Richard Schwartz, Ph.D. - Guest
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D. is the founder of The IFS Institute, originally named The Center for Self Leadership. He began his career as a systemic family therapist and an academic. Grounded in systems thinking, Dr. Schwartz developed Internal Family Systems (IFS) in response to clients’ descriptions of various parts within themselves. He focused on the relationships among these parts and noticed that there were systemic patterns to the way they were organized across clients. He also found that when the clients’ parts felt safe and were allowed to relax, the clients would experience spontaneously the qualities of confidence, openness, and compassion that Dr. Schwartz came to call the Self. He found that when in that state of Self, clients would know how to heal their parts. A featured speaker for national professional organizations, Dr. Schwartz has published many books and over fifty articles about IFS. |
W. Keith Sutton, Psy.D. - Host
Dr. Sutton has always had an interest in learning from multiple theoretical perspectives, and keeping up to date on innovations and integrations. He is interested in the development of ideas, and using research to show effectiveness in treatment and refine treatments. In 2009 he started the Institute for the Advancement of Psychotherapy, providing a one-way mirror training in family therapy with James Keim, LCSW. Next, he added a trainer and one-way mirror training in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, and an additional trainer and mirror in Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy. The participants enjoyed analyzing cases, keeping each other up to date on research, and discussing what they were learning. This focus on integrating and evolving their approaches to helping children, adolescents, families, couples, and individuals lead to the Institute for the Advancement of Psychotherapy's training program for therapists, and its group practice of like-minded clinicians who were dedicated to learning, innovating, and advancing the field of psychotherapy. Our podcast, Therapy on the Cutting Edge, is an extension of this wish to learn, integrate, stay up to date, and share this passion for the advancement of the field with other practitioners. |
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (00:21)
Welcome to Therapy on the Cutting Edge, a podcast for therapists who want to be up-to-date on the latest advancements in the field of psychotherapy. I'm your host, Keith Sutton, a psychologist in the San Francisco Bay Area and the Director of the Institute for the Advancement of Psychotherapy. In this episode, I interview Richard Schwartz, Ph.D., who is the founder of the Internal Family Systems Institute, originally named the Center for Self Leadership. He began his career as a systemic family therapist and an academic. Grounded in systems thinking, Dick developed Internal Family Systems in response to clients' descriptions of various parts within themselves. He focused on the relationships among these parts and noticed that there were systemic patterns to the way they were organized across clients. He also found that when the clients’ parts felt safe and were allowed to relax, the clients would experience spontaneously the qualities of confidence, openness, and compassion that Dick came to call the Self. He found that when in that state of Self, clients would know how to heal their parts. Dick is also a featured speaker for national professional organizations and has published many books and over 50 articles about Internal Family Systems. Let's listen to the interview. So, hi Dick. Welcome. Thanks for coming.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (01:35)
Thanks, Keith. Really happy to do it. Good to see you again.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (01:38)
Yeah. So I'm excited to interview you. You know, I've been hearing about Internal Family Systems for many years, and a lot of people are really excited about it, including some close colleagues. I've been learning a little bit here and there. I'm taking a PESI workshop and looking to do the first training that you have. You're also going to be coming out for the Association of Family Therapists Northern California and doing a two-day workshop, so I'm excited about that. But first before we get into your work, I'd love to hear about how you got to thinking about what you're doing, the evolution of your thinking to get to this. I'm so interested.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (02:16)
You know I, like you, trained as a family therapist. I have a Ph.D. in that from Purdue and got that degree in 1980, and I joined something called the Institute for Juvenile Research, which was at the time, a prestigious kind of think tank run by the state. In that context, I did a lot of family therapy with the marginalized community that we were in on the west side of Chicago. It was one of these zealous, obnoxious family therapists who thought we'd found the holy grail and thought individual therapists were wasting their time because we could reorganize all that internal stuff just by changing these external relationships. I decided I wanted to prove that and did an outcome study with a woman named Mary Jo Barrett, whose name you might know.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (03:20)
I actually just interviewed her. She’s going to be the podcast that’s right before yours.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (03:24)
Oh, okay. Great. Yeah. So Mary Jo and I got together about 30 bulimic kids and their families, and this was when bulimia had just come on the scene as a symptom. And I found that I could reorganize the families just the way the book said to, and still, it was like my kids didn't realize they'd been cured. They kept binging and purging and I was so frustrated because, you know, Minuchin had claimed such good luck with anorexics. So out of frustration I began asking why they kept doing it, and they started talking with what, at the time, was a strange language of parts. They would say some version of, “When something bad happens in my life, it triggers this critic who starts to tear into me. And that brings up a part that believes it all and makes me feel totally worthless and alone and scared and young.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (04:28)
“And that part is so distressing. I can't stand to be in that state that almost to the rescue comes the binge and takes me away from all that. It turns me into a kind of unfeeling eating machine, but the act of the binge brings the critic back who's calling me a pig on top of the other names. Then of course that young empty, worthless part comes back and so the binge has to come back.” As they described that, it sounded familiar because in family therapy, we studied these sequences of interactions among different players. So I got curious, but initially I was making the mistake that the field still makes, which is to assume they were what they seemed. So I thought the critic was some kind of internalized critical parent voice, and the binge was an out-of-control impulse.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (05:26)
When you think of them that way, you're limited in how you have your client relate to them. So I was trying to get my client to fight with the critic and stand up for herself and control the binge, and they were getting worse, but I didn't know what to do but stand up stronger, control more. Then I had a client who I knew had a sex abuse history but also cut herself. By then I was having people talk to their parts in open chairs like Gestalt therapy did, and so one session, I decided we weren't going to let her leave my office until that cutting part agreed not to do it. After a couple hours of badgering, it finally said, “Okay, I won't cut her.” And I open the door the next session, and she's got a big gash down the side of her face.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (06:19)
Emotionally I just collapsed, and I spontaneously said, “I give up. I can't beat you at this.” And the part said, “I don't really want to beat you.” That was a turning point in the history of the work because I got out of my coercive place and just got curious and asked, “Why are you doing this?” The part told me about how when she was being sexually abused, how much it needed to get her out of her body and contain the rage would get her more abuse. So then I shifted again. Not only am I curious, but I have a kind of appreciation for the heroic role it played in her life. I could convey that to the part, and it broke into tears and talked about how much everybody hated it and wanted to get rid of it.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (07:10)
And finally somebody's listening. As it talked, though, it also sounded like it was really living in the past. Like it hadn't left that time and still saw her as five years old. So with all of that, I began to totally shift away from that coercive place approach and just tried to help clients listen to these parts that were driving them crazy, rather than fight them. I would find that, very similar to that cutting part, they all had their sort of secret histories of how they got forced into these roles they were in. They didn't like the roles, but they thought they were necessary because they were stuck in the past and they still thought things were very dangerous. So then I concluded, which is now the basic assumption of the model, that these were actually good parts that had been forced by traumas and attachment injuries out of their naturally valuable states into roles that were extreme but were necessary.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (08:28)
And that once released from those roles, they'll transform into their naturally valuable state. So that's a long way of saying that I learned from my clients this model and that one of the basic assumptions is that everybody has parts. That's the nature of the mind to have them, that we’re born that way, and that it's good because they're all valuable. There aren't any bad parts; the title of my new book is No Bad Parts. That was a very lonely position to take in the field because it's been a hard sell.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (09:09)
It sounds like you kind of moved from being combative with the parts to being collaborative with the parts. I think in a lot of the field too, in areas even like CBT, that rather than getting rid of the irrational thoughts or so on, there's been a third wave movement of noticing and letting them be there and existing and not fighting to get rid of them or so on. Or narrative therapy, kind of changing relationships to those symptoms or so on.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (09:35)
I'm glad to hear that. I wasn't aware of the third wave of CBT. And mindfulness is that also, just to separate from your thoughts and emotions and observe them rather than being in them. So it does sound like a lot of the field is moving in that direction.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (09:55)
With the parts work that you've done, in the way that I've understood it, it’s that these parts are trying to help. They're protecting the person and they, like you're saying, might have developed at these earlier ages when there was a trauma going on or so on and don’t realize that we're safe now.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (10:17)
Yeah. They didn't develop then; the role that they got forced into developed. Again, to make the analogy to something that you're familiar with, it's sort of like in a dysfunctional family. The kids are forced into roles that don't suit them but were necessary, or they thought they were necessary, to save the family or to save themselves in the family. And once you, as a family therapist, go in and make things better, they can be who they're designed to be. And for me it's a direct parallel to these parts.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (10:58)
Okay. So the parts are like the children in the family who, again, end up behaving in this way to kind of deal with the situation, but relieving them of that role lets them be who they are.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (11:11)
Right. Yeah. Yeah, and I would say the difference between IFS and the models you mentioned, where you said that rather than fight them you become more accepting, is that that's a good first step, but with IFS, in addition, we wind up showing them a lot of appreciation and love and helping them out of the roles they were forced into. So instead of being a model of accepting and living with, it’s a model of transformation. They all are helped into new roles that are all valuable.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (12:02)
And creating a lot more harmony inside. Then there's another concept I haven't introduced yet, which is that in addition to all of these parts, I found through trial and error, there's a kind of essence in everybody that is full of good leadership qualities and is just beneath the surface of these parts such that when they open space, it emerges spontaneously. That was amazing when I initially encountered that because I couldn't believe it because I'd been trained, like you had in graduate school, in attachment theory. That for people to have any of that, they had to have had good enough parenting at least when they were kids because it had to come from a relationship.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (12:54)
And I was working with clients who'd been tortured on a daily basis, and yet as we got their protectors to open space, it was like the same person would pop up inside and would know how to lead their inner system in a healthy way. And when I asked about that, what part of them was that, they'd say, “That's not a part like these others. That's more me or myself.” So I call that the Self, and that's really become the centerpiece of the model.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (13:23)
That that's in everybody, can't be damaged, knows how to heal, and is just beneath the surface of these parts.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (13:32)
And so in this kind of family model, is that like the parent?
