I love this therapy, it's absolutely the best for me! I tried to work with quite a few psychologists here in Germany to cure my fear of anger. All of them got angry with me, some already at the second or third hour. This was like wanting to help someone with spider phobia by throwing by surprise a spider into their lap. But with this method I work with my parts one by one. And if they are too big or scary for me, I focus on befriending them.
This IFS presentation is fabulous. It's the first and only description of how, in the last 16 years, I have worked to understand myself, which necessitated analyzing my parents and siblings. I became my Protector in early childhood. Psychoanalysis did not work for me, in mid twenties but now that I have mostly fixed myself (I'll tell you how in a minute.) Since my early professional help was via Psychoanalysis, the ideal pairing would be a blending of IFS and psychoanalysis for more reasons not discussed in the main presentation. This could get long, and I apologize, but this presentation is so all encompassing to me, for many reasons. Dr Schwartz has developed the system that l parelled, out of necessity! Furthermore, I believe, as an aside, that people who go through IFS to completion will have less ADHD while young, and less Dementia when old! As everything stems from dysfunctional childhoods, in varying degrees. This is my understanding based on self observation and assessment, encompassing all but the first two years of my life. My first vivid memory was at approx 2.5 years. The most recent 16 years in self isolation allowed me to utilize RU-vid presentations of various therapists, social workers, psychologists, coaches, etc. I watched literally hundreds. Whenever I felt that some video that "spoke" to me, I would follow that person until I found benefit for whatever issue I focused on. Then I would move on to someone else that carried me further in my healing. Throughout these years, I went through much depression, feeling suicidal at times, (confident that if truly needed, I would go for help.) Everything I did was intuitively followed. Now, with Dr Schwartz's IFS approach, I'm beginning to wonder if I was healing all my sundry parts of my personality from different episodes of my childhood. I think I was! More than once I tried to imagine how I could recreate my personal method for others to use to treat themselves. Try as I did, it seemed impossible for me to describe my logic. All my research on myself, led me to believe that I could not heal myself unless I understood the dynamics of my parent's marriage, and why I had always been scapegoated, being the youngest of 4 children. So, for me it's been an overwhelming ordeal. I am so exhausted from years of self work, and am now elderly. But if I died tomorrow I can accept that, knowing that I have graduated to having reach the 8 C's. Well, at least on days of being in the two upper levels of daily observation using the Polyvagal System. I don't recall being on the bottom level for many months now! There are many treatment modalities, but if I were beginning again, at ANY age, I definitely would investigate Dr Schwartz's IFS, hands down.
I can agree with becoming your own protector at a young age. I too. And when i read/heard about this i cried happy tears feeling like a therapist finally understands me. Us, ppl. And it was a pretty magical moment for me finding this. Now to find therapists that use this method in my area. Athritis even? I have this as well.
You are an amazing person! 16 years of isolation and you going deeper down and working on yourself. I like how you describe your process and how intuition guided you. Do you believe that you have spirit guides or other entities helping you?
so good !! his reference to RA improvement with IFS informs john Sarno's work, big time; he also includes many physical/inflammatory conditions; ie pain to protect from emotions, especially anger. so fascinating!! IFS is used for psychedelic therapy with amazing success!
Oh yeah, this is THE piece for really taking the TMS work to another level. I have training in that, as well as my own experience, but when I found Dr. Stephen Porges work with the polyvagal system, my TMS work went to another level, now with IFS, this is the big difference-it's all in there, polyvagal theory plus IFS!
I love the Title you chose for your book, No Bad Parts! All my parts said "Fuck yeah!" Out loud when I heard it. My friends do not believe this and it's so heart breaking If I ever get the opportunity to do something to help others and chose a similar Title. 🙊🙉🙈
Very interesting interview. Dr. Schwartz is fortunately articulate and knows his "discovery" expertly. Insightful interviewing as well. Very good indeed.
Dr. Schwartz is my hero. I love the book recommendation, IFS as a philosophy and a universally applicable model for understanding ourselves and the world is so intriguing!
Sometimes a bit deep, but knowing the enneagram makes this so much clearer. Self=essence, Centers of intelligence...heart has trouble with shame/victim, head types have trouble with fear/anxiety body types have trouble with anger/contol... Types 1 perfectionist fights the inner critic , type 2 values helping others and forgetting themselves type 3 performer forgets value of self separate from what they do, type 8 the challenger has trouble being vulnerable... you get the picture. There is a childhood wound that causes one to deal with the world in a certain way. It is a personality tool that can define your box or help you out of it.
yes - again thanks! with each interview i hear or watch I learn more really help strategies and gain more insight and I get more out of doing the work myself.
