About Our Leaders

About Our Group Leaders

Each of our group leaders has completed the Institute’s year-long Group Leader Training, co-facilitated a group with Jay Earley, and received individualized supervision under his guidance

Brandon Rennels

Brandon is a dedicated father, mindfulness facilitator, and an experienced group leader. He has led Teacher Training for a global mindfulness & emotional intelligence organization, personally mentoring hundreds of aspiring teachers over the years. As an ordained student of the late Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh, Brandon learned early on that embodying compassionate curious presence brings out the best in oneself and others.

Interactive IFS Groups were foundational to his own healing journey through anxiety and depression, and he considers it an honor to hold this space for others. Brandon’s experience with Internal Family Systems includes trainings through the IFS Institute, ongoing supervision with experienced IFS trainers, and several years of personal parts work with IFS therapists, practitioners, and groups.

Learn more at https://www.linkedin.com/in/brandonrennels/

Steph Stern

Steph is a facilitator, transformational coach and Certified Internal Family Systems practitioner. She works with clients individually, facilitates group workshops, and also supports organizations to bring emotional intelligence and candid feedback to their work culture. Overcoming long-held patterns of conflict-avoidance, Steph has learned to see tension as a path to deeper truth and connection.

She appreciates the Interactive IFS Group format to be a sandbox for this form of relational skill building. She loves supporting people to cultivate self-compassion and tune to their inner compass, and has a special fondness for inner critics.

You can find more about Steph at: stephstern.com

Joylynn Foli

Joylynn is a Level II Certified Internal Family Systems Practitioner, Level II Certified Peer Recovery Coach, and Medication Assisted Treatment Specialist. She is also the founder of the first Recovery Café in Hamilton County, Indiana—a nonprofit organization that embraces the idea that everyone is in recovery from something and deserves support along the way.

For Joylynn, it is essential that individuals are met with empathy, openness, and understanding as they navigate life’s challenges. She resonates deeply with the words of American author David Augsburger, who said, “Being heard is so close to being loved that to the average person, the two are almost indistinguishable.” With this in mind, Joylynn strives to listen in a way that fosters an environment of love, acceptance, and healing.

Ayesha Iftikhar

Ayesha is a counselling psychologist and IFSCA registered therapist who runs groups, trainings and workshops for clients and counselling students in her under-served community, through her platform, Ascension Academy.

Her approach weaves in humour, an existential focus and a strong awareness of the transpersonal. She is particularly drawn to helping individuals re-build their lives and identities after significant life transitions.

Ayesha is a strong believer in the collective healing power of groups, and how they present a unique container for relational repair, challenge and growth in unprecedented ways, making this an area of focus in her research. Each new group is a unique organism of its own, and she is honored to accompany all group members on the exciting and often surprising unfolding that awaits them in these spaces.

Mariana Harling

Mariana is an Internal Family Systems (IFS) practitioner and group leader devoted to understanding the human psyche and how transformation unfolds within groups. She approaches groups as living systems and relational fields where vulnerability and authenticity open the door to inner healing, and where the capacities of Self support connection and belonging.

Grounded in the Interactive IFS Group model, Mariana supports participants in noticing how parts naturally arise in the moment within the group. These moments become opportunities to practice new relational skills, including staying present with complexity, navigating rupture and repair, and cultivating Self-led connection with both inner experience and others. Her facilitation is guided by clarity, curiosity, and compassion, helping familiar patterns soften and new possibilities emerge.

Mariana’s work is informed by extensive training in Internal Family Systems, Interactive IFS Group Leader Training, and ongoing study in somatic, polyvagal, and self-compassion–based approaches. She has also served as a Program Assistant for multiple IFS Level 1 cohorts with the IFS Institute.