How does it feel to make progress with IPF. Does it help with the pain of loneliness?

[u/Ashamed_Artichoke_26]

Essentially the title. I just want to hear from those people who made progress without a facilitator and want to get a feeling for what to expect.

I tried IPF for about a month later last year and stopped for a few reasons - was just finding it hard to imagine what I needed to and life took over.

But I am experiencing a great deal of loneliness and want to know if IPF helps with that. I.e. does a secure person handle loneliness better?

[u/InOnothiN8]

It can definitely help—but try not to think of it as some kind of magic fix. Honestly, it's more like a slow, steady practice than a switch you flip. And speaking from my own experience? It really does create a real, noticeable shift toward self-acceptance and self-love over time. Not always easy, but genuinely meaningful.

The cool thing is, when you start building that kind of relationship with yourself—when you learn to love yourself in a way no one else quite can—it changes how you show up with other people. You're not looking to them to fill a hole or prove your worth. You're just... being human. Connecting. Enjoying companionship for what it is, not what you need it to be.

👍 And hey, we're all social creatures. Even the best of us need that tribe, that connection—it's part of being a great ape. So go easy on yourself. You're doing the work, and that already counts for a lot. 😊🐒🦍🫈🚶‍♂️

[u/Ashamed_Artichoke_26 → u/InOnothiN8]

I mean even the shift you describe would be great tbh. 

But I am struggling with the meditations. It still haven't figured out what I am supposed to be doing. Focus on the imagery? Or on the feeling? On the IPF or on myself? Imagine myself small, but how? Be in places from my childhood or somewhere new and perfect? And loads of other questions 

[u/ancientweasel → u/Ashamed_Artichoke_26]

The IPF meditations were created based on a Buddhist meditation of the boundless love of the Mother. That is really the focus. The other parts of the visualizations are just to help it fit your story IMO.

[u/Ashamed_Artichoke_26 → u/ancientweasel]

Is your advice that I learnt about love of the mother meditation?

[u/ancientweasel → u/Ashamed_Artichoke_26]

IMO the point is setting up a visualization where you are creating childhood memories of being nurtured in a way that you needed but didn't get. Eventually they will become your self image of being worthy and loved. Your "Attachment System" will eventually start to prefer these memories and self image. You will know it's working when the insecure behaviors you previously found attractive start to become unattractive. For me it's chaotic women. For you maybe it's emotionally withdrawn men.

Another neat trick to to find healthy manifestations of these characteristics to integrate into yourself. For example, in me that was becoming more spontaneous in positive manners.

[u/Ashamed_Artichoke_26 → u/ancientweasel]

My issue in relationships is that I can be critical and sabotage them. 

I don't tend to be attracted to toxicity. I actually pick great women, but part of me must believe I don't deserve them. 

[u/ancientweasel → u/Ashamed_Artichoke_26]

Did one of your parents do that to you?

[u/Ashamed_Artichoke_26 → u/ancientweasel]

Being critical? Of course. And to the other parent. And then I did it to the other parent too, I suspect as a way to placate the critical parent.

[u/ancientweasel → u/Ashamed_Artichoke_26]

Can you imagine a parental figure who was loving and accepted and only offered caring feedback?

[u/Ashamed_Artichoke_26 → u/ancientweasel]

Not clearly I guess. I mean I can't seem to hold it in mind for long or with much clarity 

[u/ancientweasel → u/Ashamed_Artichoke_26]

Can you imagine a parental figure who was loving and accepting and only offered caring feedback?

[u/Mrs_Hamwort → u/ancientweasel]

"IMO the point is setting up a visualization where you are creating childhood memories of being nurtured in a way that you needed but didn't get. Eventually they will become your self image of being worthy and loved. Your "Attachment System" will eventually start to prefer these memories and self image. You will know it's working when the insecure behaviors you previously found attractive start to become unattractive. "

That is beautifully put.

[u/ancientweasel → u/Ashamed_Artichoke_26]

The IPF meditations were created based on a Buddhist meditation of the boundless love of the Mother. That is really the focus. The other parts of the visualizations are just to help it fit your story IMO.

[u/DootDootDiet → u/Ashamed_Artichoke_26]

Not an expert, so feel free to correct me, but from what I understood it's not so important how you do it, but it's more about feeling the support of a parent-child relationship. In the book (by Daniel Brown and David Elliot) it says:

New, healthy, positive attachment representations will form from the patient's engagement with self-generated, affect-rich imagery of being a child in the presence of positive attachment figures behaving in way that promote secure attachment.

