Endorsements:
"Steffi Bednarek is an original thinker who has extended IFS into territory where the inner life meets the systems we are embedded in. The result is a framework of unusual power, range, and impact. Systems Wayfinding changes what is possible for anyone working on social transformation.
I’m not aware of anything else that brings psychological depth and systems literacy together with so much rigor and relevance for our times. I am proud that IFS is part of this vital work and I recommend it wholeheartedly to anyone who feels the urgency of this moment."
- Dr. Richard Schwartz
Founder of IFS
“Systems Wayfinding is a programme of transformation and empowerment. Led by some of our most innovative and experienced teachers, this programme offers a wide ranging exploration of complex systems that will enable you to build a more ecological and inter-connected world view. This programme will enable you to think systematically about the world in which you live and to shift the systems you're part of towards greater health."
— Satish Kumar, Founder of Schumacher College.
“Systems Wayfinding is an utterly unique offering that brings together the best of systems thinking, social activism and cultural creativity in this time of consequential choices, colossal change and profound societal upheaval.
This ten-week program promises new levels of orientation and clarity, agency and empowerment, wellbeing and hope. It is being guided by some of the most visionary voices today, who have come together to meet this moment holistically.
I urge you to consider undertaking this journey for what it might offer your path and for what you might then, in turn, offer to the world."
— Amy Elizabeth Fox
CEO, Mobius Executive Leadership Co-Author, Leading in Chaos
“In my 15 years of climate activism, I've heard the same debate on repeat: should we focus on changing individuals or changing systems? Of course, the answer lies somewhere in the messy middle. We need to change hearts and minds, while simultaneously creating the conditions for a better world to emerge. I'm excited for this course to help people navigate these tensions in a clarifying, empowering environment."
— Clover Hogan, climate activist and founder of Force of Nature
We cannot change what we cannot see
We are facing a convergence of ecological, social, and economic challenges that affect everyone everywhere. But our existing strategies were never designed to meet this level of complexity. And so we make decisions in conditions we have no map for.
Most of us feel increasingly overwhelmed and under-resourced, but lack support to adapt to the level of change that is upon us.
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Teams are holding more than they were trained to hold.
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Leaders are expected to meet irreconcilable demands.
- Professional culture continues to privilege data, control and certainty, whilst systemic problems require systemic solutions.
- The human dimension of change is largely unaddressed.
We have been trained to ignore these problems and move straight to the next strategy, the next action, the next plan. Maybe it is time to pause.
Systems Wayfinding won't simplify the challenges we face…
It provides navigational tools that surface the systemic information that most traditional methods miss. From an expanded perspective, different actions become possible and new paths through unmapped territory begin to emerge….
Systems Wayfinding
IFS for Social Transformation
Systems Wayfinding is a ten-week online learning journey. The programme brings the renowned ‘Internal Family Systems’ lens into the fields of systems change and provides you with a sophisticated and relational lens to read systems information, exploring how we think, act and lead in a time of upheaval.
You will learn to apply the fundamentals of IFS to stay in perceptive relationship with yourself, others and the contexts in which you live and work.
With endorsement and support from Dr. Dick Schwartz (founder of IFS) and the IFS Institute, Steffi Bednarek has extended the traditional IFS lens into a framework that makes invisible systemic patterns visible. This allows us to step into relationship with parts that have internalised the rules of the systems we try to change and to notice what is being protected, constrained, or exiled by us and the systems we live and work in. When those implicit rules become visible, different questions emerge, priorities shift, different actions follow. This wayfinding lens is simultaneously personal and political, inner and outer, rigorously grounded and practically applicable.
Enrol now
What is Internal Family Systems and why is it helpful?
IFS understands our human perception not as a singular coherent voice, but as a living ecology of parts, with many different perspectives, priorities, intentions, and needs. Some carry fear; some carry hope, others feel what can’t be spoken. Some parts shut down in the face of uncertainty, some push for action before the moment is ready. These different voices are all aspects of who we are and how we relate.
Think of it like a choir or a family where every voice holds a slightly different piece of the picture. Each one matters. Each one belongs. Each one carries something the others don't. The work is not to silence any of them, but to listen carefully and to act from a place that is large enough to hold multiple perspectives at once.
