This Therapy Changed My Life And It Could Do The Same For You: Internal Family Systems with Dr Richard Schwartz #244
This episode features Dr. Richard Schwartz, creator of Internal Family Systems (IFS), a transformative modality. IFS helps understand the mind's multiple "parts" and a core "Self," enabling self-healing and improved relationships through compassionate internal work.
Deep Dive Analysis
16 Topic Outline
Introduction to Internal Family Systems (IFS) and its personal impact
The fundamental concept of 'parts' within the mind
IFS as a systems-thinking approach to mental health
Healing trauma by 'rewriting the story' and retrieving stuck parts
The 'Self' (with a capital S) and the Eight C's of self-leadership
Origins of IFS: Working with eating disorders and the three-part cycle
Understanding Exiles, Protectors (Managers & Firefighters)
IFS perspective on couples fighting: 'Parts wars'
Live demonstration of an IFS session
The four goals of IFS therapy
Universal application of IFS beyond traditional therapy
IFS approach to addiction and personality changes
IFS for physical symptoms and chronic illness
Post-session care and ongoing IFS practice
Resources for learning more about IFS
Final empowering message: Accessing the Self
7 Key Concepts
Internal Family Systems (IFS)
IFS is a treatment modality that views the mind as naturally subdivided into multiple 'parts' rather than a singular entity. It applies a family therapy lens to these internal interactions, aiming to help parts transform from destructive roles into their naturally valuable states through self-healing.
Parts (in IFS)
These are distinct sub-personalities within the mind, each with valuable qualities. Trauma or attachment injuries can force these parts into extreme, destructive roles, often freezing them in time, believing the individual is still young and vulnerable.
The Self (with a capital S)
A core concept in IFS, the Self is an inherent, undamaged essence within every individual, characterized by qualities like calm, curiosity, compassion, and confidence. When 'parts' relax and open space, the Self emerges as the natural inner leader, capable of healing and relating in a compassionate way.
Exiles
These are young, vulnerable, and sensitive parts that carry the burdens of past pain, fear, or worthlessness from trauma (e.g., rejection, abandonment, abuse). They are often locked away in the 'inner basement' to prevent their intense emotions from overwhelming the system.
Protectors
Parts that take on roles to keep the vulnerable 'exiles' contained and prevent them from being triggered. They include 'Managers' who try to control life and relationships (e.g., inner critics, caretakers) and 'Firefighters' who react impulsively to douse emotional 'flames' (e.g., through addictions, rage).
Legacy Burdens
These are the beliefs and emotions from trauma that attach to a 'part' (like a virus) and drive its operations. The parts carry these burdens but are not inherently the burdens themselves; they are valuable parts forced into extreme roles by these experiences.
Parentified Inner Children
A concept from family therapy applied to IFS, where inner 'protector' parts are forced to take on roles they weren't equipped for, similar to a child in an external family having to act as a parent. They feel relieved when they realize they no longer have to carry this burden.
10 Questions Answered
IFS posits that the mind is naturally subdivided into multiple 'parts' rather than a single entity, and that all these parts are inherently good but can be forced into destructive roles by life's adversities. The goal is to help these parts transform and allow the 'Self' to lead.
No, in IFS, having multiple parts or sub-personalities is considered a normal, healthy way for the mind to function, not a dangerous pathology as often depicted in popular culture.
The eight qualities that characterize the 'Self' when it emerges are: creativity, courage, curiosity, connection, compassion, clarity, calm, and confidence.
IFS allows individuals to literally 'change the past' in their inner world by revisiting a trauma, retrieving the 'stuck' part (exile) from that time, and bringing it to a safe place, providing it with the care and protection it needed then.
Instead of trying to stop the addictive behavior directly, IFS approaches the 'addict part' with curiosity to understand what it's trying to protect. By healing the underlying vulnerable 'exile' part, the addict part naturally no longer needs to engage in the addictive activity.