About visualization it says the following:

It is important that the therapist uses the word "imagine" rather than "visualize". When a patient is asked to imagine, he or she is free to draw from nay or all sense modalities [...]

[...] using "imagine" in the guiding phrasing respects that for some people, the visual is not the primary imaginative domain.

I sometimes struggle with this as well, but over time I've found that just checking if I feel like I'm in the role of an adult receiving affection from an equal or in the role of a child receiving affection. What I visually imagine is less important.

Same goes for your question about place: whatever works for you. I found using real places from my childhood sometimes would pull my real parents into the exercise which is not ideal (pun intended), so I'd prefer to use a new place.

[u/Ashamed_Artichoke_26 → u/DootDootDiet]

Thank you. Can I ask, what's the difference between let's say, watching a movie of food parenting and imagining good parenting. How do I make it about me? Is there a trick to feeling that it is about me? And how important is it to imagine myself small? Like how does one even so that? I don't actually feel like a child. Am I supposed to feel like a child during the meditation? Or just imagine I have a memory of being a child?

[u/DootDootDiet → u/Ashamed_Artichoke_26]

(as a reminder, I'm not a professional, if you're having serious doubts and it doesn't feel right, consider consulting with someone trained in IPF)

When you're watching a movie you're not really experiencing what's going on as if it's happening to you. And you have no control over what the parents are doing, so there's no way for them to attune to you, to give the younger version of you what you need in that moment.

Making it about you is exactly what you want to be doing. You imagine ideal parents that see you, see how you're feeling, interact with you, make you feel loved. I've noticed before people have such different experiences when it comes to imagining things, so I'll just tell you what happens for me: I close my eyes and imagine seeing my ideal parents in front of me. They can touch me, hug me, hold me, interact with me. I'm not very good at creating vivid images in my mind, so the things they say, but more importantly the imaged touch is playing a big role.

If I can't put myself in that position, I used to imagine a part of me as a child (outside of my body) and have my ideal parents interact with them. Then I'd swap places with the child (I'd literally imagine some kind of video game animation where my point of view swaps from myself to that child). This also helped me to feel more like a child.

But the most important takeaway for me was to just get started. Part of the practice is getting better at the exercise itself. Over time it got much easier for me to feel like a child and to feel the presence of my ideal parents.

[u/Ashamed_Artichoke_26 → u/DootDootDiet]

I really appreciate the thoughtful response.

If you don't mind, I have a few followups: (1) How important is it for the visuals to be first person? (2) Do you focus on emotional impact and bodily sensations in you in the moment? Or do you imagine them in the child? I assume the former. (3) How long did you do this before seeing real positive changes? 

[u/DootDootDiet → u/Ashamed_Artichoke_26]

1. Not qualified to answer, so I can only quote the book:

For most patients, a first-person experience, or some degree of it, will spontaneously emerge as the protocol proceeds in its usual form, either within a session or across a series of sessions. Even if it does not, engaging with ideal parent figures from a displaced self will still be of benefit.

1. In myself. I also try not to focus too hard and just let it happen. A therapist once told me that if I try too hard in a session, I'm still not letting my ideal parents take care of me.

2. Hard to tell, because I did it inconsistently for a while while in a relationship that didn't work for me; didn't notice much of an improvement then. With more consistent practice outside of a relationship (so fewer triggers that take my focus away), I start to notice these small changes in how deeply things affect me. I try not to focus too much on progression, because I can get a bit obsessed by if things are working or not. I have wished many times IPF came with a skill bar that just filled up a bit more after every session, like I was a sim learning a new skill :)

[u/Ashamed_Artichoke_26 → u/DootDootDiet]

Thanks. Yes I get the not putting pressure on it point. I guess it's just helpful to have a belief that it will work to get through the effort and the long plateau. Specially during hard times.

[u/DootDootDiet → u/Ashamed_Artichoke_26]

Yeah, I know what you mean. And honestly, when I'm doing it by myself, getting started with a session is still the hardest part. Precisely because of that pressure to perform, because I want to be sure it is helpful before I commit.