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (13:37)
Yeah. But it's more than just a parent, it's just a good leader. It becomes the parent to the parts. But it also knows how to lead and create healing in external relationships too.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (13:53)
It's like those internalized resources that the person has, like you're saying, and everybody kind of has it, you just have to help them get through to get to it.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (14:03)
Yeah. But I would quibble with the word internalized because, again, that's from attachment theory.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (14:09)
Okay.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (14:10)
The position I'm taking is that it's human nature to have this. We’re born with the Self. And it's not internalized and it's much more akin to spiritual traditions, each of which have a word for this. Whether it's Buddha Nature or Christ Consciousness or Atman, or I could go on and on. I did a book where we looked at every spiritual tradition and how they saw what I'm calling Self. So that's why this is such a different paradigm.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (14:46)
Yeah. Okay. So is it almost like a soul? Like in a Judeo-Christian kind of sense?
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (14:53)
Yes. Very much like the soul. You know, I once was asked to train people at the Reformed Theological Seminaries in Jackson, Mississippi. It was a very evangelical place, and I went down there worried because I knew I was going to take the position that people are basically good, and they took the position that people are basically bad.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (15:19)
And I said some version of, “But in the Bible, doesn't it say that the image of God is within?” And they said, “Yeah, but that's just a kind of little seed that's covered over by all the sin.”
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (15:32)
And I said, “If you could translate sin into burdens, which for me are these extreme beliefs and emotions that come in and attach to our parts and drive the way they operate, then we're talking the same language because parts and their burdens cover over this seed of Self, or God, within.”
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (15:55)
So it's not necessarily internalized. It's something that just has always existed. This thing.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (15:59)
Always existed, knows how to heal. So it's almost like, you know, our bodies know how to heal. If you cut your arm, your body will automatically go to heal that. It's almost like this is an innate way to heal emotionally.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (16:14)
And the process – I'm just beginning to learn the words – the process of kind of getting to that Self is the unblending? Can you talk about that and the different protectors and so on?
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (16:25)
That's right. So if I were to do a piece of work with you, and you know if we want to, I'd be happy to do a little piece with you.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (16:36)
Sure.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (16:37)
You want to?
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (16:38)
Yeah, why not?
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (16:39)
Okay, great. You have a part in mind you'd like to get to know or help?
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (16:45)
Ah, gosh, I don't at the moment.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (16:50)
Well, you can think about it while I talk about this.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (16:52)
Sure, sure. Yeah.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (16:54)
So if a client comes in, I'd ask that question, “What part do you want to work with?” But before that even, I would ask, “What's your problem?” Then as they describe the problem, I would introduce the language. So rather than just reflectively listening to what they're saying and repeating it back, I would add the phrase, “So one part of you does this, and another part says this to you.” And people don't balk at that because everybody uses that language. Everybody says, “Part of me is happy to be here, and another part of me wishes I was in bed,” or some version of that. So I'm saying, in the process of five minutes, I can get four or five parts on the table. Then I'll say, “Which of these get in your way the most?” or “Which do you want to work with the most?” And we'd pick that one, and then I would have the client focus on their experience of it and find it in their body or around their body, which people can do quite readily, it turns out. That becomes a kind of anchor point. Then this question, “How do you feel toward it?” tells me how much of their Self is present versus other parts or their protectors that their Self is blended with.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (18:09)
And so if we did this, and you found a part and you said, “I hate it”, that's not one of the C words of Self. The C words of Self are calm, curiosity, confidence, compassion, clarity, courage, creativity, and connectedness. That's what I find universally as qualities of what I'm calling Self. So as I'm asking you, “How do you feel toward this part?”, I'm listening for any of that. And short of that, we're going to ask the one who hates it to step back, relax in there, and give us the space to open to it. We'll do that until it does shift. Then I'll say, “Now how do you feel toward the part?” And you might say, “Well, I'm just kind of curious about whatever it's doing.” Then I know, and it also goes to tone of voice and your facial expression, then I know we're in. You've embodied enough stuff that we can get going, and if we get going, it's going to go in a positive way. So then I would say, “Okay, ask it why it's doing this, and don't think of the answer. Just wait for an answer to come.”
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (19:24)
Yeah.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (19:25)
And then we would begin the inner dialogue.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (19:28)
Kind of like using that right brain to let the words just come and notice that dialogue rather than thinking about what it would say.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (19:37)
Yeah. Although I don't find the right brain, left brain distinction that valuable. It's just you're literally in my land listening to what this part wants you to know that you've been not listening to most of your life. Finally, it knows that you're there and you're willing to listen rather than kill it or fight with it, and people are often shocked at what comes.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (20:01)
Yeah. Yeah. Let's totally do it. The part that's coming to mind is the part that's a little tired, just getting off a two-week vacation, kind of wants to still be on vacation a little bit.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (20:16)
That's perfect. Okay. So focus on that and find that one in your body or around your body, Keith.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (20:23)
Okay.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (20:25)
Where do you find it?
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (20:27)
In my chest and the forehead area.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (20:32)
And as you notice it there, how do you feel toward it, toward that part of you?
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (20:42)
Um, I don’t know how I feel towards it. It feels kind of heavy. I kind of want to join it and relax and take a break and still be on vacation.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (20:54)
Okay. So you like it, and you kind of agree with it.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (20:58)
Mm-hmm.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (21:00)
All right. So let it know that. Just let it know that you care about it. You like its perspective and its intentions and, you know, whatever else you want to say to it right now. Just see what it wants you to know about itself. There's more it wants you to know, and don't think of the answer. Just wait for the answer to come.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (21:28)
Yeah. I was kind of imagining, you know, appreciating it and kind of saying, “Oh, I wish I could go off with you and hang out or play. I have to work.” And when I was asking it what it's got to tell me or to learn or so on, it was kind of telling me “It's okay to relax at times or not always be go, go, go.”
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (21:59)
Okay. So it's trying to get you to see that you don't have to work so hard constantly. Is that right?
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (22:09)
Yeah.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (22:10)
Okay. So Keith, ask, is there another part of you that does push too hard in its mind, that it would like you to work with?
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (22:26)
Yeah. Yeah. I kind of notice it.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (22:34)
So would it make sense to work with that part for a second?
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (22:37)
Sure.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (22:40)
Where do you notice it in your body or around your body?
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (22:43)
I notice it kind of in my heart, my chest, or it's almost like a little bit of anxiety. It's like an intensity.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (22:49)
Yeah. And how do you feel toward that guy?
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (22:55)
I feel some compassion for that guy. Like, he is kind of stressed out and kind of looking around and trying to figure out where to go next.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (23:05)
Yeah. So let him know you have compassion for him and see how he reacts to your compassion.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (23:16)
Kind of, um, little mousey like, “Oh, thank you.”
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (23:20)
Okay.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (23:21)
Appreciates being recognized.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (23:23)
Yeah. And maybe ask him about his anxiety or whatever drives him. Just ask him what he wants you to know about all that. And again, don't think of the answer. Just wait and see what comes.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (23:37)
Yeah. It just says I needed to survive.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (23:42)
He says you needed to survive?
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (23:44)
Yeah.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (23:45)
Okay. And ask more about what he is afraid would happen if he didn't push so hard in terms of survival.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (24:03)
Not being able to do all the things. Needing to do work, kids, money, all those kinds of things. There's a lot to do.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (24:19)
Okay. So he's got a point, right?