Yes, IFS has shown promise in helping with chronic medical illnesses like rheumatoid arthritis. By getting curious about the pain and listening to the parts that are using the symptom to convey a message (e.g., 'take care of yourself'), individuals can experience significant improvement or even remission.
IFS helps individuals understand that conflicts often arise from their 'protector' parts battling each other. By learning to identify when a protector takes over, taking a 'time out,' and speaking from the 'Self' with compassion, couples can transform their interactions.
The four goals are: 1) Liberating parts from their stuck roles, 2) Restoring parts' trust in the 'Self' as a leader, 3) Helping parts form new, harmonious relationships with each other, and 4) Fostering 'Self-led' behavior in the outside world.
No, IFS is believed to have universal application and can help anyone, regardless of whether they have a mental health diagnosis, by providing a system to better understand oneself and the contents of the mind.
IFS moves beyond willpower by healing the underlying parts that resist certain behaviors (like exercise or healthy eating). When these parts relax, individuals can engage in activities from a place of joy and self-care, rather than coercion or inner conflict.
42 Actionable Insights
1. Access Your Inner Self
Recognize that your ‘Self’ (characterized by qualities like calm, compassion, confidence) is always present, even if obscured by discouraged or hopeless parts. By gently convincing these parts to create space, you can access and bring more of your Self-energy into your inner and outer life, leading to transformation when you stop fighting protectors and engage with exiles.
2. Welcome All Inner Parts
Welcome all parts of yourself, even those you dislike or find destructive, because the central philosophy of IFS is that all parts are inherently good, though they may be forced into extreme roles by adversity.
3. Transform Inner Parts
Do not aim to get rid of different ‘parts’ within your mind (e.g., inner critic, destructive streak). Instead, focus on helping these parts transform from their extreme roles into their naturally valuable states.
4. Focus on Symptoms, Get Curious
When experiencing symptoms (physical or mental), instead of trying to get rid of them, focus on the symptom itself and get curious about it. This approach helps to listen to the ‘message’ the symptom is conveying, which can prevent worsening symptoms or over-medication.
5. Treat Symptoms as Messages
When facing a diagnosis (medical or psychological), view symptoms as ‘red lights’ on a dashboard rather than problems to be eliminated directly. Instead of just treating the symptom, ’lift the hood’ to understand the underlying cause by focusing on the symptom itself and getting curious about its message.
6. Daily Curiosity for Triggers
Adopt IFS as a daily life practice: when triggered, get curious about the thought or emotion (the ’trailhead’), stay with it to identify the part it’s coming from, and approach it with curiosity and compassion to understand its purpose.
7. Recognize Exiled Parts’ Triggers
Recognize that feeling delicate, perceiving the world as dangerous, or experiencing overwhelming emotional ‘flames’ (e.g., intense pain, terror, shame) often indicates the presence of many ’exiled’ vulnerable parts that are easily triggered. Understanding this can be the first step to addressing these parts.
8. Befriend Inner Parts, Change Personality
Befriend and make peace with your inner parts, understanding that ’no bad parts’ exist and they all serve a protective role. This process can lead to fundamental shifts in perceived personality traits (e.g., addictive personality), fostering self-compassion and reducing shame.
9. Four Goals of IFS Practice
Engage in IFS to achieve four goals: liberate parts from stuck roles, restore their trust in your ‘Self’ as a leader, foster harmonious relationships among your inner parts, and become more ‘Self-led’ in the outside world, which includes acting on a clear vision for your life and addressing injustice with compassion.
10. Rewrite Inner Stories
Engage in inner work (like IFS) to ‘rewrite the story’ of past experiences. Your brain can absorb this new narrative, leading to a fundamental shift in how you experience the world and interact with others.
11. Retrieve Traumatized Inner Parts
To address past trauma, go into the inner world of the trauma, retrieve the part of yourself stuck there, and bring it to a safe place. This process can literally change the past for that inner part, even if the external facts remain the same.
