Caitlyn Cook on Somatic healing informed by Internal Family Systems
An interview with Caitlyn Cook -
International Practitioner in Mindful Somatic Healing 
We sit down with Caitlyn Cook, mindful-somatic practitioner informed by Internal Family Systems, to explore what it means to meet yourself with compassion and curiosity. Caitlyn will be joining us in store for Whole Self on 14 February, 4:30–6:30pm, and this conversation offers a glimpse into the depth, gentleness, and clarity she brings to her work. Book your spot now.
Q: You’re returning to New Zealand, did you grow up here and where are you now living?
I was born in Johannesburg, South Africa and moved to New Zealand when I was nine. Having lived in Auckland and Wellington, I left New Zealand (and my then-government job) when I was 26 to follow my heart and go to art school in Melbourne. Since then, I’ve lived in South East Asia, Europe, Central Asia, and Central Africa. I’ve gone full circle and now live in South Africa again, this time the Garden Route.
Q: What got you into offering somatic Internal Family Systems (IFS) workshops?
I’ve explored a lot in the healing and therapeutic realms over the last 15 years. When I came across Internal Family Systems, it helped me to directly contact and unknot issues that were stuck within me. It also helped me relate to myself in a new way so not only was I solving issues within myself and relationships - I was also not unhelpfully adding to them like before.
Naturally, I wanted to use this with my clients so I did foundational training with the Internal Family Systems Institute and began working with a supervisor.
It has become a core part of how I work now.
Q: How is IFS different to Family Constellations work?
IFS and Family Constellations both explore inner and relational systems, but they do so in quite different ways.
Internal Family Systems (IFS) works with whatever feels stuck, conflicted, or painful in your life—whether that’s your relationship with yourself, family, work, money, or intimacy. IFS looks at how these struggles live inside you.
IFS sees the psyche as made up of different parts (some protective, some wounded, some carrying vulnerability or unmet needs). The work centres on developing a conscious, compassionate relationship with these parts from within.
Healing happens through presence: by staying connected, curious, and embodied while gently meeting and processing whatever arises inside.
Family Constellations looks at the intergenerational and systemic field. It explores how family, ancestral, or collective dynamics may be unconsciously influencing your life. The work is often experiential and externalised—using representatives, movement, or spatial arrangements to reveal hidden loyalties, entanglements, or unresolved family patterns (sometimes IFS practitioners externalize parts too). Insight and shifts can happen very quickly, sometimes without a lot of verbal processing.
Q: Your previous work included mindfulness, somatics, shamanism and Tantra. How does IFS combine your previous training and take it further?
The work is mindful-somatic. This means that the entry point for contacting the parts that may feel stuck or painful, as well as the *you* that is grounded, peaceful and strong begins with presence. Being here now, in the body. That’s a big part of it.
The shamanic part is interesting. A lot of people describe deep IFS work as something of a medicine journey (without anything like mushrooms or ayahuasca). You ‘travel’ deeply inside yourself, meeting different figures and archetypes within. It’s something like a hero’s journey.
Tantra is vast, but, simply, I can say it’s about authentic connection and meeting dualities: yin and yang, light and dark. Often we polarise and only want to be ‘friends’ with one side of the coin, but Tantra means becoming whole. This can mean embracing the structure and softness, pain and pleasure, ease and challenges, assertiveness and surrender, ups and downs. With your presence, all of it gets integrated.
IFS is all about this.
Q: What can we expect from this IFS-informed workshop?
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Discovering new ways to relate to yourself that feel more loving, present and caring
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Connecting with others in an authentic and meaningful way
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Meditation in practice (not just passive sitting, but actively present)
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Finding more mastery with your inner voices, not battling with them or bossed around by them
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Making choices and living your life from your grounded, calm and confident Self
Q: Do you offer 1:1 IFS-informed coaching sessions?
Yes. Sessions are tailored to what’s happening for you now: whether that’s working with challenges, deepening self-understanding, or supporting meaningful change.
People come for things like…
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Deepening your relationship with yourself
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Healing patterns that keep repeating
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Repairing your relationship with your body and intimacy
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Digesting the past so it no longer runs the present
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Creating clarity, momentum and aligned change
Q: How can the IFS processes you teach be applied to daily life and big life issues?
During the workshop, you’re invited to work with whatever is present for you in your life—whether that’s a current challenge, a recurring pattern, or something more subtle. This can remain entirely private if you wish.
The value of the workshop goes beyond what happens in the room. The processes you learn really come alive when applied in daily life.
When challenges arise (triggers, fear, anxiety, resistance, or repetitive thinking), IFS understands these as parts of your internal system coming forward. These parts often have protective roles, or carry vulnerability, unmet needs, or unexpressed past experiences.
Through IFS, you learn how to recognise these parts, relate to them with clarity and compassion, and support them in getting what they need. As these parts feel more understood and supported, they tend to settle, allowing you to respond to life from a more centred, grounded, and adult place.
Q: What areas do you specialise in?
I work with whatever challenges are arising for you.
That being said, I specialise in working with intelligent and sensitive people who tend to live in their minds and want a deeper, more embodied way of living (but struggle to get there).
People who come to me are often experiencing…
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Thinking a lot, analysing deeply and overfunctioning mentally
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Feeling a sense of purpose or potential they aren’t fully living yet
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Carrying strong inner criticism, shame or self-doubt
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Feel disconnected from their body, emotions or impulses
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Are stuck in repeating relational patterns
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Carry unfinished emotional business from childhood, including neglect, boundary violations or sexual harm
My work supports a shift from the head into the body, from self-criticism into self-trust and from internal fragmentation into a more coherent, Self-led inner life.
Q: How have these somatic and IFS processes helped you?
Before working in this way, life felt like trying to drive a manual car without ever being taught how to use the clutch. I had effort and intention, but not the internal coordination needed to move smoothly.
IFS taught me how to relate to myself differently. Instead of becoming overwhelmed or caught in cycles of catastrophic thinking or emotional shutdown, I’m better able to recognise what’s being activated internally and respond with more clarity and choice.
Over time, this has supported my capacity to meet my own needs — both internally and in relationships. This means more emotional regulation, self-trust, confidence, and a more grounded sense of calm in my life.
Q: Anything else?
I loved these questions, thank you!
What is the strength of this work?
The strength of this work is that all parts of you are welcome. Some other processes attempt to heal by removing and banishing parts of you. Here, all parts are understood as having a function. We are simply retiring the function into a healthy state.
IFS is also not about hours of ‘thinking’ through problems and solutions. It’s about processing through the body, knowing that with the right conditions, healing naturally happens.
What is the purpose of this work?
Freedom. A healthy, functioning life. To live life from your deepest power, ease and knowing.
