Our Esteemed Presenters

Pricilla Boyd, LMSW, was in the very first IFS training group in 1999. She is a licensed clinical social worker in private practice in Tinley Park, Illinois, and works full-time consulting and providing professional development for schools in the south suburbs of Chicago. She has trained in various treatment modalities and is a mindfulness facilitator at The Center in Palos Park. She conducts quarterly retreats using SoulCollage and is a CEU provider through Awake and Free Retreats.

Vera Dyck, RP (inactive) and Certified AWA Writing Group Facilitator, is a writer/writing group facilitator, activist and community-builder who lives and works in Guelph, Ontario, Canada. She has been writing in the AWA method for 18 years and began facilitating AWA writing groups in 2018, the same year she completed her Level 1 IFS training. Combining AWA and IFS is one of her purest joys. Vera, currently inactive a Registered Psychotherapist, is IFS Level 2 trained. IFS informs her writing and activism, and in explorations in the community with her PartNer, Steve (also Level 1 IFS trained).

Beth Jerva, LCSW, is a Certified Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapist as well as a Certified Yoga Teacher. She completed Level 1 IFS training in 2013 and works with children, adolescents and adults, specializing in anxiety, trauma and addictions. She has presented on the benefits of yoga therapy in clinical settings and has developed many therapeutic yoga workshops focusing on adolescents, anxiety, mindfulness and calming techniques for children. Beth has studied alternative therapies since graduating with her MSW in 1998, having completed her Phoenix Rising Therapy training in 2003 and yoga teaching certification in 2004.

Mary Beth Thomas, RYT-500, is passionate about sharing her love of yoga as a tool for transformation. She began her pursuit of yoga at the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health 26 years ago, and has since studied with many gifted yoga mentors. Sje is a certified facilitator of the Trauma Informed Mind Body Program, and is a Level 1 trained IFS practitioner. To explain why she teaches, she quotes Rolf Gates from his book, ““Meditations from the Mat:” “The word ‘educator’ comes from the Latin verb educere, which means to lead or draw out. The Latin term was used by midwives, with the meaning ‘to be present at the birth of.’ Teaching yoga is first and foremost about drawing forth that which is already present in a student…. I became a teacher in the true sense when I recognized my teaching was a divine opportunity to be present at the birth of an individual’s authentic self. The real payoff of a yoga practice…is not a perfect handstand or a deeper forward bend, it is the newly born self that each day steps off the yoga mat and back into life.”

Tanis Allen, LMSW, ACSW, your “camp director,” is a Certified IFS Therapist and IFSI approved clinical consultant in private practice in Ann Arbor, specializing in work with depression and anxiety, eating disorders, grief and loss issues and mentoring other therapists learning the model. She has been training in and teaching the model for over 25 years, having completed all three levels of training and countless IFS intensives and retreats. Tanis has been a frequent presenter at the annual IFS international conference as well as other venues in the Midwest and Canada, has served as a PA many times, and is author of a new book that was published in early 2025 by Penquin/Random House Books titled “The Self-Led Internal Family Systems Workbook: Learn to Use IFS Skills to Understand and Love All Your Parts.” With the help of our wonderfully gifted teachers and committed supporters in the IFS Great Lakes tribe, she created the IFS Great Lakes Retreat in 2015. She is so thrilled to gather with all of you on the shores of beautiful Crystal Lake and Lake Michigan’s Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, which has been a lifelong source of healing and inspiration for her, and she is hopeful that all of you will find that here as well.....