The boundary between what we call ‘inner’ and ‘outer’ is also more porous than we tend to assume. Parts are shaped by context, relationships, history and culture and in turn they have agency to shape these contexts. Different parts pick up different signals from their environments, often without us paying attention to it.
When we begin to notice our own multiplicity, we start to recognise the relational patterns in the groups, organisations, and systems we are part of.
Systems Wayfinding explores what becomes possible when we cultivate this awareness, not only in how we feel, but also in the creative responses that are available to us.
“We did not develop in isolation. We developed in relation to the wider systems we are embedded in. And those systems operate within us, shaping what we can perceive, what we consistently exile, and what decisions we are capable of making.”
— Steffi Bednarek, Founder, Centre for Climate Psychology
WHAT YOU WILL LEARN
This course will give you a practical framework that applies six core wayfinding skills:
Who is Systems Wayfinding for?
This programme is for anyone who knows that they have something to offer at this time but suspects that many strategies available to them come from the same thinking that is part of the problem.
It is for anyone who is tired of polarised arguments and longs for a lens that does not fragment inner and outer, individual and systemic, personal and political.
It is for anyone who wants to increase systems literacy and recognise potent leverage points for change in a field where the ground keeps shifting.
Pilot programme participants came from: Policy, Education, Healthcare, Leadership, Community Organising, Technology, Local Government and NGOs. Some explicitly worked on social change. Many did not. What they had in common was a sense that the maps they were using were not sufficient to navigate the territory we are in.
What Systems Wayfinding is not
This is not a training designed to optimise your capacity to function symptom free within harmful systems. This course turns that logic around and strengthens your capacity to perceive harm that has become normalised.
This is not an IFS Level 1 training. It will not teach you how to become an IFS therapist or coach. The premise here is that we are not problems to be solved. Our parts carry information. The work is to learn how to listen.
This is not a didactic five-step model that offers linear fixes to complex situations. It is a framework that provides navigational tools to move through complexity with increased systems literacy
Praise for Systems Wayfinding
A FACULTY ASSEMBLED FOR THIS MOMENT
WHO ARE YOUR TEACHERS?
GUEST TEACHER — SESSIONS 3 AND 9
Dr. Richard Schwartz
Dr. Richard Schwartz is the creator of Internal Family Systems, one of the most significant developments in contemporary psychology. He developed the model in response to what his clients were describing: a multiplicity of inner voices, each with its own perspective and protective function, governed by a calm,
compassionate centre he called the Self. Over four decades, the model has grown from a clinical approach into a widely applied framework for therapy, coaching, education, and organisational development. He is the author of numerous books, including No Bad Parts (2021).
Dick's participation in this programme grows directly from his dialogues with Steffi Bednarek — exploring, together, what becomes possible when this model is applied beyond the consulting room, at the scale of systems and civilisational change.
GUEST TEACHER — SESSION 5
Dr. Vanessa Andreotti
Vanessa Andreotti is a scholar whose work sits at the intersection of decolonial theory, Indigenous knowledge traditions, and radical adult education. Her books Hospicing Modernity (2021) and Outgrowing Modernity (2025) are among the most unflinching accounts of the worldview that produced the ecological crisis.
Her concept of “hospicing” describes accompanying the end of a worldview without hastening or trying to rescue it. She is joined by her daughter Giovanna Andreotti, who brings this work into the intergenerational and relational dimensions.
GUEST TEACHER — SESSION 7
Nora Bateson
Nora Bateson is a writer, filmmaker, educator, and systems thinker whose work explores the intersection of ecology, learning, and human complexity. Daughter of Gregory Bateson, she has developed the concepts of symmathesy and Warm Data — central to this programme. Her work challenges the dominant
assumption that we can understand any part of a living system by studying it apart from everything else. She offers a way of perceiving that is simultaneously rigorous and fully alive to the complexity of how life unfolds.
GUEST TEACHER — SESSION 5
Giovanna de Oliveira Andreotti
Giovanna holds a Bachelor’s in Psychology from UBC, postgraduate certifications in Climate Psychology and Embodied Social Justice, and currently coordinates an intergenerational inquiry that maps pedagogical practices addressing complexity, complicity, collapse, and accountability. Giovanna has been involuntarily steeped in depth-education from birth (courtesy of her mother, Vanessa Andreotti).
