A live conversation with Tamala Floyd and Daniel Foor
Parts Work & Animism
Confronting the Limits of Individualism
MARCH 26, 2025
9AM LA | 12PM NYC | 18:00 Madrid
90 MINUTES
About this event
Modern psychotherapy invites us to turn inward, to navigate the intricate landscapes of our inner world, to uncover the stories that shape our internal dynamics. But what happens when the lens is too narrow; when the framework assumes that all those perspectives, stories, and parts are “me”?
We invite you into conversation to become curious about how animist perspectives might allow for more porous, ecological understandings of internal voices or “parts.” Might these voices be more than just human-centric echoes of Self? Might they also include the ancestors and our other-than-human kin?
In this live 90 minute event, Tamala Floyd, IFS practitioner and author of Listening When Parts Speak, joins Daniel Foor, Founder & Director at Ancestral Medicine and author of Ancestral Medicine: Rituals for Personal and Family Healing, for a provocative and illuminating conversation about the intersections—and tensions—between parts work, animist-oriented ritual, and movements for cultural change and liberation.
Beyond individualism
In Eurocentric, colonialist approaches to healing, the individual is too often the center of their universe. There’s a tendency to over-identify with the contents of consciousness. The unseen, the collective, or other-than-human relationships can become secondary, if they’re considered at all. This can easily recreate the isolation of extreme individualism and its many harmful manifestations, including exceptionalism, self-hatred, and cultural supremacy. And we find ourselves back where we started: in need of help.
Together, Tamala and Daniel will explore where parts work harmonizes with practices of ancestral- and Earth-reconnection and where the two differ. They’ll highlight points of convergence between parts work and ritual arts, like how they each encourage polyvocality and the pragmatic truth that there is not just one “us.” This perspective is spacious, kind, and good. The hosts will also explore points of divergence, like the risk of replicating harmful individualism, rather than being part of an interconnected web that’s not only within us.
What is IFS and Parts Work?
Internal Family Systems (IFS), is one expression of “parts work”, a therapeutic approach that views the psyche or Self as composed of distinct sub-personalities or “parts,” each with important roles and perspectives. These parts often represent emotions, beliefs, roles, and coping mechanisms that have developed in response to life experiences and cultural conditioning. The goal of IFS is to foster an internal dialogue that allows these parts to be seen, heard, and healed.
What is Ancestral Healing?
Ancestral Healing is rooted in the understanding that ancestral influences continue to shape our lives, identities, and challenges. These influences are both personal and familial as well as cultural and ecological. By tending to our relationships with the dead, we can address inherited patterns, recover lost wisdom, restore harmony in our lives and communities, and affirm our interconnectedness with the web of life. Through these practices, we can reframe personal struggles as part of larger, collective dynamics, and engage on a path of transformative change.
What is Animism?
Animism is an ethic or set of values rooted in the recognition of profound relationality. It acknowledges that humans are deeply interconnected with the natural world, ancestral forces, and unseen energies. Rather than centering the human experience, animism emphasizes reciprocity, honoring the inherent intelligence, agency, and vitality of all beings or other-than-human people—seen and unseen—in an interconnected web. All the work we do at Ancestral Medicine is rooted in an Animist ethic.
About the hosts
Tamala Floyd
Psychotherapist, consultant, author, speaker
with over 20 years of experience, Tamala received her Master of Social Work from the University of Southern California. She is the author of Listening When Parts Speak, a book that interweaves concepts from Internal Family Systems Therapy (IFS) with the power of ancestor wisdom to support people on their healing journey. The process she describes in her book makes generations’ worth of ancestor wisdom accessible and increases access to healing energy on individual and generational levels. As a psychotherapist, Tamala’s work focuses on women’s trauma, mothering, and relationship issues. Learn more about her book and her practice on her website.
Daniel Foor
Founder / Director at Ancestral Medicine
Daniel is a doctor of psychology, experienced ritualist, and the author of Ancestral Medicine: Rituals for Personal and Family Healing. He is an initiate in the Òrìṣà tradition of Yoruba-speaking West Africa and has learned from teachers of Mahayana Buddhism, Islamic Sufism, and the older ways of his English and German ancestors. Daniel is passionate about training aspiring leaders and change makers in the intersections of cultural healing, animist ethics, and applied ritual arts. He lives with his wife and two daughters near Granada, Spain in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.
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