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (24:21)
Mm-hmm.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (24:22)
So let him know you get that.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (24:24)
Mm-hmm.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (24:32)
But ask a little more about his fear. Anything else he wants you to know about the fear and anxiety that he carries.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (24:51)
What comes to mind is kind of a thought that I can't slow down or can't stop, you know, that I would have a hard time getting going again, but my initial reaction is I kind of know that's not true.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (25:06)
Well, he doesn't know, so…
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (25:08)
Yeah.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (25:09)
So it sounds like he really believes if you did slow down, you wouldn't get going again. Just ask if that's true.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (25:19)
Yeah.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (25:21)
Okay. Yeah. So we're going to ask the thinking or rational parts of you to just give us the space to get to know him better and where he got this belief. So ask him to tell you more about why he believes you wouldn't get going again.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (25:58)
I'm not really sure on that one. I think it's almost like a, maybe not a well thought out belief or like just an assumption or something.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (26:13)
Okay. So he's not sure. Yeah. How does he feel toward that part of you that wants to relax more and maybe play?
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (26:30)
He is a little nervous about it, but you know, also trying to trust it.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (26:39)
Yeah. But is, part of where I'm going with this is, is some of his fear that that part might totally take over if it had a chance?
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (26:52)
Yeah. Part of it. I mean, not necessarily take over, but take too much time.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (26:58)
Yeah.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (27:00)
And that we wouldn't get the things done we need to get done.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (27:03)
Yeah. Okay. So he kind of fights with that part. Polarized with him.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (27:09)
Tries to contain that part.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (27:13)
Yeah.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (27:17)
Kind of like an anxious parent standing by letting the kid run around, but like being ready to reel him in.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (27:27)
Right, right, right. Okay. So one thing we could do, Keith, at this point would be to bring these two together in your mind and have you help them talk this out with each other a little bit. How would that feel?
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (27:46)
Sure.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (27:48)
All right. So let's do that. Let's bring the anxious, striving part together with this other one who just wants to relax, and you kind of be their therapist. Like a couple's therapist.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (28:05)
Okay.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (28:07)
And just see how it goes.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (28:29)
Okay. Yeah, I imagine the anxious part kind of bringing up its worries and the other part kind of, you know, encouraging it to trust it, that it's not going to take over, or that they'll be able to work together. It's not going to be a, I don't know, stubborn part or something like that.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (28:56)
Uh-huh. And how's the anxious part react to that?
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (29:00)
It feels better.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (29:05)
Yeah. And just ask them how they might be able to work together better and what they have in common.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (29:21)
Yeah. I think the part that wants to relax is kind of saying like, it's okay, we'll be able to bring that part in if feeling overwhelmed or so on to get grounded. And it's letting the other part know that it'll get to work when it needs to get to work. It's not going to not be there or not be responsive, not be a team player.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (29:55)
Yeah. And how's the other one reacting?
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (29:58)
It feels good about it. It feels supported.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (30:02)
Yeah.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (30:03)
Like they're going to work as a team.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (30:05)
As a team and do a kind of time sharing. Okay.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (30:09)
They’re kind of supporting each other, when one needs the other.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (30:14)
Good. And just ask them if they'd like you to keep meeting with them this way so you can reinforce this.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (30:24)
Yeah. They said, “Sure.”
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (30:28)
Okay. All right. So does that feel complete for now?
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (30:34)
Yeah.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (30:35)
All right. So it was actually a good example of one piece of IFS where we bring polarized parts together and help them work together better.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (30:46)
Mm-hmm.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (30:47)
And you know, in the polarized situation, you never really relax because the anxious guy has always got his foot tapping. Then the relaxation guy, because he is mad, will sabotage the work guy, so having this kind of arrangement makes it work a lot better.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (31:13)
Yeah. Definitely. And I think that it's interesting. I also do emotionally focused couples therapy. It's almost, thinking about that part that just wants to relax, almost like the withdrawal. When it got engaged, the other one, the anxious part, kind of went down a little bit. I think also it was more in the past where I think I had a harder time with that, whereas more in the present, I can put the boundaries around that and go and relax and just kind of be present and then kick into gear when I need to get things done and so on. But yeah, I think in the past it was more of a conflict.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (31:47)
Yeah. They weren't super polarized clearly.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (31:50)
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (31:51)
But you know, you were there in yourself as the one they trusted to mediate, and so that's the way the process can work. When we access enough Self. Because you had compassion – remember you had compassion for the work guy – and you were, I forgot, maybe at least curious about the relaxation guy.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (32:16)
Sure.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (32:18)
So we initially accessed your Self, and you connected with each of them separately and then brought them together with you mediating.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (32:28)
Now I know there's the different parts like the firefighter and the manager. How do those play into these parts that came up?
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (32:39)
Yeah. So in my explorations of these inner systems, I'm a systems guy like you are, and so I started to try to identify the patterns and the distinctions. The big distinction that leaped out immediately was between parts that we call exiles, so parts that would be ordinarily these playful inner children who give us lots of fun and creativity and love. But they're also the most sensitive parts, so when they get hurt or terrified or ashamed, they take that personally, and they pick up the burden of worthlessness or the burden of terror or the burden of emotional pain. Once they carry that burden, they're not so much fun to be around, so then we try to lock them away in inner basements or abysses. Then other parts have to become protectors to keep them locked up and to keep them from being hurt.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (33:53)
Some of them start to try to manage our lives so that nothing ever triggers those exiles. So they might try to keep you a certain distance from people so no one gets close enough to hurt them. Or they might nag you about your appearance so you don't get rejected. Or, like this guy, push you to achieve and work hard and be responsible so that your life goes smoothly and you get accolades. So those are managers. There's a whole lot of different kinds, different common roles. The critics are often these managers. They're just desperate to try to get you to behave. They'll call you names to try to do that, or they’ll try to run down your confidence so you don't take any risks and keep you safe that way.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (34:55)
But we also, as therapists, we'll have these big caretaking parts that don't let us take care of ourselves and so on. So the managers have in common a desire to control everything and to please people and to contain the exiles and preempt anything that might trigger them. Despite their best efforts, you know those defenses, the world breaks through and triggers an exile, and then it's a big emergency because suddenly you're in this terror state or you're in this emotional pain, and it's like flames of emotion are going to overwhelm you and make it so you can't function even.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (35:43)
And so there's another set of protectors whose job it is to deal with that emergency. In contrast to the managers, who again are into control and all of that, these parts become firefighters because they're fighting these flames of emotion that the exiles are giving you. They act impulsively and reactively and down the torpedoes, you know? They don't care about the collateral damage to your body or to your relationships. They just have to get you out of that pain or that terror or that shame because they think you're going to die.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (36:25)
Like that part that was cutting that client.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (36:28)
Yeah. That was a firefighter. Exactly. Many addictions…there are lots of different kinds of firefighter activities. Work is one of those, at least for me. So that's the system. It's pretty simple. It's really just exiles and protectors.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (36:51)
Then there are two kinds of protectors: managers and firefighters. And again, just to remind you, these are not the essence of these parts. They're just the roles they've been forced into and once released from these roles, they transform into becoming quite valuable.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (37:08)
In one workshop, I was listening to you talk and I think you talked about how the managers are more like the proactive, like preventing bad things from happening. And the firefighters are the reactive, like when getting triggered. And I think you used the example of work, that for you work can be both of those. It can be a manager to kind of keep you distracted or so on. Or even kind of a reactive when feeling bad, something to feel better.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (37:35)
Yeah. Another good example would be, let's say you're working with a guy who, when he feels slighted, he goes to a bar and he gets drunk. So that would be a firefighter. But let's say he finds that if he stays a little bit drunk all the time, he never gets triggered in the first place. So then drinking has shifted from being a firefighter activity to being a manager activity.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (38:00)
So it ends up kind of working in both scenarios.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (38:06)
Well drinking is being used by different parts. That’s the point.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (38:12)
Yeah. I'm wondering with complex PTSD…I've been interested also in the structural dissociation model. I don't know how that fits in. I interviewed Rachel Walker, and she was talking a little bit about how there's kind of the hyperfunctional part that is the one that did well in school and survived through the trauma and things like that. But oftentimes it's very afraid to go back to those other parts, the traumatized parts, that are maybe kind of developmentally arrested. Because the fear is that if they go back there to that, then it's like a house of cards and it's going to fall down. I've used that analogy with some clients and they were like, exactly. There's a fear in almost that black-and-white, all-or-none thinking that sometimes goes into that to stay away from processing any of that trauma. The fear that they're just going to collapse or not be able to do anything. Any thoughts on that, particularly in an IFS model?
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (39:17)
Yeah. So IFS has become a prominent trauma model, and so when we're working with a trauma client, we've learned the hard way to always start with protectors. And so I would have you focus maybe on that striving part, for example, the striving manager. We would get to know it in the way we did, and in addition to saying it was afraid of the relaxing guy taking over, it might also have said, if I don't work really hard, you would be hurt or you would be, you know, it said some version of you would die.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (40:01)
Mm-hmm. Survival.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (40:03)
Yeah. So that would point towards some exile that it's protecting also. The negotiation goes something like this: If we could go to that part that thinks you're going to die, is stuck in a place where maybe you would've died, or the part that feels like you're going to get hurt, is so vulnerable being hurt, and heal that, would this guy have to work so hard? And almost always they say, “No, but I don't think you can do that and I don't want you to try to do that.”