12. Free Parts Stuck in Past Trauma
Identify inner ‘parts’ that are stuck in past traumas or experiences (e.g., thinking you’re still five years old). By acknowledging where they are stuck and metaphorically ‘getting them out of there,’ you can help them transform into their naturally valuable states.
13. Visualize Triggers to Identify Protectors
To identify a ‘protector’ part, visualize a triggering person in a contained room, with you observing through a window. Imagine them doing or saying the triggering thing, and then notice the physical and mental sensations that arise as your protector part activates. This exercise helps to physically distinguish between a protector and your ‘Self.’
14. Shift Focus to Access Self
After identifying a protector, shift your inner focus to simply observing the triggering person through the window, allowing yourself to see them ‘being themselves’ with their natural qualities. This shift can cause the protector to relax, allowing you to access a more ‘Self-led’ state characterized by calmness, open-heartedness, and a different physical sensation.
15. Compassionately Engage Protectors
If you feel frustration towards a ‘protector’ part, ask the frustrated part to step aside and give space. Once it does, revisit the original protector with a more open and compassionate perspective, acknowledging its protective intent and expressing gratitude for its efforts. This can lead to the protector feeling relieved and willing to relax its extreme role.
16. Reassure Protectors of Adulthood
Ask a protector part how old it perceives you to be. If it sees you as younger (e.g., five years old), inform it that you are now older and capable of handling situations, assuring it that it no longer needs to carry the burden of protection in the same way. This can bring relief to the protector.
17. Seek Protector’s Permission
Once a protector part has relaxed, ask it if it is protecting a more vulnerable part. If it is, seek its permission to approach and heal that vulnerable ’exiled’ part.
18. Address Resistant Parts Before Healing
Before proceeding to heal a vulnerable part, check for any other parts that might be afraid or resistant to the process (e.g., parts concerned about vulnerability or external judgment). Ask these parts to trust and step back to allow the healing to proceed.
19. Connect with Inner Child with Love
When connecting with a vulnerable inner child part, locate it in your body, approach it with love and compassion, and communicate your love to it. Notice how your body responds (e.g., deeper breathing) and how the inner child reacts (e.g., smiling).
20. Affirm Inner Child’s Needs
Ask the vulnerable inner child what it wants you to know about itself, particularly its core needs (e.g., to be loved unconditionally). Acknowledge and affirm these needs, repeating your love and understanding, which helps build trust.
21. Understand Inner Child’s Past Pain
Ask the inner child about its past experiences and what happened to it (e.g., feeling unloved unless it performed certain actions). Listen with deep compassion, acknowledge its pain, and offer comfort (e.g., cuddling) to help it feel understood and supported.
22. Be Present with Stuck Inner Child
Go back to the specific past moment where the inner child is stuck. Be present with it in the way it needed someone at that time, radiating warmth, love, and reassurance that it is loved unconditionally and doesn’t need to change. This presence helps the inner child feel safe and begin to heal.
23. Protect Inner Child in Past
When engaging with an inner child part stuck in the past, ask what it needs you to do for it in that past scenario, such as protecting it from harm. Fulfilling this need within your inner world can literally change the past experience for that inner child.
24. Advocate for Inner Child in Past
Ask the inner child if it needs you to do anything for it in the past scenario, such as speaking to or dealing with others who didn’t understand it. Act on its behalf in a compassionate and non-confrontational way, allowing the inner child to witness your support.
25. Relocate Inner Child to Safety
Once the inner child feels supported in the past, ask if it’s ready to leave that time and place. Offer to bring it to the present or to a chosen fantasy place where it can feel safe and have fun.
26. Unload Inner Child’s Burdens
Assure the inner child that you will now take care of it. Then, ask if it’s ready to ‘unload’ the painful feelings and beliefs it carries from the past. Guide it to identify where these burdens are held in its body and choose a symbolic element (e.g., fire, water) to release them until they are gone.
27. Infuse Inner Child with Positive Qualities
After an inner child has unloaded its burdens, ask how it feels (e.g., lighter, freer). Then, invite it to fill itself with desired positive qualities. Observe its newfound sense of well-being and playfulness.