Wonderful! Radical reorientation and SO NEEDED!! So glad to have bumped into this. I wonder what Dr Schwartz would answer to "what would be the way to access self-tools?" I bought the new book, waiting for it to arrive, but having the strategy spoken while I'm doing it seems so much more useful to me. Mebbe the audio version of the book? I am *really* able to use the bits Dr. Schwartz walks us through in the vids I'd watched so far and they've produced noticeable results in how I feel inside... these are tools I can use right now, even before considering finding a therapist. I have PTSD around therapists, only slightly a joke. This is such brilliant work and so needed, I'm thrilled to see the next steps appearing in understanding and mapping our human psyche, that's SO exhilarating!! This the first real sense of hope I've had in the last few years. Thank you so much. And btw, the questions were really good Dan, well done.
Lynn, I'm sure you've received the book by now, but I highly recommend the audio book. It's (unfortunately) not read by Dr. Schwartz, but there is a whole bunch of content with him explaining concepts, guiding meditations and practices, and real (but reenacted) therapeutic sessions. I'd love to work with Dr. S in therapy, this is the next best thing!
Thanks for conducting this session with Dr Schwartz, and thanks to all whose questions he responded to! I was wondering if there're any limitations to this model?
This just feels like another spin on the paradigm of "your real self is when you act the way I think you should, and your illness is when you don't, and if you disagree that's resistance" that I experienced growing up with autism.
Thank you, Dan. This was amazing. I’m doing a slide presentation on IFS for grad school right now, and you have provided such a great resource for me here! I even needed a “role play” clip and you gave me one! Thanks to you for facilitating such a great interview and putting these great resources together. And thanks so much to Dr. Schwartz for codifying such a useful therapy. I am trained in something vaguely similar, and have found it so useful both personally and also in my coaching/counseling work. The idea of “no bad parts” is SO powerful. I have long resonated with the idea of “multiplicity on a continuum.” So this all makes sense to me. Would love to take some training directly from them, but it will probably have to wait a while (given grad school).
Tried to go to the image source at 15:30 and it looks like the link no longer exists. The reason I went is that I feel it could be helpful to have the Core Self represented as a 'larger circle' that surrounds the three sectioned 'parts' circle. There is a kind of 'spaciousness' that the 'Self' offers that can allow the parts to be seen and express themselves.
Interesting theory. I often call these "parts" , "trauma demons" they could be called "trauma angels" too.. Coping mechanisms. The body & mind are absolutely fascinating.
The questions about the correlation between trauma and health related issues, please read the Adverse Childhood Experiences studies. Felliti et al., 1998 is the first.
I believe protectors can even make us sneeze and bite our tongue literally so that we forget what we were thinking about or doing that was offering us healing
I am relatively new to IFS. A question that came up for me was what happens with the traumatized, shamed etc. part that you bring in the present and unburden, so to speak. Does it get "absorbed" by other parts or "integrated" or does it get assigned a new role assigned via therapy? And if it does get a new role, what are the internal guidelines to construct such a new role?
The vulnerable part is no longer exiled but supported as a valuable member of the inner family. You can ask it via internal dialogue which qualities it would like to bring into your life while also introducing it to your protectors to inform them they no longer need to protect it
Hello I find this topic fascinating as I’m trying to learn IFS myself I suffer from generalized anxiety disorder and a form of obsessive thinking which is anxiety of the mind a fear of losing control I’m confused if that is an exile or a protector I’m trying to work the program but I can’t seem to fit which part that is inside of me . When that side comes out the fear and terror is so intense that I regret back to childhood and I feel like an evil fearful part takes over my mind. Even though I know it’s me can you please help me with this if this is an exile a protector or am I just nuts lol thank you
Dr. Schwartz, do you believe that IFS can be used to treat an individual with a diagnosis of Substance Use Disorder, Depression with Psychotic Features, Antisocial Personality Disorder and Factitious Disorder? Someone who is highly deceptive, and incredibly manipulative, and may not be able to be truthful to anyone?
i heard you guys talking about having difficulty contacting parts and that has been my experience.. it sure sounds like my parts are running the show but i am having difficulty contacting them.. you guys roll played.. is that like... fake it till you make it?
if you are doing it by the protocol, there is only the danger that you get to know yourself fully, with your good and bad parts. I would just spot again the risk of grabbing some parts by the hair to get them to light. You should always ask for permission and be kind to anyone who shows up.