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (40:40)
Yeah.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (40:41)
Then we go over all the fear about letting us go to that exile. One of the fears is what they mentioned, but there's a whole series of, I think we have like eight or nine common fears that protectors have of letting us go to these exiles. Over the years we've gotten really good at addressing those fears. You have to be able to, with confidence from Self, say, “I understand that fear and this is how we can handle that.” If you can do that with enough confidence, then the parts will let you do it. So we don't go to the exiles without permission, but we've become very good at getting permission from protectors to go to exiles.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (41:28)
I've had the experience, when I've done a little IFS with other people, of sometimes even finding out how old that part is, and oftentimes then actually seeing the younger self in a scenario, and then going in and talking to it, and it sharing, and comforting it or so on, and then asking if it wants to come to the present, and bringing it to the present, and going and playing or whatever it might be. It was always interesting to kind of connect with that younger part and then to acknowledge it. It feels seen.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (42:07)
Yeah. What you're describing is what we do once we get permission from the protector. Often people do spontaneously see a child or see some vulnerable looking part of them. They have an image for it. And again, how do you feel toward it? And again, I wouldn't have you go to that boy until you could say, “I feel like I want to help him. I feel sorry for him.” Then I would have you let him know that until he trusted that. Then, because I've trained as a structural family therapist, initially I thought, “Okay, you're holding that boy. He feels a lot better. That's all we need to do.” Because Minuchin really had an aversion for the past. He didn't think you needed to do anything in the past.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (42:58)
But we would do that and then come back the next session and the boy's still hurting as much as before. So through trial and error, we learned that these exiles need several more steps to actually heal, the first of which is to feel witnessed. So I would have you ask him to let you know what happened when he got hurt in the past, and you would see scenes from your history until he felt like now you finally get it. Because most of us, when we get hurt, we're taught to just move on and don't look back. In the process, we leave these parts in the dust. So he feels witnessed. And that didn't complete it, because these parts are literally frozen in time. So then I would have you go into that scene and be with him and the way he needed back then, which might involve yelling at your father for him, or you know, pushing away bullies or whatever it takes. Until he felt like he really was protected by you and then was trusting that he could leave that time and place and come often to the present to be with you here.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (44:12)
And at that point he's willing to unload the burdens he carries, the feelings or beliefs he got back there. So I would have you ask him if he was ready to give up that terror or that sense of worthlessness now that you're going to be taking care of him and he's living in your house. Most exiles at that point are willing. So then we have an unburdening process where he literally sends it out of your system, and the minute he sends that out, it's like a curse is lifted and he transforms into a happy kid who wants to play. All that was just trial and error over the early years of trying to figure this out.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (44:56)
Very cool. What were your influences for all this imagery and so on? Is that where your mind just went?
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (45:06)
No, it wasn't me. I didn't create it. I was taught it by clients.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (45:11)
By clients.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (45:12)
Yeah. So it's not, and you know, you said, “I imagine this” and “I imagine that”. For me, you're not imagining anything. You're entering an actual other world that exists. Where these parts live and it's the same world that shamans go to.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (45:29)
Interesting.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (45:30)
So it isn't an imagery process at all. What you do in this inner world translates enormously into what happens in the outer world and how you react to it. So it's just a very different paradigm from most any other psychotherapies.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (45:48)
I really like it. Yeah. It really fits in with, there's some things that I do in EMDR where sometimes we might bring the adult self in to protect the child self and get the trauma to stop or whatever it might be, and then nurture it and bring in other protective figures. In the CBT I do, I use it as parts, the anxious part or so on, and do a little exercise like the devil and angel on the shoulder where they act it out in different seats. So this parts aspect works really nicely, and I've been liking adding this aspect of appreciating those parts and really getting to know those parts, rather than just bringing up the alternative to the part.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (46:32)
Right. Or trying to speak to them rationally or any of that.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (46:35)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Because I think it’s moving away from the arguing with the part, and bringing up the other side. But I think the other aspect too, like you're saying, is getting to know that part. Getting to know and appreciate it and have compassion for it. When it feels seen, it can come more to the present or integrate. I don't know if you would use the term integrate?
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (46:59)
Yeah. Yeah. Not in the sense, you know…What I've been up against with the parts language and so on is the sense, that came out of what used to be called MPD world but now is the DID world, that parts are pathology. That the normal mind is unitary.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (47:20)
Yeah.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (47:21)
That it gets blown apart by trauma. And so these are shards of the broken vase that need to be put back into one. From my point of view, you never were one. You were always multiple in the sense that you always had these parts. They have a right to exist, and healing isn't integration in the sense that they disappear and you become one. It’s integration in the sense that now they get along with each other, and they're in their correct roles and they're in harmony.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (47:56)
Like a family that's functioning well and everything. Feeling seen and connected and valued.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (48:02)
Totally. Yeah. Totally analogous to a family, hence the name Internal Family Systems. Also there's this new trust in this leader inside. Instead of these parts. These parts are analogous to parentified children, the protectors.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (48:20)
Yeah.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (48:21)
They are kids. They're overwhelmed. They think they have to protect the family. They don't know what to do other than to yell at the other kids and so on. It's all a perfect analogy.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (48:35)
Now you also use this within the context of couples and family therapy, right? I know that's what you're going to be talking about in this conference at the end of the month. Can you speak to that a little bit as we're kind of nearing the end here?
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (48:47)
Yeah. So a short version of that is when I go to work with couples or families, or now we're doing it with larger groups and we're training coaches to work with corporations and leaders. One aspect of it is that most of the time when there's conflict, it's parts wars. These protectors in me are fighting with protectors in you, so the inner polarization you worked with is also happening in the outside world. And what we find is if we can go in and get enough buy-in, that we get permission to catch the protectors when they do the talking.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (49:35)
And ask each person to do what we call a U-turn in their focus, which involves, rather than yelling at each other, go in and find the parts that have been doing that talking and fighting. Listen to them and honor them, but find out more of what's really going on with them and what they're protecting.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (49:59)
And then come back out and speak from Self with an open heart for these parts rather than from these parts.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (50:07)
Mm-hmm.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (50:08)
Just that process starts to create a totally different dialogue and a lot more healing. But there's a lot more to it.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (50:17)
Yeah. I'm sure
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (50:18)
I'll work with one partner while the other witnesses that, which is tricky, but it can be very powerful.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (50:25)
Okay. Great. Well this is wonderful. And tell me about what you've been working on lately. I know you just recently put out another book. What have you been thinking about and working on recently?
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (50:43)
You know, as I get older – I turned 72 this year – I'm starting to think about my legacy, and is there a place that IFS is supposed to go outside of psychotherapy? So I've been doing a lot more, like we just are piloting a program for training executive coaches, the idea being to bring Self-leadership to higher levels of the system in terms of corporate CEOs. And I work now a lot with some of the top social activists in the country, helping them do their activism from a Self-led place. Also a lot of thoughts now about how to bring this to the public so that people can do it on their own, and are there apps that we can develop or video games? It's a wild world that could be modeled. I'm supposed to be writing a book on how to do it for the public too. So those are some of the things that keep me going.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (51:56)
Oh, great. I think I was mentioning to you, I don't know if you've seen yet, but there was a TV show on HBO called Doom Patrol. It's kind of anti-hero folks and one person, she has multiple personalities who have different superpowers and so on, but it's so interesting. They go in and all her parts are in conflict or they're working together, and they're all trying to protect the girl, which is the young child who was traumatized. It's a huge storyline in season two, which is really interesting. I was seeing it and just seeing so much of IFS in there. It was really great.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (52:30)
Doom Patrol, is that what you said?
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (52:31)
Yeah, Doom Patrol. Brendon Frazier, and there's a few other people in it.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (52:37)
What’s it on? What's the platform?