THE CURRICULUM:
Ten weeks.
A deliberate arc.
Ten weekly sessions of 2.5 hours, running October to December 2026. Each session combines teaching, live demonstration, small group inquiry, and guided practice. Sessions are live and interactive (not pre-recorded). All sessions are recorded and available to participants for 90 days after the programme ends.
Week 0 October 1 4.30–7PM UK/GMT WEEK 0 · 1 OCTOBER Optional Orientation Session: an introduction to core concepts With: Dr. Kira Cooper Read more
This is an optional session to help lay the ground before we begin the programme. We'll take a first, light and exploratory look at what we mean by “Modernity” and the “metacrisis” and get a feel for how these patterns might already be showing up in your own life and the world around you.
Week 1 October 8 4.30–7PM UK/GMT WEEK 1 · 8 OCTOBER Foundation: The Fractal Principle With: Steffi Bednarek and David Kitchings Read more
You will be introduced to the foundations of the two central lenses of the programme, (Internal Family Systems and systems thinking) and start to see how patterns repeat across scales from personal to cultural experience. You will start locating your own parts in relation to this material and leave with the first practices to take into your own life.
Week 2 October 15 4.30–7PM UK/GMT WEEK 2 · 15 OCTOBER Exiles and Collective Burdens: What Gets Pushed Out With: Steffi Bednarek and David Kitchings Read more
Most psychological and leadership frameworks focus on inner change in the hope that outward conditions will follow. We explore how the conditions of a culture actively shape what needs to be exiled in us. Awareness and understanding of what gets pushed out of personal, professional and collective cultures is essential in empowering us to see what needs to be welcomed back in. We will ask what societies cannot hold and explore the relationship between systemic oppression and systemic dysfunction.
Week 3 October 22 4.30–7PM UK/GMT WEEK 3 · 22 OCTOBER Self-Energy and the Change Agent Guest: Dr. Richard Schwartz With: Dr. Richard Schwartz, in conversation with Steffi Bednarek and David Kitchings Read more
Dr. Richard Schwartz, the creator of Internal Family Systems, joins us to explore the relationship between the grounded, compassionate centre he calls ‘Self’ and the protective patterns that obscure it. Drawing on his own work with activists and change-makers, Dick introduces ideas that will be deepened across the following weeks. Learning to recognise when protective parts have taken the lead is a skill that changes how you respond, but also how steady you can remain in stormy times.
Week 4 October 29 4.30–7PM UK/GMT WEEK 4 · 29 OCTOBER Cultural Managers and Cultural Firefighters With: Steffi Bednarek and David Kitchings Read more
Building on Dick's foundation, we map the parts that maintain the status quo through control, analysis, performance and the collective myths that modern culture provides. You will learn to recognise these patterns in yourself and the organisations you are part of and learn to spot the part that needs to stay in control, the part that retreats into analysis when feeling is too much, the part that performs competence to avoid appearing uncertain etc. Awareness of these parts in real time gives you the option to consciously choose a different response.
Week 5 November 5 4.30–7PM UK/GMT WEEK 5 · 5 NOVEMBER Hospicing Modernity Guest: Dr. Vanessa Andreotti With: Dr. Vanessa Andreotti and Giovanna Andreotti Read more
Dr. Vanessa Andreotti, scholar of decolonial thought and author of Hospicing Modernity joins us with her daughter Giovanna. Together they offer a framework for understanding what the dominant worldview was built on, what it has suppressed, and what it means to accompany its transformation with honesty rather than denial.
Week 6 November 12 4.30–7PM UK/GMT WEEK 6 · 12 NOVEMBER The Voice of the System With: Steffi Bednarek and David Kitchings Read more
In this session we will work directly with the parts that carry the logic of the dominant culture. This is one of the programme's most challenging and generative sessions.
Week 7 November 19 4.30–7PM UK/GMT WEEK 7 · 19 NOVEMBER Warm Data and Living Systems Guest: Nora Bateson With: Nora Bateson Read more
With Nora Bateson, you will be introduced to 2 of Nora’s concepts:
warm data: the contextual, relational information that gets lost the moment we isolate variables and look for single causes
symmathesy: the mutual learning that happens between living systems as they shape and are shaped by each other. You will begin to sense your own life, relationships, and work as part of an ongoing, mutual learning process where you are never just observing the system, but always already inside it, changing and being changed by it.