28. Reconcile Protectors with Healed Exiles
After healing the inner child, invite the former protector part to observe the healed inner child. The protector will likely feel satisfied and relieved that its protective role is no longer necessary, fostering a new, harmonious relationship between the parts.
29. Build Inner Parts’ Trust
By consistently engaging with your inner parts with curiosity and compassion, they will learn to trust you as their leader (your ‘Self’). This trust enables them to separate quickly and allow healing.
30. Daily IFS Follow-Up Practice
To make IFS work ‘stick,’ engage in daily follow-up practice for about a month. This involves regularly checking in with healed inner parts (e.g., the five-year-old in the woods) to reassure them you remember and won’t abandon them, and reminding former protectors that they can relax and trust you. This ongoing ‘meditation’ helps maintain the gains.
31. Manage Backlash from Scared Parts
Be aware that going deep quickly with inner work can sometimes lead to ‘backlash’ from parts that were scared of vulnerability. If this happens, recognize it as a scared part needing more attention and reassurance before attempting to go deep again.
32. Conflict Resolution: U-Turn Inward
During conflicts with a partner, if you notice a ‘protective part’ taking over (e.g., negative thoughts, harsh words), call a timeout and separate. Perform a ‘u-turn’ by focusing inward to identify the part that was speaking and what it’s protecting. Return to the conversation only when you can speak from ‘Self’ (calm, compassionate state) and express what your parts were feeling without blaming.
33. Separate During Conflict
If you are in the midst of a conflict where a protective part has taken over, physically separate from your partner to create space for introspection.
34. Listen to Feedback on Protectors
If a trusted person points out that you are operating from a ‘protector’ part during a conflict, be open to listening and separating, even if you initially resist. This can help you gain self-awareness and acknowledge when a part has taken over.
35. Heal Exiles to Improve Relationships
Heal your own ’exiled’ parts so they learn to trust you (your ‘Self’) as their primary caretaker, rather than seeking primary caretaking from your partner. This frees your partner from an impossible task, transforming relationship dynamics and reducing conflict.
36. Self-Healing Transforms Parenting
By engaging in self-transformation (e.g., through IFS), you naturally and automatically improve your parenting style, avoiding the unconscious imprinting of your own adaptations and burdens onto your children.
37. Introduce IFS to Children
Introduce IFS concepts to children using play therapy techniques (e.g., drawing parts, puppets), as they intuitively grasp the idea of inner parts and can learn to heal themselves and be good ‘inner parents’ to their own exiles.
38. Address Addiction’s Root Cause
Instead of using willpower to stop addictive behaviors, address the underlying vulnerable parts that the addiction is protecting. Healing these parts often leads to the addictive behavior naturally falling away as it’s no longer needed.
39. Avoid Confronting Addict Parts Directly
Avoid directly commanding an ‘addict part’ to stop its behavior, as this can lead to resistance and fear of overwhelming emotions. Instead, approach it with curiosity to understand what it’s protecting.
40. Prioritize Self-Care to Prevent Illness
Listen to your body’s signals, especially when it manifests physical symptoms. These symptoms may be a message from a part telling you to stop over-caretaking others and prioritize self-care, as ignoring it can lead to more severe physical consequences.
41. Negotiate with Parts for Joyful Action
Instead of relying on willpower and an ‘inner drill instructor’ for activities like exercise, heal the parts that resist or feel pressured. This allows the drill instructor to relax, enabling you to engage in activities for joy and negotiate with all your inner parts to find a balanced, self-led approach.
42. Frame Diagnosis as Temporary
When communicating a diagnosis, frame it as a temporary state (‘at the moment’) and emphasize that the goal is to understand and address the underlying causes, implying that the diagnosis is not a permanent identity and can potentially be removed.
5 Key Quotes
Medicine and psychotherapy are both designed to kill the messenger rather than to listen to the message.