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (52:38)
HBO Max.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (52:40)
Okay.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (52:40)
Yeah. Yeah. I need to identify one episode to recommend to people to watch because it takes a little while to work up to it. But yeah, it's super interesting. I think this is an important piece, and I'm glad that you're finding ways to bring it to the public in a way that is something that's usable and not just something that's within the therapy room or of the therapist.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (53:11)
Yeah. It’s a very different paradigm and it has the potential to transform a lot of things. And you know, it was one of those things where when I started to get it in the early eighties, I thought this could change everything. I hope the guy who can bring it where it's supposed to go comes along. I'm just a little kid.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (53:32)
Yeah.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (53:34)
And I'm still waiting for that guy, but, you know, in the meantime, I'm going to do what I can.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (53:39)
Well, and I think it's like any other approach. This is an approach that speaks for itself because I’ve met so many people that have gotten trained in it and have used it with their clients or done it with themselves, and they've just found incredible transformations. That’s always kind of the best testimonial, that energy that's coming from somebody that's so excited that they found this tool that is so helpful with their clients or theirself and so on. So I'm looking forward to learning more about it, and I really appreciate you taking the time to talk to me about it so I can share it with others.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (54:16)
Yeah. And I appreciate your being a good sport and letting us play with your parts a little, and I look forward to getting to know you better. You know, we're going to have this event. Hopefully, COVID-allowing.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (54:29)
I know, right? Yeah. We'll see. Well, great. Well thank you so much for your time. Take care.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (54:35)
Okay, thank you, Keith. Bye.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (54:39)
Thank you for joining us. If you're wanting to use this podcast to earn continuing education credits, please go to our website at therapyonthecuttingedge.com. Our podcast is brought to you by the Institute for the Advancement of Psychotherapy, providing in-person and remote therapy in the San Francisco Bay Area. IAP provides screening for licensed clinicians through our in-person and online programs, as well as our treatment for children, adolescents, families, couples, and individual adults. For more information, go to sfiap.com or call (415) 617-5932. Also, we really appreciate feedback and if you have something you're interested in, something that's on the cutting edge of the field of therapy and think clinicians should know about it, send us an email or call us. We're always looking for the advancements in the field of psychotherapy to help in creating lasting changes for our clients.
Welcome to Therapy on the Cutting Edge, a podcast for therapists who want to be up-to-date on the latest advancements in the field of psychotherapy. I'm your host, Keith Sutton, a psychologist in the San Francisco Bay Area and the Director of the Institute for the Advancement of Psychotherapy. In this episode, I interview Richard Schwartz, Ph.D., who is the founder of the Internal Family Systems Institute, originally named the Center for Self Leadership. He began his career as a systemic family therapist and an academic. Grounded in systems thinking, Dick developed Internal Family Systems in response to clients' descriptions of various parts within themselves. He focused on the relationships among these parts and noticed that there were systemic patterns to the way they were organized across clients. He also found that when the clients’ parts felt safe and were allowed to relax, the clients would experience spontaneously the qualities of confidence, openness, and compassion that Dick came to call the Self. He found that when in that state of Self, clients would know how to heal their parts. Dick is also a featured speaker for national professional organizations and has published many books and over 50 articles about Internal Family Systems. Let's listen to the interview. So, hi Dick. Welcome. Thanks for coming.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (01:35)
Thanks, Keith. Really happy to do it. Good to see you again.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (01:38)
Yeah. So I'm excited to interview you. You know, I've been hearing about Internal Family Systems for many years, and a lot of people are really excited about it, including some close colleagues. I've been learning a little bit here and there. I'm taking a PESI workshop and looking to do the first training that you have. You're also going to be coming out for the Association of Family Therapists Northern California and doing a two-day workshop, so I'm excited about that. But first before we get into your work, I'd love to hear about how you got to thinking about what you're doing, the evolution of your thinking to get to this. I'm so interested.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (02:16)
You know I, like you, trained as a family therapist. I have a Ph.D. in that from Purdue and got that degree in 1980, and I joined something called the Institute for Juvenile Research, which was at the time, a prestigious kind of think tank run by the state. In that context, I did a lot of family therapy with the marginalized community that we were in on the west side of Chicago. It was one of these zealous, obnoxious family therapists who thought we'd found the holy grail and thought individual therapists were wasting their time because we could reorganize all that internal stuff just by changing these external relationships. I decided I wanted to prove that and did an outcome study with a woman named Mary Jo Barrett, whose name you might know.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (03:20)
I actually just interviewed her. She’s going to be the podcast that’s right before yours.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (03:24)
Oh, okay. Great. Yeah. So Mary Jo and I got together about 30 bulimic kids and their families, and this was when bulimia had just come on the scene as a symptom. And I found that I could reorganize the families just the way the book said to, and still, it was like my kids didn't realize they'd been cured. They kept binging and purging and I was so frustrated because, you know, Minuchin had claimed such good luck with anorexics. So out of frustration I began asking why they kept doing it, and they started talking with what, at the time, was a strange language of parts. They would say some version of, “When something bad happens in my life, it triggers this critic who starts to tear into me. And that brings up a part that believes it all and makes me feel totally worthless and alone and scared and young.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (04:28)
“And that part is so distressing. I can't stand to be in that state that almost to the rescue comes the binge and takes me away from all that. It turns me into a kind of unfeeling eating machine, but the act of the binge brings the critic back who's calling me a pig on top of the other names. Then of course that young empty, worthless part comes back and so the binge has to come back.” As they described that, it sounded familiar because in family therapy, we studied these sequences of interactions among different players. So I got curious, but initially I was making the mistake that the field still makes, which is to assume they were what they seemed. So I thought the critic was some kind of internalized critical parent voice, and the binge was an out-of-control impulse.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (05:26)
When you think of them that way, you're limited in how you have your client relate to them. So I was trying to get my client to fight with the critic and stand up for herself and control the binge, and they were getting worse, but I didn't know what to do but stand up stronger, control more. Then I had a client who I knew had a sex abuse history but also cut herself. By then I was having people talk to their parts in open chairs like Gestalt therapy did, and so one session, I decided we weren't going to let her leave my office until that cutting part agreed not to do it. After a couple hours of badgering, it finally said, “Okay, I won't cut her.” And I open the door the next session, and she's got a big gash down the side of her face.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (06:19)
Emotionally I just collapsed, and I spontaneously said, “I give up. I can't beat you at this.” And the part said, “I don't really want to beat you.” That was a turning point in the history of the work because I got out of my coercive place and just got curious and asked, “Why are you doing this?” The part told me about how when she was being sexually abused, how much it needed to get her out of her body and contain the rage would get her more abuse. So then I shifted again. Not only am I curious, but I have a kind of appreciation for the heroic role it played in her life. I could convey that to the part, and it broke into tears and talked about how much everybody hated it and wanted to get rid of it.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (07:10)
And finally somebody's listening. As it talked, though, it also sounded like it was really living in the past. Like it hadn't left that time and still saw her as five years old. So with all of that, I began to totally shift away from that coercive place approach and just tried to help clients listen to these parts that were driving them crazy, rather than fight them. I would find that, very similar to that cutting part, they all had their sort of secret histories of how they got forced into these roles they were in. They didn't like the roles, but they thought they were necessary because they were stuck in the past and they still thought things were very dangerous. So then I concluded, which is now the basic assumption of the model, that these were actually good parts that had been forced by traumas and attachment injuries out of their naturally valuable states into roles that were extreme but were necessary.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (08:28)
And that once released from those roles, they'll transform into their naturally valuable state. So that's a long way of saying that I learned from my clients this model and that one of the basic assumptions is that everybody has parts. That's the nature of the mind to have them, that we’re born that way, and that it's good because they're all valuable. There aren't any bad parts; the title of my new book is No Bad Parts. That was a very lonely position to take in the field because it's been a hard sell.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (09:09)
It sounds like you kind of moved from being combative with the parts to being collaborative with the parts. I think in a lot of the field too, in areas even like CBT, that rather than getting rid of the irrational thoughts or so on, there's been a third wave movement of noticing and letting them be there and existing and not fighting to get rid of them or so on. Or narrative therapy, kind of changing relationships to those symptoms or so on.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (09:35)
I'm glad to hear that. I wasn't aware of the third wave of CBT. And mindfulness is that also, just to separate from your thoughts and emotions and observe them rather than being in them. So it does sound like a lot of the field is moving in that direction.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (09:55)
With the parts work that you've done, in the way that I've understood it, it’s that these parts are trying to help. They're protecting the person and they, like you're saying, might have developed at these earlier ages when there was a trauma going on or so on and don’t realize that we're safe now.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (10:17)
Yeah. They didn't develop then; the role that they got forced into developed. Again, to make the analogy to something that you're familiar with, it's sort of like in a dysfunctional family. The kids are forced into roles that don't suit them but were necessary, or they thought they were necessary, to save the family or to save themselves in the family. And once you, as a family therapist, go in and make things better, they can be who they're designed to be. And for me it's a direct parallel to these parts.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (10:58)
Okay. So the parts are like the children in the family who, again, end up behaving in this way to kind of deal with the situation, but relieving them of that role lets them be who they are.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (11:11)
Right. Yeah. Yeah, and I would say the difference between IFS and the models you mentioned, where you said that rather than fight them you become more accepting, is that that's a good first step, but with IFS, in addition, we wind up showing them a lot of appreciation and love and helping them out of the roles they were forced into. So instead of being a model of accepting and living with, it’s a model of transformation. They all are helped into new roles that are all valuable.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (12:02)
And creating a lot more harmony inside. Then there's another concept I haven't introduced yet, which is that in addition to all of these parts, I found through trial and error, there's a kind of essence in everybody that is full of good leadership qualities and is just beneath the surface of these parts such that when they open space, it emerges spontaneously. That was amazing when I initially encountered that because I couldn't believe it because I'd been trained, like you had in graduate school, in attachment theory. That for people to have any of that, they had to have had good enough parenting at least when they were kids because it had to come from a relationship.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (12:54)
And I was working with clients who'd been tortured on a daily basis, and yet as we got their protectors to open space, it was like the same person would pop up inside and would know how to lead their inner system in a healthy way. And when I asked about that, what part of them was that, they'd say, “That's not a part like these others. That's more me or myself.” So I call that the Self, and that's really become the centerpiece of the model.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (13:23)
That that's in everybody, can't be damaged, knows how to heal, and is just beneath the surface of these parts.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (13:32)
And so in this kind of family model, is that like the parent?