Week 8 December 3 4.30–7PM UK/GMT WEEK 8 · 3 DECEMBER Double Binds and Integration With: Steffi Bednarek and David Kitchings Read more
We integrate Nora Bateson's teaching with everything built so far and introduce the concept of double binds; the impossible injunctions that systems create, where every available choice leads to a kind of failure. You may recognise this in your own life: the demand to act with urgency while not disrupting the systems you depend on, or the pressure to scale impact while staying genuinely committed to a relational process. Double binds are rarely solved by trying harder within the existing choices. You will begin to identify the double binds you are caught up in and start to develop a felt sense of how to respond, not by choosing one side over the other, but by finding a different relationship to the whole.
Week 9 December 10 4.30–7PM UK/GMT WEEK 9 · 10 DECEMBER Returning to Self Guest: Dr. Richard Schwartz With: Dr. Richard Schwartz, in conversation with Steffi Bednarek and David Kitchings Read more
Dick returns for a session shaped by everything that has emerged. Participants bring their most pressing questions, the edges they have encountered, and the applications they are developing in their own fields.
Week 10 December 17 4.30–7PM UK/GMT WEEK 10 · 17 DECEMBER Threshold: What Is Mine to Do With: Full faculty Read more
We close with integration and the explicit question of vocation: what is mine to do in this systemic moment? A threshold, not an ending.
* We reserve the right to adapt the programme content as we go, in order to stay responsive to the needs and learning edge of the group.
We reserve the right to adapt the programme content as we go, in order to stay responsive to the needs and learning edge of the group.
Practice Groups
Once the course starts, you can sign up for three facilitated practice group sessions that allow you to deepen your learning and begin applying it to your own professional context and practice.
Practice Session One
Monday 19 October
5:00–7:00 PM
GMT / US ET / AEST
Practice Session Two
Monday 16 November
5:00–7:00 PM
GMT / US ET / AEST
Practice Session Three
Monday 7 December
5:00–7:00 PM
GMT / US ET / AEST
Sessions are facilitated by Dr. Kira Cooper and Bec Davison .
Everything you need to engage fully and go deeper
Here’s What You Get
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10 live teaching sessions
2.5 hours of teaching, demonstration, small group inquiry, and guided practice in every session. -
Live access to Dr. Richard Schwartz
The creator of Internal Family Systems co-facilitates sessions 3 and 9. This level of access is rare outside of IFS Institute training programmes. -
Guest faculty sessions
Live, interactive sessions with Dr. Vanessa Andreotti and Nora Bateson, two important thinkers in their respective fields.
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Participant handbook
A comprehensive handbook has been developed specifically for this programme. It includes conceptual frameworks, practices, glossary, and a full reading list. -
Session recordings
All sessions recorded and available for 90 days after the programme ends, so you can revisit material at your own pace.
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3 facilitated Practice Group sessions
You have the option of joining a practice group that guides you to integrate the learning directly into your daily professional life.
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Certificate of completion
Awarded on attendance of at least eight of the ten sessions. The certificate names the programme, the Centre for Climate Psychology, and the full faculty.
Structured for accessibility
We have designed a tiered pricing structure so that this programme can reach as wide a range of participants as possible. Any revenue from this programme will support the Centre for Climate Psychology to deliver its social impact mission.
Solidarity Contribution
£645
3 installments of £215 available
Signing up at this rate offers a free place to someone
Register Now
Organisational places
If your organisation wants to support a group or team as a leadership investment, please contact us to discuss partnership opportunities. Email: contact@climatepsychologycentre.org
Subsidised places
For those based in areas disproportionately affected by climate change and in need of support or those on benefits or income support, you can apply for a discounted rate by emailing contact@climatepsychologycentre.org
Satisfaction Guarantee
We are so confident that you will benefit from this training that we invite you to try out this programme for the first week (starting from the first live session on 8th October). If you do not feel it’s a fit, we will refund 100% of your money, no questions asked.
Everything you need to know before your register
All sessions are live and interactive via Zoom. We ask participants to commit to at least eight of ten sessions. Recordings available within 48 hours of each session.