Dr. Richard Schwartz
You can't change what happened, you just have to move on from it. You can't change the past. It turns out that in this inner world you can literally change the past by doing what you were talking about, which is to go into the trauma and actually retrieve the part that's stuck back there and bring it to a safe place.
Dr. Richard Schwartz
Dr. Gabor Mate... calls it one of the most innovative and transformational therapies to have emerged in the present century and Bessel van der Kolk, author of The Body Keeps the Score, calls it revolutionary and one of the cornerstones of effective and lasting trauma therapy.
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
If you hate your critic and someone's critical of you, that part that hates it is going to interact with that person. If instead you're you're you can uh listen to and and help relax and ultimately have huge compassion for your critic, then when this person is critical of you, you'll see past their part, you'll see the pain that might be driving their criticism, you'll have compassion for them and you can interact with them in a totally different way.
Dr. Richard Schwartz
This self with a capital S that I've I've been talking about, we've been talking about the last two hours, is in there even if you never feel many of those C-word qualities. It is in there and it's just beneath the surface of these parts that feel so discouraged and hopeless and have you stuck.
Dr. Richard Schwartz
3 Protocols
IFS 'U-turn' for Couples in Conflict
Dr. Richard Schwartz- When a conflict starts and protective parts take over, call a time out.
- Both partners separate and do a 'U-turn' in focus, looking inward instead of at the partner.
- Identify the part that was doing the talking and what it's protecting.
- When feeling back in 'Self' (calm, compassionate), invite the partner back.
- Speak from 'Self' to the partner, describing how their actions triggered a specific part, apologizing for the protector's takeover, and explaining what the inner part was feeling or protecting.
Live IFS Session: Healing an Irritated Protector and Exiled Child
Dr. Richard Schwartz- Identify a person who consistently triggers you and place them in an imaginary contained room, observing them through a window.
- Have the person do or say the triggering thing and notice physical and mental reactions (e.g., tightness, frustration, increased heart rate, closed heart).
- Shift focus inward and notice the 'protector' part that jumped in, then ask it to give space.
- Once the protector steps aside, notice the shift in body and mind (e.g., lighter, relaxed, open-hearted).
- Focus on the original protector again and express appreciation for its attempt to protect, acknowledging its role.
- Ask the protector how old it thinks you are; inform it of your current age and ability to handle things, allowing it to trust you and relax its protective role.
- Ask the protector if it protects another vulnerable part (an 'exile').
- If permission is given, check for any other parts that might be afraid to proceed and ask them to step back.
- Focus on the vulnerable 'exile' part (e.g., a five-year-old self) and notice feelings of love and compassion towards it.
- Let the exile know it is loved and understood, asking what it wants you to know about itself and its past experience (e.g., desire for unconditional love, feeling needing to change to be loved).
- Offer comfort and presence to the exile, letting it know you understand its pain.
- Go back into the past time where the exile is stuck and be present with it in the way it needed someone then, radiating warmth and love, and addressing any figures it wants you to deal with.
- Ask the exile if it's ready to leave that time and place and come to the present or a chosen fantasy place.
- Take the exile to a safe, fun place (e.g., woods) and tell it you will take care of it now.
- Ask the exile where it carries its burdens (feelings and beliefs) in its body.
- Ask the exile what it would like to give the burdens up to (e.g., fire, light, water) and guide it to release them.
- Once burdens are released, ask the exile to invite in desired qualities into its body.
- Invite the former protector to see the healed exile and witness its transformation, noting its satisfaction.
- Thank all parts for their participation and gently shift focus back to the outside world.
IFS Homework Pause Practice
Dr. Richard Schwartz- Daily, for about a month, check in with the 'exiled' part that was healed (e.g., the five-year-old).
- Ensure the exile is still in its safe place and feels remembered and not abandoned.
- Remind the former 'protector' that it can relax and trust you, the 'Self'.
- Continue this ongoing meditation-like practice to maintain the therapeutic gains.