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (13:37)
Yeah. But it's more than just a parent, it's just a good leader. It becomes the parent to the parts. But it also knows how to lead and create healing in external relationships too.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (13:53)
It's like those internalized resources that the person has, like you're saying, and everybody kind of has it, you just have to help them get through to get to it.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (14:03)
Yeah. But I would quibble with the word internalized because, again, that's from attachment theory.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (14:09)
Okay.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (14:10)
The position I'm taking is that it's human nature to have this. We’re born with the Self. And it's not internalized and it's much more akin to spiritual traditions, each of which have a word for this. Whether it's Buddha Nature or Christ Consciousness or Atman, or I could go on and on. I did a book where we looked at every spiritual tradition and how they saw what I'm calling Self. So that's why this is such a different paradigm.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (14:46)
Yeah. Okay. So is it almost like a soul? Like in a Judeo-Christian kind of sense?
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (14:53)
Yes. Very much like the soul. You know, I once was asked to train people at the Reformed Theological Seminaries in Jackson, Mississippi. It was a very evangelical place, and I went down there worried because I knew I was going to take the position that people are basically good, and they took the position that people are basically bad.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (15:19)
And I said some version of, “But in the Bible, doesn't it say that the image of God is within?” And they said, “Yeah, but that's just a kind of little seed that's covered over by all the sin.”
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (15:32)
And I said, “If you could translate sin into burdens, which for me are these extreme beliefs and emotions that come in and attach to our parts and drive the way they operate, then we're talking the same language because parts and their burdens cover over this seed of Self, or God, within.”
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (15:55)
So it's not necessarily internalized. It's something that just has always existed. This thing.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (15:59)
Always existed, knows how to heal. So it's almost like, you know, our bodies know how to heal. If you cut your arm, your body will automatically go to heal that. It's almost like this is an innate way to heal emotionally.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (16:14)
And the process – I'm just beginning to learn the words – the process of kind of getting to that Self is the unblending? Can you talk about that and the different protectors and so on?
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (16:25)
That's right. So if I were to do a piece of work with you, and you know if we want to, I'd be happy to do a little piece with you.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (16:36)
Sure.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (16:37)
You want to?
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (16:38)
Yeah, why not?
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (16:39)
Okay, great. You have a part in mind you'd like to get to know or help?
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (16:45)
Ah, gosh, I don't at the moment.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (16:50)
Well, you can think about it while I talk about this.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (16:52)
Sure, sure. Yeah.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (16:54)
So if a client comes in, I'd ask that question, “What part do you want to work with?” But before that even, I would ask, “What's your problem?” Then as they describe the problem, I would introduce the language. So rather than just reflectively listening to what they're saying and repeating it back, I would add the phrase, “So one part of you does this, and another part says this to you.” And people don't balk at that because everybody uses that language. Everybody says, “Part of me is happy to be here, and another part of me wishes I was in bed,” or some version of that. So I'm saying, in the process of five minutes, I can get four or five parts on the table. Then I'll say, “Which of these get in your way the most?” or “Which do you want to work with the most?” And we'd pick that one, and then I would have the client focus on their experience of it and find it in their body or around their body, which people can do quite readily, it turns out. That becomes a kind of anchor point. Then this question, “How do you feel toward it?” tells me how much of their Self is present versus other parts or their protectors that their Self is blended with.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (18:09)
And so if we did this, and you found a part and you said, “I hate it”, that's not one of the C words of Self. The C words of Self are calm, curiosity, confidence, compassion, clarity, courage, creativity, and connectedness. That's what I find universally as qualities of what I'm calling Self. So as I'm asking you, “How do you feel toward this part?”, I'm listening for any of that. And short of that, we're going to ask the one who hates it to step back, relax in there, and give us the space to open to it. We'll do that until it does shift. Then I'll say, “Now how do you feel toward the part?” And you might say, “Well, I'm just kind of curious about whatever it's doing.” Then I know, and it also goes to tone of voice and your facial expression, then I know we're in. You've embodied enough stuff that we can get going, and if we get going, it's going to go in a positive way. So then I would say, “Okay, ask it why it's doing this, and don't think of the answer. Just wait for an answer to come.”
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (19:24)
Yeah.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (19:25)
And then we would begin the inner dialogue.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (19:28)
Kind of like using that right brain to let the words just come and notice that dialogue rather than thinking about what it would say.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (19:37)
Yeah. Although I don't find the right brain, left brain distinction that valuable. It's just you're literally in my land listening to what this part wants you to know that you've been not listening to most of your life. Finally, it knows that you're there and you're willing to listen rather than kill it or fight with it, and people are often shocked at what comes.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (20:01)
Yeah. Yeah. Let's totally do it. The part that's coming to mind is the part that's a little tired, just getting off a two-week vacation, kind of wants to still be on vacation a little bit.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (20:16)
That's perfect. Okay. So focus on that and find that one in your body or around your body, Keith.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (20:23)
Okay.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (20:25)
Where do you find it?
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (20:27)
In my chest and the forehead area.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (20:32)
And as you notice it there, how do you feel toward it, toward that part of you?
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (20:42)
Um, I don’t know how I feel towards it. It feels kind of heavy. I kind of want to join it and relax and take a break and still be on vacation.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (20:54)
Okay. So you like it, and you kind of agree with it.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (20:58)
Mm-hmm.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (21:00)
All right. So let it know that. Just let it know that you care about it. You like its perspective and its intentions and, you know, whatever else you want to say to it right now. Just see what it wants you to know about itself. There's more it wants you to know, and don't think of the answer. Just wait for the answer to come.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (21:28)
Yeah. I was kind of imagining, you know, appreciating it and kind of saying, “Oh, I wish I could go off with you and hang out or play. I have to work.” And when I was asking it what it's got to tell me or to learn or so on, it was kind of telling me “It's okay to relax at times or not always be go, go, go.”
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (21:59)
Okay. So it's trying to get you to see that you don't have to work so hard constantly. Is that right?
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (22:09)
Yeah.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (22:10)
Okay. So Keith, ask, is there another part of you that does push too hard in its mind, that it would like you to work with?
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (22:26)
Yeah. Yeah. I kind of notice it.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (22:34)
So would it make sense to work with that part for a second?
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (22:37)
Sure.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (22:40)
Where do you notice it in your body or around your body?
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (22:43)
I notice it kind of in my heart, my chest, or it's almost like a little bit of anxiety. It's like an intensity.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (22:49)
Yeah. And how do you feel toward that guy?
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (22:55)
I feel some compassion for that guy. Like, he is kind of stressed out and kind of looking around and trying to figure out where to go next.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (23:05)
Yeah. So let him know you have compassion for him and see how he reacts to your compassion.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (23:16)
Kind of, um, little mousey like, “Oh, thank you.”
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (23:20)
Okay.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (23:21)
Appreciates being recognized.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (23:23)
Yeah. And maybe ask him about his anxiety or whatever drives him. Just ask him what he wants you to know about all that. And again, don't think of the answer. Just wait and see what comes.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (23:37)
Yeah. It just says I needed to survive.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (23:42)
He says you needed to survive?
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (23:44)
Yeah.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (23:45)
Okay. And ask more about what he is afraid would happen if he didn't push so hard in terms of survival.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (24:03)
Not being able to do all the things. Needing to do work, kids, money, all those kinds of things. There's a lot to do.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (24:19)
Okay. So he's got a point, right?
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (24:21)
Mm-hmm.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (24:22)
So let him know you get that.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (24:24)
Mm-hmm.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (24:32)
But ask a little more about his fear. Anything else he wants you to know about the fear and anxiety that he carries.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (24:51)
What comes to mind is kind of a thought that I can't slow down or can't stop, you know, that I would have a hard time getting going again, but my initial reaction is I kind of know that's not true.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (25:06)
Well, he doesn't know, so…
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (25:08)
Yeah.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (25:09)
So it sounds like he really believes if you did slow down, you wouldn't get going again. Just ask if that's true.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (25:19)
Yeah.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (25:21)
Okay. Yeah. So we're going to ask the thinking or rational parts of you to just give us the space to get to know him better and where he got this belief. So ask him to tell you more about why he believes you wouldn't get going again.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (25:58)
I'm not really sure on that one. I think it's almost like a, maybe not a well thought out belief or like just an assumption or something.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (26:13)
Okay. So he's not sure. Yeah. How does he feel toward that part of you that wants to relax more and maybe play?