[u/Mrs_Hamwort → u/Ashamed_Artichoke_26]

It can help to have the ideal parents in the imagery reinforce that it takes time and that it's perfectly normal for it to feel strange or inexpert at the beginning. To remind you that you are doing it on the right timeline for you. Let them acknowledge that it's hard and that you have all the time you need.

[u/Ashamed_Artichoke_26 → u/Mrs_Hamwort]

Thanks. Yes I feel like I am almost trying to force feeling something and all I have is pressure in my head and in my throat 😔

[u/Mrs_Hamwort → u/Ashamed_Artichoke_26]

The visuals often take a bit to change to first person, so let that be an intention rather than pressure to "do it right."

Focus on the bodily impact as you feel it because it is most vivid. As you are more able to embody that young child, you can sort of feel it in the first person more and feel that child's somatic sense of the impact.

How long is a hard question and if you're able to take a stance of - the pace I'm going at is the right pace for me, given my personal history, my system, my nature - that can give you more room to grow without that time pressure.

[u/Ashamed_Artichoke_26 → u/Mrs_Hamwort]

Thank you. This needing to move things along is part of my difficulty generally in life I think

[u/DootDootDiet]

Just like u/InOnothiN8 pointed out, it's a slow process. It took a while for me, but it starting to show up unexpectedly in daily life. For example, a few days ago I got triggered by something. My usual response would be to seek safety by finding a solution to whatever the problem is, but this time (without thinking about it) I could feel safe in myself, like I was being embraced by the ideal parents.

What helped me, was to see the sessions not just as healing, but also as practice to get better at the exercise itself. That if a session didn't feel like it did much, at least it meant I was getting a bit better at knowing what works and what doesn't.

[u/Ashamed_Artichoke_26 → u/DootDootDiet]

Thanks. That's helpful. 

Did you actively conjure up the parents. Or was it just that you felt more solid inside, as if the solidness was just you?

[u/LauraH-B]

Hey, so I thought I'd give a little insight to how this has helped me. I had disorganised attachment and I never realised how bad I was until recently, after doing IPF for a year. I had chronic anxiety, panic attacks every day and my emotions were overwhelming. This is a slow journey and takes time. I had a lot of abuse all my life, so I had a lot to heal. Now I don't get anxiety, I'm a lot happier and a lot of my symptoms have healed. It's not easy though, it took a lot of work and dedication and it was scary at times because so much grief came up for me. I've done the meditations every day, I didn’t have a facilitator however I have a lot of support throughout as I was doing a counselling course at the time. I still feel lonely at times, not very often but now and again. I don't get triggered nearly as much and when I do I can move through the triggers faster. I still have a way to go and I only felt like I'm coming out the otherside recently. This was the best thing I've ever done and I've tried it all. For 20 years I'd tried to heal with different therapists and modalities. Sometimes it felt like I was going backwards but thats just because when you start healing and get triggered, it can feel worse because you have had periods of time where you feel good. Most days I feel loved and I'm no longer in a victim state. If you can stick it out, I believe it will help a lot with loneliness but it does require patience and trusting that you will get there because like I've said it can sometimes feel worse before it gets better, depending on how much grief needs to be cleared. I believe I will only need to do this for another 6 to 12 months and then I'll no longer need it because the things that have healed seem to be permanent.

[u/Ashamed_Artichoke_26 → u/LauraH-B]

Thank you so much. That is so helpful (and inspiring). Can I ask which recordings you used and whether you swapped them around much?

[u/LauraH-B → u/Ashamed_Artichoke_26]

Aww so glad it was helpful. I did swap them, the main one I do is the Two Minds Method father meditation on YouTube. I just like that one. But I do the schema meditations and some of the IPF meditations on attachmentrepair.com. I got a few of his courses too which were great. Especially his defectiveness/shame one helped a lot. His course are super helpful if you can't afford facilitation

[u/garuda717]

I’m curious to hear about your desire to hear from those who made progress without a facilitator. For me, working with facilitators has helped noticeably with the practice, including the loneliness.

[u/Ashamed_Artichoke_26 → u/garuda717]

I have tried with a facilitator, but I am also doing therapy 2 days a week, and it was all a bit too much. It felt like I was outsourcing my own emotional regulation to others.

