Christian Internal Family Systems (IFS) Therapy Online

Faith-integrated counseling for adults in New York and New Jersey.

I offer online therapy to individuals in New Jersey and New York. With over two decades of experience as a therapist, I have seen firsthand how people can heal, grow, and experience lasting transformation. One of the most effective approaches I use is Internal Family Systems (IFS), a model that I have found to align deeply with the Christian faith. If integrating faith into therapy is important to you, I am happy to do so in a way that feels supportive and respectful of your journey.

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WELCOME

"I can see the life that I want, the person I want to be. I can almost touch it, but can't quite get there."
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I received my Doctorate in Clinical Psychology from Long Island University and my Master's in Counseling from Nyack College. I have worked and trained in a variety of settings, including
hospitals, University counseling centers, church settings and private practices. In addition to my private practice, I currently train and educate therapists and future counselors through workshops and graduate level courses.

Throughout my experiences I have had the privilege to work with a variety of individuals from all different paths of life. My experience ranges  ​

​from helping with very crippling and lifelong struggles to those who are simplytrying to discover their next steps in life. I have grown to appreciate the uniqueness of each individual. There are no short cuts to understanding the story of someone's life or coming to understand precisely what an individual needs to move passed his or her struggles.

I recognize that finding a counselor or therapist can be a daunting task.  Not only do you need to find someone who understands you and can connect with you, but also someone who has the knowledge, experience and expertise to help you. I count it a privilege to work with people and enter into their stories. I take my role very seriously, balancing the commitment to see your world through your eyes with the science and understanding that will lead you down the road toward a happy, healthier life. Therapy is both an art and a science. The art is the relationship and the creativity necessary to develop a genuine connection and find the unique paths that will help that individual. The science is the theory and psychology that help us understand how the mind works, grows and heals. I am committed to both the art and the science and over the years, believe that I have demonstrated a facility in both. 

                                    Clifford Moore, M.S., M.A., Psy.D., LPC,NBCC

Do I need Counseling?
 
Paulo Coelho has said, “Don’t give in to your fears. If you do, you won’t be able to talk to your heart.” There is truth in these words, fears often drown out the cries and passions of our heart. Our world can become very small when fear rules it. I believe that therapy can be a place to discover who a person is and a place where an individual’s world expands. More often than not life requires us to walk alongside another person in that journey until the path becomes clear. Therapy is not just for those who are seriously struggling, but often it is for those who have lost their way, lost themselves, or who simply find that their world has become too small.
 
Whatever difficulty you are facing, it doesn't hurt to get help. Contrary to some concerns, therapy does not foster dependence. That is not the final goal. The goal is actually to help you find a place where you do not need therapy. The difficulties we face, be it loss or sadness, are often made worse by the idea that I should be able to get through this on my own or I shouldn't feel this way. The reality is that you do feel that way. If you imagine your struggle as fifty pounds of weight on your back, being hard on yourself for struggling is like adding another fifty pounds of weight. You actually make your struggle worse. We all need help from time to time and we all have areas of our life that need
growth and healing.
 
We live in a society filled with self-help books where there is a strong push to solve life's problems ourselves. The problem is that science has finally confirmed what ancient wisdom has consistently been stating- we don't heal in isolation. Neuroscientists have actually discovered that isolation is toxic to the brain. One study examined canaries and how they learned their songs from their parents. They decided to record the songs and play them for the young canaries, but the canaries could not learn the songs. The only way they could learn was from a live canary. The actual science behind this is rather detailed, but the final outcome is that there are many things that we cannot learn without being in the presence of others. Entering into a counseling relationship can be a life changing experience that cannot be duplicated through a book or personal willpower.

How Does Therapy Work?

There are many approaches to counseling and therapy. One thing that all research and conventional wisdom point toward is the relationship between the individual and the therapist. Healing always starts in relationship and my first goal is to really get to know you. I don't come into a session with preconceived notions about you or your situation. I found that everyone and every situation is unique. The starting point is to provide an atmosphere that feels safe and where you feel heard and understood.

How people heal has been part of the evolution of psychology and neuroscience for decades. The amazing fact is that neuroimaging actually shows physical changes in the brain after "talk therapy" that is equal or greater than the changes that can occur from taking medication. I think it is vital that people understand that therapy is not simply sharing your pain but it can be transformative. Psychologists and therapists throughout history have explored the power of a healing relationship.