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (26:30)
He is a little nervous about it, but you know, also trying to trust it.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (26:39)
Yeah. But is, part of where I'm going with this is, is some of his fear that that part might totally take over if it had a chance?
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (26:52)
Yeah. Part of it. I mean, not necessarily take over, but take too much time.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (26:58)
Yeah.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (27:00)
And that we wouldn't get the things done we need to get done.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (27:03)
Yeah. Okay. So he kind of fights with that part. Polarized with him.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (27:09)
Tries to contain that part.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (27:13)
Yeah.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (27:17)
Kind of like an anxious parent standing by letting the kid run around, but like being ready to reel him in.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (27:27)
Right, right, right. Okay. So one thing we could do, Keith, at this point would be to bring these two together in your mind and have you help them talk this out with each other a little bit. How would that feel?
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (27:46)
Sure.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (27:48)
All right. So let's do that. Let's bring the anxious, striving part together with this other one who just wants to relax, and you kind of be their therapist. Like a couple's therapist.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (28:05)
Okay.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (28:07)
And just see how it goes.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (28:29)
Okay. Yeah, I imagine the anxious part kind of bringing up its worries and the other part kind of, you know, encouraging it to trust it, that it's not going to take over, or that they'll be able to work together. It's not going to be a, I don't know, stubborn part or something like that.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (28:56)
Uh-huh. And how's the anxious part react to that?
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (29:00)
It feels better.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (29:05)
Yeah. And just ask them how they might be able to work together better and what they have in common.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (29:21)
Yeah. I think the part that wants to relax is kind of saying like, it's okay, we'll be able to bring that part in if feeling overwhelmed or so on to get grounded. And it's letting the other part know that it'll get to work when it needs to get to work. It's not going to not be there or not be responsive, not be a team player.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (29:55)
Yeah. And how's the other one reacting?
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (29:58)
It feels good about it. It feels supported.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (30:02)
Yeah.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (30:03)
Like they're going to work as a team.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (30:05)
As a team and do a kind of time sharing. Okay.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (30:09)
They’re kind of supporting each other, when one needs the other.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (30:14)
Good. And just ask them if they'd like you to keep meeting with them this way so you can reinforce this.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (30:24)
Yeah. They said, “Sure.”
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (30:28)
Okay. All right. So does that feel complete for now?
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (30:34)
Yeah.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (30:35)
All right. So it was actually a good example of one piece of IFS where we bring polarized parts together and help them work together better.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (30:46)
Mm-hmm.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (30:47)
And you know, in the polarized situation, you never really relax because the anxious guy has always got his foot tapping. Then the relaxation guy, because he is mad, will sabotage the work guy, so having this kind of arrangement makes it work a lot better.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (31:13)
Yeah. Definitely. And I think that it's interesting. I also do emotionally focused couples therapy. It's almost, thinking about that part that just wants to relax, almost like the withdrawal. When it got engaged, the other one, the anxious part, kind of went down a little bit. I think also it was more in the past where I think I had a harder time with that, whereas more in the present, I can put the boundaries around that and go and relax and just kind of be present and then kick into gear when I need to get things done and so on. But yeah, I think in the past it was more of a conflict.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (31:47)
Yeah. They weren't super polarized clearly.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (31:50)
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (31:51)
But you know, you were there in yourself as the one they trusted to mediate, and so that's the way the process can work. When we access enough Self. Because you had compassion – remember you had compassion for the work guy – and you were, I forgot, maybe at least curious about the relaxation guy.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (32:16)
Sure.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (32:18)
So we initially accessed your Self, and you connected with each of them separately and then brought them together with you mediating.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (32:28)
Now I know there's the different parts like the firefighter and the manager. How do those play into these parts that came up?
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (32:39)
Yeah. So in my explorations of these inner systems, I'm a systems guy like you are, and so I started to try to identify the patterns and the distinctions. The big distinction that leaped out immediately was between parts that we call exiles, so parts that would be ordinarily these playful inner children who give us lots of fun and creativity and love. But they're also the most sensitive parts, so when they get hurt or terrified or ashamed, they take that personally, and they pick up the burden of worthlessness or the burden of terror or the burden of emotional pain. Once they carry that burden, they're not so much fun to be around, so then we try to lock them away in inner basements or abysses. Then other parts have to become protectors to keep them locked up and to keep them from being hurt.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (33:53)
Some of them start to try to manage our lives so that nothing ever triggers those exiles. So they might try to keep you a certain distance from people so no one gets close enough to hurt them. Or they might nag you about your appearance so you don't get rejected. Or, like this guy, push you to achieve and work hard and be responsible so that your life goes smoothly and you get accolades. So those are managers. There's a whole lot of different kinds, different common roles. The critics are often these managers. They're just desperate to try to get you to behave. They'll call you names to try to do that, or they’ll try to run down your confidence so you don't take any risks and keep you safe that way.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (34:55)
But we also, as therapists, we'll have these big caretaking parts that don't let us take care of ourselves and so on. So the managers have in common a desire to control everything and to please people and to contain the exiles and preempt anything that might trigger them. Despite their best efforts, you know those defenses, the world breaks through and triggers an exile, and then it's a big emergency because suddenly you're in this terror state or you're in this emotional pain, and it's like flames of emotion are going to overwhelm you and make it so you can't function even.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (35:43)
And so there's another set of protectors whose job it is to deal with that emergency. In contrast to the managers, who again are into control and all of that, these parts become firefighters because they're fighting these flames of emotion that the exiles are giving you. They act impulsively and reactively and down the torpedoes, you know? They don't care about the collateral damage to your body or to your relationships. They just have to get you out of that pain or that terror or that shame because they think you're going to die.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (36:25)
Like that part that was cutting that client.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (36:28)
Yeah. That was a firefighter. Exactly. Many addictions…there are lots of different kinds of firefighter activities. Work is one of those, at least for me. So that's the system. It's pretty simple. It's really just exiles and protectors.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (36:51)
Then there are two kinds of protectors: managers and firefighters. And again, just to remind you, these are not the essence of these parts. They're just the roles they've been forced into and once released from these roles, they transform into becoming quite valuable.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (37:08)
In one workshop, I was listening to you talk and I think you talked about how the managers are more like the proactive, like preventing bad things from happening. And the firefighters are the reactive, like when getting triggered. And I think you used the example of work, that for you work can be both of those. It can be a manager to kind of keep you distracted or so on. Or even kind of a reactive when feeling bad, something to feel better.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (37:35)
Yeah. Another good example would be, let's say you're working with a guy who, when he feels slighted, he goes to a bar and he gets drunk. So that would be a firefighter. But let's say he finds that if he stays a little bit drunk all the time, he never gets triggered in the first place. So then drinking has shifted from being a firefighter activity to being a manager activity.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (38:00)
So it ends up kind of working in both scenarios.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (38:06)
Well drinking is being used by different parts. That’s the point.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (38:12)
Yeah. I'm wondering with complex PTSD…I've been interested also in the structural dissociation model. I don't know how that fits in. I interviewed Rachel Walker, and she was talking a little bit about how there's kind of the hyperfunctional part that is the one that did well in school and survived through the trauma and things like that. But oftentimes it's very afraid to go back to those other parts, the traumatized parts, that are maybe kind of developmentally arrested. Because the fear is that if they go back there to that, then it's like a house of cards and it's going to fall down. I've used that analogy with some clients and they were like, exactly. There's a fear in almost that black-and-white, all-or-none thinking that sometimes goes into that to stay away from processing any of that trauma. The fear that they're just going to collapse or not be able to do anything. Any thoughts on that, particularly in an IFS model?
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (39:17)
Yeah. So IFS has become a prominent trauma model, and so when we're working with a trauma client, we've learned the hard way to always start with protectors. And so I would have you focus maybe on that striving part, for example, the striving manager. We would get to know it in the way we did, and in addition to saying it was afraid of the relaxing guy taking over, it might also have said, if I don't work really hard, you would be hurt or you would be, you know, it said some version of you would die.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (40:01)
Mm-hmm. Survival.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (40:03)
Yeah. So that would point towards some exile that it's protecting also. The negotiation goes something like this: If we could go to that part that thinks you're going to die, is stuck in a place where maybe you would've died, or the part that feels like you're going to get hurt, is so vulnerable being hurt, and heal that, would this guy have to work so hard? And almost always they say, “No, but I don't think you can do that and I don't want you to try to do that.”
