honesty and a profound hope. We talk about how high-control systems shape belief and how healing begins with trusting your inner wisdom.

Brooke beautifully describes change as “planting seeds,” in others to help them have space for their own inner truth. In this way, we can help others reclaim their radical and beautiful authenticity.

Divorce can feel like the shattering of a world. In this episode, I sit down with Oona Mertz, a psychotherapist with over 30 years of experience, to explore what truly helps people navigate the emotional and relational complexity of divorce.

After her own divorce and healing journey, Oona began leading open-ended divorce groups for women, which she has facilitated for over 12 years. Out of this work, she has authored a new book: Unhitched: The Essential Divorce Guide for Women, a resource grounded in the lived wisdom of her clients and the stages of divorce they navigate.

We discuss why the traditional Kübler-Ross stages of grief do not fully capture this process and how Oona’s framework moves from heartbreak, through emotional turbulence, toward mending, letting go, and ultimately moving on. We also explore the loneliness of divorce, the mixed feelings that arise internally, its impact on children, and the powerful role group support can play in healing and growth.

Topics Discussed

• Why the Kübler-Ross DABDA model does not fully fit divorce

About Our Guest

Oona Mertz is a psychotherapist with over 30 years of clinical experience. After navigating her own divorce and healing process, she began facilitating divorce groups for women — a practice she has continued for more than a decade. Her newest book, Unhitched: The Essential Divorce Guide for Women, offers insight, guidance, and lived wisdom from her extensive group work and clinical experience.

Learn more about Oona and her work here:

Reflection

Divorce can be one of the most isolating human experiences, but it does not have to be endured alone. Oona reminds us that healing begins with acknowledging the heartbreak and finding connection with others who truly understand. Through this work, many discover unexpected resilience and even renewal. As Oona shares, some even go through this work and end up saying, “I can’t believe this, but my divorce became the best thing that ever happened to me.”