I am not a therapist who will simply listen and say nothing. My goal will be to understand you, put myself in your shoes as best I can and use my training and experience to help walk with you down the road that will bring the most change and healing to your life. Soren Kierkegaard said that the will to be ourselves is our highest calling. One of the fathers of Object Relations theory in therapy referred to people living out of their false selves. Sullivan the founder of Interpersonal therapy talked about the process of losing parts of ourselves and Perls, founder of Gestalt therapy, talked of therapy as reclaiming the squandered bits of ourselves. I mention a few of the giants in the field to point out some similarities in theory, that often our struggles result from lost parts of ourselves. In some ways we need to find ourselves again, to become the people we were meant to be.

Over the course of two decades, I have been trained and supervised in a variety of therapeutic modalities. As I've worked with clients over that time, I was never simply content with the results. As new research emerged in the area of neuroscience and trauma, I delved into it. My practice evolved as I listened to my clients and monitored what was effective and what was not. I found that most people were trying as hard as they were able and that simply talking about their issues, challenging their thoughts and behaviors, providing skills, getting them in touch with their emotions, helping them gain insight into their present and their past, providing homework and alternative choices were not really enough. All of those things represent the bedrock of different popular modalities and they were helpful but didn't seem to provide the life-changing effects that I believed in when I entered this practice.

Innovators and researchers in the area of trauma and psychology must have felt the same because the search for better answers has never come to a conclusion. Along the way, I came upon Internal Family Systems which embodied the core healing elements of many of the modalities that I had used over the years and provided a methodology that gave clear direction and measurable results. As I've employed this modality I have watched my clients make significant changes and heal in ways that took significantly longer or seemed unattainable with other therapies that I had employed over the years. There is plenty of information on this website regarding Internal Family Systems, but I leave you with this truth, everyone can become the person they were meant to be and I would appreciate the honor of being the one to help you get there.

What is my spiritual/psychological stance?

One theologian stated that the Bible is often prescriptive but not very descriptive. In other words, it often tells us what we need to do but doesn't always explain the best way to go about it. How do we go about loving our neighbor? What do we do with our anger? What do we do when we have trouble valuing ourselves or experiencing God's love? What do we do when we have trouble regulating our thoughts or emotions no matter how hard we pray or recite scripture verses? I think this is where counseling and psychology add a very helpful hand. Understanding how we operate as human beings and how we are designed by God to heal emotionally and mentally, which in turn affects us spiritually, can add deep insight into our journey to be who we were created to be. The Bible talks about the seed and the sower as a metaphor for scripture and our hearts. Jesus describes the word as falling upon bad soil. I like to use that metaphor to describe some of what therapy can do. I work with people's hearts to help till ground so that the "seed" can once again fall on good soil.

"Till We Have Faces" is the title of one of C.S. Lewis' novels. The title came from a line in his book, "How can [the gods] meet us face to face till we have faces?" He was challenging our own self-deception, that we lie to ourselves and fail to perceive ourselves. The result being that, until we know ourselves, we can never truly know God. Often we deny parts of ourselves due to shame or anxiety. We attempt to hack off aspects of ourselves that don't fit our beliefs. Many are afraid that anger or fear will separate them from God or make them a bad Christian, so they shove those parts down so far that they no longer even recognize them. If the psalms teach us anything, its that passion, a full gambit of emotions is an acceptable way to approach God. David clearly had a face when he went before God.

I remember sitting with a friend at a coffee shop while a parade came through. It was lack luster, the crowd was minimal and the actual parade was so minimalistic that it felt just thrown together. My friend said it was like "propping up the dead." The parade was an expression of ideals and sentiments long passed. People were still going through the motions even though the life had left it. Often Christianity is speaking a language long dead and demanding others "prop up the dead" along with them. Ritual and culture can be powerful and life changing but it cannot replace connection and experience. My hope is that I can speak in a language more readily received and challenge in a way that is not so much based upon rigid rules but a commitment to understanding oneself, one's relationship to others, and ultimately their relationship with God.

As a therapist I have grown to appreciate how disconnected we are from ourselves and how powerfully that affects our relationships, including our relationship with God. We lie to ourselves, live in denial and try and create a sanitized version of our relationship with God and the result is that we go to God and others without a face.

My experience with religion and psychology have led me to explore the psychospiritual truths of an authentic faith. My therapy is a deliberate and conscientious attempt to integrate what I know of cognitive, behavioral, relational, and psychodynamic principles in light of current neurological understanding while acknowledging that all healing occurs in safe relationship, all while acknowledging the spiritual principles by which I live.  My years of experience, training, self reflection and relentless enquiry have led me to the Internal Family Systems therapeutic model. I am convinced that it aligns well with the Christian faith, adheres to our current understanding of neuroscience and most importantly has assisted my clients in finding true healing and freedom.