4:30–7:00 pm UK (GMT/BST)
A time zone converter is available at the registration link. Sessions run in GMT. Please confirm your time zone when registering.
All sessions are live and interactive via Zoom.
You will need a stable internet connection, a quiet space, and, where possible, a camera. This is a live community of practice, not a webinar.
We ask participants to commit to at least eight of ten sessions.
The programme is designed as a cumulative arc, with each session building on the last. Where unavoidable absences occur, recordings will be available within 48 hours.
Accessibility requirements
If you have hearing, visual, or learning needs, please contact us before registering and we will discuss how to support your participation. Zoom automated captions are available on request.
Technical Requirements
Frequently Asked Questions
This is a unique course, four years in the making through sustained practice and pilot programmes. It covers:
New intellectual territory: Developed by Steffi Bednarek over four years of sustained practice and pilot programmes, this course is not an adaptation of existing material. It takes the evidence based model of IFS into genuinely new territory, moving the Internal Family Systems framework into living systems thinking, decolonial theory, and transcontextual ways of seeing.
Four levels of application: The same insight that illuminates your inner life experiences illuminates the societal patterns that shape these experiences. This framework operates simultaneously at the personal, relational, organisational, and societal level.
A living framework: In a complex world of interconnected systems where the ground keeps shifting, the comfort of certainty becomes a liability. This is a living framework of enquiry that draws on multiple schools of thought. It does not provide universal answers, but offers powerful relational practices that surface information that is often missed. This provides a navigational tool that has the capacity to help you move through shifting grounds.
Accessible to everyone: No prior knowledge of Internal Family Systems or therapeutic training is required. What you bring is the lived experience of your personal and professional life context; what you leave with is a framework that you can apply within it.
This may not be the right moment if:
You are currently working through acute trauma or grief and need a high level of personalised therapeutic support.
You need a strong sense of predictability or control in group settings right now.
You are seeking a space where facilitators can offer consistent individual attention.
If you suspect that overwhelming personal support needs will arise, we strongly encourage you to arrange appropriate personal support alongside this programme.
Yes, all course materials, including recorded sessions and handouts, will remain accessible for 90 days after the cohort ends. You can revisit the content at your convenience to reinforce your learning.
This course is designed to provide an application of IFS to social transformation. It is not equivalent to a training to apply IFS as a therapeutic tool with individuals. If that is what you are interested in, please check out level 1 trainings at the IFS-Institute.
We are committed to delivering a high-quality learning experience and want you to feel confident in your decision to join. If you signed up to the course and life circumstances change you will receive a full refund until October 13th.
If, after attending the first live session, you feel this course is not the right fit for you, you may cancel your enrolment within 3 days of that session and receive a full refund. No questions asked.
After this 3-day window has passed, cancellations are no longer possible and no refunds will be issued, regardless of circumstances.
In the event that a guest facilitator is unable to attend a session, this does not constitute grounds for cancellation or refund.
Anyone who senses that the personal and the political are connected, and wants a rigorous way to work with both.
Psychologists, therapists, and coaches seeking a framework that reaches beyond the individual
Leaders, executives, and HR professionals working on culture change and systems transformation
Politicians, policy advisors, and public servants navigating complexity under pressure
Climate and social justice practitioners who need to sustain themselves through the long work
Educators and community organisers at the intersection of personal and collective change
It is a good fit if you're ready to:
Sit with the full complexity of what it means to be human in a time of unravelling, including the ways that complexity lives inside you.
Bring curiosity rather than certainty to perspectives that contradict your own.
Engage with discomfort as a feature of the learning, not as a reason to withdraw.
If you cannot attend one of the live sessions, don’t worry! Recordings of these sessions will be available for viewing at your convenience on the course platform
We will run this course again in the autumn of 2027. To hear when new dates are announced, join the mailing list here (include link to newsletter sign up page)
Because you won't be doing it in isolation. Alongside live sessions and a private online community, you have the option to join a small practice group in your time zone. This gives you a regular meeting point to work with what's emerging and to keep accountable when momentum risks to dip.
The term IFS Trained is only granted to therapists after the completion of a level 1 training at the IFS Institute. Participants in this program can refer to themselves as IFS-informed or as integrating “parts work” into their practice.
