S4 Episode 4: No Bad Parts with Dr. Richard Schwartz, IFS Founder

Dr. Richard Schwartz is a psychotherapist, bestselling author of the Book No Bad Parts, and the founder and developer of the Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy model. Dr. Schwartz began his career as a family therapist and an academic at the University of Illinois at Chicago and there he discovered that family therapy alone did not achieve full symptom relief and in asking patients why, he learned that they were plagued by what they called “parts.” These patients became his teachers as they described how their parts formed networks of inner relationships that resembled the families he had been working with. He also found that as they focused on and, thereby, separated from their parts, they would shift into a state characterized by qualities like curiosity, calm, confidence, and compassion. He called that inner essence the Self and was amazed to find it even in severely diagnosed and traumatized patients. From these explorations the Internal Family Systems (IFS) model was born in the early 1980s. IFS is now evidence-based and has become a widely used form of psychotherapy, particularly with trauma, and is quickly becoming the preferred modality to incorporate into Psychedelic Medicine research, therapy, and all stages of psychedelic sessions. It provides a non-pathologizing, optimistic, and empowering perspective and a practical and effective set of techniques for working with individuals, couples, families, and more recently, corporations and classrooms.

Connect with Dr. Schwartz:

Instagram - @internalfamilysystems

Website - www.ifs-institute.com

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