There's definitely overlap in the modalities. In "parts" work, we generally divide parts into 3 primary categories: Exiles, Protectors/Managers, and Firefighters. All of the Jung archetypes could fit into those 3 categories. Having just 3 "archetypes" is nice because it keeps things simple and allows YOU to get to know each part as an individual, rather than feeling like the part needs to exactly fit a more specific archetype. But if thinking of them in the Jungian framework is also helpful, there's nothing that says you can't do that! That's the beauty of IFS, it's so simple in it's framework that it leaves a lot of the details up to you and your parts, which also helps make it easier to implement and practice.
I have a curious dilemma. I have struggled with hypertension since young adulthood. I have weaned myself off all meds, but occasionally I get hypertension attacks. They start out as scary thoughts (omg, what if your BP goes up now and it can’t be controlled?). This thought results in an angry reaction (WTH is wrong with me? I just measured perfectly good numbers and now the BP is off the charts!?!). This then results in a feeling of desperation and depression. I feel defeated (it’s all useless, my body fks with me randomly and there’s nothing I can do short of going back on meds with side effects that include very low BP. How do I accept this issue fully so I stop getting angry and depressed?
@@hejo6876 thanks, now I have a bit better control. Eckhart Tolle has helped me to realize the power of now, and the fact that I need to accept whatever is happening. I believe fighting raises BP, but any attacks quickly dissipate if just let them be, without judging.
I have such panic attacks with the questions in this process. It feels in my body that I don't have good answer and that panic totally derails me. Its not something that can be overcome by simply saying its ok.
All so called religions have a name for the true self or soul Rabbi and in my opinion that's a great accomplishment in 2022, we all agree that we have it! ( no disrespect and for no debate, I was born orthodox Christian not knowing what or who and now , older that I became, like to think that I believe in God of the Universe, of the stars, the Sun and the Moon, the Earth and the Nature, the man and woman.
I would like to hear more about Dr. Schwartz's opinion of the research done in regards to the Heart intelligence of feelings, as written in book by Joseph Chilton Pearce titled "the Heart-Mind Matrix".....in relation to this parts/emotion concepts.
you should not set it as a goal to remember something from the past. There are plenty of triggers in the moment. If you want, you can make each moment to a door to your past. Cause you will always have some thoughts about what's happening to you or around you. Start from there, and say Interesting. I'd like to know more about it, if it's okay. Be honest with your feelings, like fellow friends visiting you. They all have a good reason to come around. If you are open, they will reveal to you their birth circumstances.
Dr. Schwartz reminds me of a cult leader and a sorcerer and I’ve seen him say that the patient can take over the therapist role as some kind of managers of inner parts. ARE YOU FRIGGING KIDDING ME? This man has no idea what kind of monsters our parts can be and if you are not aware of them and ready to meet them, they can scare the living shit out of you and even infiltrate your psyche in an extremely frightening and negative way. This man is stuck in his own conformation bias that he’s trying to proof. There is defiantly a good reason for exiling parts of ourselves, they can be extremely disturbed, dangerous and cunning and there is no guarantee that they will honor their bargain that your Self is making with them. I don’t know how to describe it other than that it can feel like you are making pact with the devil or something like that. KEEP YOUR EXILED EXILED! That’s where they belong, not with your Self but in exile.
Lana, you may have misunderstood what an Exile is.. I highly recommend that you read the book "No bad parts" by Dr Schwartz or "The Introduction to IFS".
A highly trained IFS therapist (Level 3) could be of help to help one tackle difficult exiles and protectors. All parts ultimately have a good intention to protect oneself and survive. They just might take on intense forms. The intensity of parts is often equal to the intensity of wounds. Serious wounds need serious expert outside guides in the form of good IFS therapists.
there might have been a good reason at some moment to exile some feelings or parts in the unknown. But if something is bothering you, there is no reason to act like a child who thinks the mutter disappears if they hide behind the corner. The truth is, if you insist on having only the good parts by yourself, than everybody outside will end being bad.