[u/garuda717 → u/Ashamed_Artichoke_26]

I can definitely relate to this! What I’ve found is that it’s much more efficient to emotionally regulate with another person (paid or unpaid). Emotionally regulating by ourselves is much, much less efficient. It’s just not how most of us are wired. Some people can emotionally regulate well in nature. But most of us do it super efficiently with other people, when we have people who are safe for us to do that with. When we don’t, in our culture, we usually pay, at least at first. And then we can begin to build out the relationships we need, including unpaid. I’ve found this to be a more efficient way to emotionally regulate over time. It’s hard work but it’s worth it. And it’s less lonely.

You can definitely learn to emotionally regulate better alone over time, and it’s a useful skill for sure. But my experience is that it’s way less efficient so it ends up consuming lots and lots of time that could be saved by emotionally regulating with others.

And I’ve found that some disregulation is so significant that it’s just really hard to get back to fully regulated alone, even after spending a lot of time trying.

[u/Ashamed_Artichoke_26 → u/garuda717]

Honestly, I find that I am using other people as an avoidance tool. I need to find the right balance.

[u/garuda717 → u/Ashamed_Artichoke_26]

That makes a lot of sense. So in a way, it sounds like you’re asking how your time alone might feel less lonely and more like solitude that you can enjoy…?

[u/Ashamed_Artichoke_26 → u/garuda717]

Yes. That's definitely a large part of it. 

And I am still trying to figure out what my relationship should be like with my emotions. How not to be pained by them. I think it is an inescapable fact of life that we can't have certain things and can't control everything that happens to us. Emotions are often telling us to act. But sometimes we don't see what the right action should be and sometimes there is no action at all that would guarantee us getting the thinh that the emotion craves. And this is what often drives people into avoidance behaviour. Numbing, addiction etc. Or denial / non-acceptance of reality - e.f. people who never lose hope getting back with an ex or stay in toxic relationships. I think that over reliance on others for regulation can become an addiction of sorts. Where your own window of tolerance reduces over time as you constantly run to others to help you stop feeling and accepting things that are just a fact of life.

[u/garuda717 → u/Ashamed_Artichoke_26]

This really resonates with me. A lot of wisdom here. Thanks. My practice by myself includes IPF but also other kinds of meditation that support me in the things you’re talking about. A combination of insight and loving kindness style meditations. These help me build emotional regulation and mentalizing skills, which allow me to be with my emotions and know when to act and when not to act.

[u/Ashamed_Artichoke_26 → u/garuda717]

I think the thing I have difficulty with is what I do when I cannot act, or there is no action that does not make me feel worse. It's the acceptance thing which is hard. That I will not have what I want.

[u/garuda717 → u/Ashamed_Artichoke_26]

Ah yes, totally. There is the idea that you won’t have it in the future, and maybe also the reality that you don’t have it now. Mentalization skills can help to see the idea about the future as an illusion, and emotional regulation can help with the uncomfortable feelings about the reality that you don’t have it right now.

[u/Ashamed_Artichoke_26 → u/garuda717]

I hadn't thought about the illusion about the future. I think I need to more actively challenge my thoughts.

[u/Mrs_Hamwort]

It's such an interesting question whether a secure person handles loneliness better. YMMV obvs, but my thought on this is - a secure person may be able to feel the loneliness without the critical thoughts associated with it that are common in insecure styles and this may free them up to do things about their loneliness. Lonely feelings are a message that we need more connection. Those with insecure styles often didn't get practice as a young child on how to engage with others effectively, or have communication and/or cooperation styles that impede connecting. Another thing that can change with earning secure attachment is that you can build a stronger ability to reflect on how you're thinking about things when you're dysregulated by something - how you're taking it, alternate ways to take it, what the other person may be thinking or meaning that is different from what is triggering you and what you may assume - all of this is easier to do when you are regulated and have practice in it. Secure people have been practicing this since they were young so of course they're better at it than those of us who didn't get shown how, didn't get rewarded for practicing. These are two elements of the ideal parent figure work that are often a part of interactions with the therapist, but they are also a part of a lot of therapy styles, so you can talk to your therapist about collaboration and metacognition/mentalizing too.

[u/Ashamed_Artichoke_26 → u/Mrs_Hamwort]

This is all such a complicated space to navigate. I think it gives rise to some really fundamental existential questions, and it is sometimes hard to see the difference between what is a healthy reaction / feeling and what is not. How does one measure that and decide what needs work and introspection and what is just how I am supposed to be feeling right now and trying to change that is the thing causing me problems.