Are you struggling with trauma, mental illness, self-criticism, procrastination or bad habits? I am Maija Haavisto and I guide a combination of Internal Family Systems (IFS), Somatic Experiencing-influenced somatic work and imaginal practice, also combining with it elements from coherence therapy, energywork, hypnosis, improv, Alexander technique and nondual practices as needed. (Here “guiding” means that I’m not a licensed psychotherapist or a social worker, but I’m highly experienced with helping people heal, including those with severe trauma or mental illness. With my guidance, many people also learn to do these practices on their own.) You can learn more about all these modalities in my free book Loving Awakening.

Työskentelyä tarjolla myös suomeksi!

A particular focus in my guiding has been working with parts related to spirituality, such as parts interfering with meditation, nondual states, metta practice or attaining the jhanas, struggles with the progress of insight or energetic symptoms, preparation for retreats, parts using spirituality for escapism, parts with punitive or fearful ideas of religion and questioning values and worldview.

I also provide related guidance for spiritual practice, essentially serving in the role of a teacher, e.g. which meditation technique might be best suited for you, what kind of guided meditations to try and how to deal with potential issues arising. If you already have a meditation teacher, I can supplement their expertise with my own, e.g. how your practice relates to your chronic illness or dissociation. Many of my clients have been Buddhist, but I’ve also had atheist, Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Bahai and pagan guidees as well as people who are spiritual but not associated with any particular tradition.

Important principles in my work are “All parts are welcome!” (from IFS) and symptom coherence (from coherence therapy). That means that symptoms, beliefs or other traits are never considered bad, pathological or maladaptive, even if they have harmed you or others or are considered taboo by the society (such as fetishes or fantasies). It is also important to accept that in some cases, not everything is a part, e.g. in cases of physical illness, neurodivergence and some cases of mental illness. Even when something is not caused by parts, there are usually parts reacting to it and complicating things.

Expertise

I also have a lot of experience working with people in the following situations:

• structural dissociation (including dissociative identity disorder)
• childhood and adulthood abuse and neglect, including current abusive situations
• medical abuse and medical trauma
• religious and spiritual trauma (excluding cults)
• people who have themselves been abusive
• relationship difficulties (current or more overarching patterns)
• inner critics, low self-esteem and lack of self-compassion
• procrastination
• writer’s block and other artistic, creative and work blockages
• money-related parts
• shame
• insomnia, other sleeping problems and nightmares
• issues with anger
• self-harm
• attachment trauma/insecure attachment
• depression
• anxiety, including e.g. social anxiety, panic disorder and health anxiety
• psychosis and schizophrenia
• neurodivergence (e.g. autism and ADHD)
• transgender people or people suspecting they might be trans (obviously with the goal of acceptance and appreciation rather than “healing” the transness) and other gender-related questioning, e.g. femininity and masculinity
• people from many different cultures, e.g. different Asian cultures, whether living in Asia or the West
• disability and chronic illness, such as chronic fatigue and chronic pain
• emotional flatness or difficulty accessing certain emotions
• emotional lability (such as labeled as “borderline personality disorder”)
• narcissistic traits
• disconnect from the body
• oppressive parts, e.g. (internalized) misogyny, ableism or homophobia

Note that while I’ve worked in many people with very difficult life conditions, obviously they pose limitations to what is achievable by any sort of therapeutic work, E.g. medical abuse is often largely continuous traumatic stress (as the threat persists) while being angry at a partner who is treating you badly is healthy and normal. Often there is still something that can be done, such as healing parts that feel your self-worth is affected by your circumstances or helping anger be expressed without boiling over or suppression.

The main contraindications to working with me would be if your main problems are something I’m not currently experienced with, such as phobias, eating disorders (I’ve worked with less severe eating issues), severe addiction (I’ve helped people with minor addictions to e.g. porn, shopping and cannabis) or cult abuse. Even though most of my guiding is very imaginal, I’ve also successfully guided people with aphantasia (inability to visualize with the mind’s eye), that is not an issue!

If you are curious what my vibes are like, you can find multiple video interviews of me on the Interviews page of this site. There’s also a video demonstration of my actual guiding, though it’s a bit unusual in that my guidee was using a lot of his own modalities in the work, too. As a guide I’m warm, caring, compassionate, creative and bold, also sprinkling joy and humor into sessions when appropriate.

If this sounds like something that might be helpful or if you have any questions, please get in touch!

Testimonials

“Maija Haavisto is a highly skilled IFS expert. Under her practical and professional guidance, I’ve learned the basic concepts of IFS and how to practice on my own.

Maija combines IFS and somatic techniques in a way that’s easy to follow. The practice has been both useful and enjoyable to me. I sincerely believe that everyone could benefit from IFS. I warmly recommend Maija Haavisto.“

– Heikki Hulkko

“Maija is a very experienced guide who enables deep transformative heart, mind and soul healing. She skillfully leverages her deep knowledge and experience in Internal Family Systems and Somatic Experiencing, and also brings in strong influences from Shamanic Journeying and Hypnosis, amongst others.

Maija is a very open, caring, open person who radiates kindness. She is very sensitive and observant with a deeply magical touch in the way she communicates to the parts of us which are deeply exiled and difficult to reach – enabling these to show up and heal. She also has an immense capacity to hold space for difficult emotions and experiences.

I wholeheartedly recommend working with Maija to anyone who is looking for a guide to enable and empower their journey towards healing and thriving.“

– Kaloyan Stefanov

“Maija’s work is unique. She combines a lot of different modalities – IFS, somatic experiencing, energy work, imaginal work, and other things I have no clue about (but seemingly work!).

While I’m still at the beginning of my therapeutic journey with her, I’ve noticed that the sessions lead me to deeper feelings that I haven’t been able to reach with my previous therapist.

Definitely try a couple of sessions with Maija; you’ll be surprised by their effectiveness!“

– E.P.