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (40:40)
Yeah.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (40:41)
Then we go over all the fear about letting us go to that exile. One of the fears is what they mentioned, but there's a whole series of, I think we have like eight or nine common fears that protectors have of letting us go to these exiles. Over the years we've gotten really good at addressing those fears. You have to be able to, with confidence from Self, say, “I understand that fear and this is how we can handle that.” If you can do that with enough confidence, then the parts will let you do it. So we don't go to the exiles without permission, but we've become very good at getting permission from protectors to go to exiles.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (41:28)
I've had the experience, when I've done a little IFS with other people, of sometimes even finding out how old that part is, and oftentimes then actually seeing the younger self in a scenario, and then going in and talking to it, and it sharing, and comforting it or so on, and then asking if it wants to come to the present, and bringing it to the present, and going and playing or whatever it might be. It was always interesting to kind of connect with that younger part and then to acknowledge it. It feels seen.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (42:07)
Yeah. What you're describing is what we do once we get permission from the protector. Often people do spontaneously see a child or see some vulnerable looking part of them. They have an image for it. And again, how do you feel toward it? And again, I wouldn't have you go to that boy until you could say, “I feel like I want to help him. I feel sorry for him.” Then I would have you let him know that until he trusted that. Then, because I've trained as a structural family therapist, initially I thought, “Okay, you're holding that boy. He feels a lot better. That's all we need to do.” Because Minuchin really had an aversion for the past. He didn't think you needed to do anything in the past.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (42:58)
But we would do that and then come back the next session and the boy's still hurting as much as before. So through trial and error, we learned that these exiles need several more steps to actually heal, the first of which is to feel witnessed. So I would have you ask him to let you know what happened when he got hurt in the past, and you would see scenes from your history until he felt like now you finally get it. Because most of us, when we get hurt, we're taught to just move on and don't look back. In the process, we leave these parts in the dust. So he feels witnessed. And that didn't complete it, because these parts are literally frozen in time. So then I would have you go into that scene and be with him and the way he needed back then, which might involve yelling at your father for him, or you know, pushing away bullies or whatever it takes. Until he felt like he really was protected by you and then was trusting that he could leave that time and place and come often to the present to be with you here.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (44:12)
And at that point he's willing to unload the burdens he carries, the feelings or beliefs he got back there. So I would have you ask him if he was ready to give up that terror or that sense of worthlessness now that you're going to be taking care of him and he's living in your house. Most exiles at that point are willing. So then we have an unburdening process where he literally sends it out of your system, and the minute he sends that out, it's like a curse is lifted and he transforms into a happy kid who wants to play. All that was just trial and error over the early years of trying to figure this out.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (44:56)
Very cool. What were your influences for all this imagery and so on? Is that where your mind just went?
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (45:06)
No, it wasn't me. I didn't create it. I was taught it by clients.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (45:11)
By clients.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (45:12)
Yeah. So it's not, and you know, you said, “I imagine this” and “I imagine that”. For me, you're not imagining anything. You're entering an actual other world that exists. Where these parts live and it's the same world that shamans go to.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (45:29)
Interesting.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (45:30)
So it isn't an imagery process at all. What you do in this inner world translates enormously into what happens in the outer world and how you react to it. So it's just a very different paradigm from most any other psychotherapies.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (45:48)
I really like it. Yeah. It really fits in with, there's some things that I do in EMDR where sometimes we might bring the adult self in to protect the child self and get the trauma to stop or whatever it might be, and then nurture it and bring in other protective figures. In the CBT I do, I use it as parts, the anxious part or so on, and do a little exercise like the devil and angel on the shoulder where they act it out in different seats. So this parts aspect works really nicely, and I've been liking adding this aspect of appreciating those parts and really getting to know those parts, rather than just bringing up the alternative to the part.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (46:32)
Right. Or trying to speak to them rationally or any of that.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (46:35)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Because I think it’s moving away from the arguing with the part, and bringing up the other side. But I think the other aspect too, like you're saying, is getting to know that part. Getting to know and appreciate it and have compassion for it. When it feels seen, it can come more to the present or integrate. I don't know if you would use the term integrate?
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (46:59)
Yeah. Yeah. Not in the sense, you know…What I've been up against with the parts language and so on is the sense, that came out of what used to be called MPD world but now is the DID world, that parts are pathology. That the normal mind is unitary.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (47:20)
Yeah.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (47:21)
That it gets blown apart by trauma. And so these are shards of the broken vase that need to be put back into one. From my point of view, you never were one. You were always multiple in the sense that you always had these parts. They have a right to exist, and healing isn't integration in the sense that they disappear and you become one. It’s integration in the sense that now they get along with each other, and they're in their correct roles and they're in harmony.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (47:56)
Like a family that's functioning well and everything. Feeling seen and connected and valued.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (48:02)
Totally. Yeah. Totally analogous to a family, hence the name Internal Family Systems. Also there's this new trust in this leader inside. Instead of these parts. These parts are analogous to parentified children, the protectors.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (48:20)
Yeah.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (48:21)
They are kids. They're overwhelmed. They think they have to protect the family. They don't know what to do other than to yell at the other kids and so on. It's all a perfect analogy.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (48:35)
Now you also use this within the context of couples and family therapy, right? I know that's what you're going to be talking about in this conference at the end of the month. Can you speak to that a little bit as we're kind of nearing the end here?
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (48:47)
Yeah. So a short version of that is when I go to work with couples or families, or now we're doing it with larger groups and we're training coaches to work with corporations and leaders. One aspect of it is that most of the time when there's conflict, it's parts wars. These protectors in me are fighting with protectors in you, so the inner polarization you worked with is also happening in the outside world. And what we find is if we can go in and get enough buy-in, that we get permission to catch the protectors when they do the talking.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (49:35)
And ask each person to do what we call a U-turn in their focus, which involves, rather than yelling at each other, go in and find the parts that have been doing that talking and fighting. Listen to them and honor them, but find out more of what's really going on with them and what they're protecting.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (49:59)
And then come back out and speak from Self with an open heart for these parts rather than from these parts.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (50:07)
Mm-hmm.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (50:08)
Just that process starts to create a totally different dialogue and a lot more healing. But there's a lot more to it.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (50:17)
Yeah. I'm sure
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (50:18)
I'll work with one partner while the other witnesses that, which is tricky, but it can be very powerful.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (50:25)
Okay. Great. Well this is wonderful. And tell me about what you've been working on lately. I know you just recently put out another book. What have you been thinking about and working on recently?
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (50:43)
You know, as I get older – I turned 72 this year – I'm starting to think about my legacy, and is there a place that IFS is supposed to go outside of psychotherapy? So I've been doing a lot more, like we just are piloting a program for training executive coaches, the idea being to bring Self-leadership to higher levels of the system in terms of corporate CEOs. And I work now a lot with some of the top social activists in the country, helping them do their activism from a Self-led place. Also a lot of thoughts now about how to bring this to the public so that people can do it on their own, and are there apps that we can develop or video games? It's a wild world that could be modeled. I'm supposed to be writing a book on how to do it for the public too. So those are some of the things that keep me going.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (51:56)
Oh, great. I think I was mentioning to you, I don't know if you've seen yet, but there was a TV show on HBO called Doom Patrol. It's kind of anti-hero folks and one person, she has multiple personalities who have different superpowers and so on, but it's so interesting. They go in and all her parts are in conflict or they're working together, and they're all trying to protect the girl, which is the young child who was traumatized. It's a huge storyline in season two, which is really interesting. I was seeing it and just seeing so much of IFS in there. It was really great.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (52:30)
Doom Patrol, is that what you said?
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (52:31)
Yeah, Doom Patrol. Brendon Frazier, and there's a few other people in it.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (52:37)
What’s it on? What's the platform?
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (52:38)
HBO Max.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (52:40)
Okay.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (52:40)
Yeah. Yeah. I need to identify one episode to recommend to people to watch because it takes a little while to work up to it. But yeah, it's super interesting. I think this is an important piece, and I'm glad that you're finding ways to bring it to the public in a way that is something that's usable and not just something that's within the therapy room or of the therapist.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (53:11)
Yeah. It’s a very different paradigm and it has the potential to transform a lot of things. And you know, it was one of those things where when I started to get it in the early eighties, I thought this could change everything. I hope the guy who can bring it where it's supposed to go comes along. I'm just a little kid.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (53:32)
Yeah.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (53:34)
And I'm still waiting for that guy, but, you know, in the meantime, I'm going to do what I can.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (53:39)
Well, and I think it's like any other approach. This is an approach that speaks for itself because I’ve met so many people that have gotten trained in it and have used it with their clients or done it with themselves, and they've just found incredible transformations. That’s always kind of the best testimonial, that energy that's coming from somebody that's so excited that they found this tool that is so helpful with their clients or theirself and so on. So I'm looking forward to learning more about it, and I really appreciate you taking the time to talk to me about it so I can share it with others.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (54:16)
Yeah. And I appreciate your being a good sport and letting us play with your parts a little, and I look forward to getting to know you better. You know, we're going to have this event. Hopefully, COVID-allowing.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (54:29)
I know, right? Yeah. We'll see. Well, great. Well thank you so much for your time. Take care.
Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: (54:35)
Okay, thank you, Keith. Bye.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D.: (54:39)
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