by richard c. schwartz
Please Note: Each book review is intended to provide an overview of the content and it’s main benefit to the reader. Though I recommend reading a book alongside following The Roadmap, I am in no way connected to the author or publisher or them to me or this website.
key elements
– A psychological model that matches the reality of our day to day thoughts and actions and what it is to be human.
– IFS also provides a practical way to touch/feel./sense/inhabit what it calls Self and I call Universal Consciousness.
– This therapy gives room to all of yourself and so is a way into living a meaningful life, healing and staying healthy.
– Read this book in conjunction with the next book about IFS – Self Therapy by Jay Early. Neither on their own is sufficient.
why this book is worth reading
Once the principles of Internal Family Systems (IFS) are grasped and accepted, which may be the biggest stumbling block for many as it requires a rethinking of how we view our minds and thoughts, it is an extremely practical therapy and one that can be practiced by yourself as well as in a therapeutic setting.
Richard Schwartz developed the Internal Family Systems therapeutic model over many years of working as a family therapist and academic. It is grounded in practical research and experience
It is a fast way to get to know our total selves, both what I call your World Identity with your everyday concerns and also your Universal Consciousness , which IFS calls Self with its feeling of infinite, loving, peace and security.
The IFS Model of the mind
Part One of this book is an introduction to Internal Family Systems and chapter one is entitled, We’re All Multiple. This is a simple sum up of the IFS approach to the human mind which Schwartz says is more accurate than the current view most of us hold of what he calls the Mono-Mind approach. This is the view promoted by our upbringings and many other psychotherapy approaches that we have one personality which feels one way or the other depending on the situations we are in, our genes and our learning
Schwartz instead sees each of us as having minds that are never just one particular viewpoint. Rather we are made up of multiple points of view. IFS calls these viewpoints our Parts. Behind and beyond these Parts is the Self, which in IFS terms is like the observing mind that we met earlier in The Happiness Trap.
If you are intrigued, good. If you are dismissive, I urge you to take a growth mindset view on this and read on.
Throughout the book Schwartz explains IFS and the IFS process interspersed with case studies and meditation sessions where you can try IFS out for yourself. The meditation sessions in my experience are where you will get the best understanding of IFS as it is very much a therapy that must be experienced to be believed.
Self explored
The Self in IFS, though like the Observing Mind, is something more as well. They are both unchanging throughout life, both non-judgmental, both seem to be common to all people, neither are able to be improved or damaged, but in IFS the Observing Mind as seen as Self is also curious and loving and is a healing force. Self in IFS also does more than observe, Self interacts, asking questions of our Parts while giving love and healing.
The Self is where the real power of IFS begins. By becoming open to Self you are capable of accessing true healing of any trauma or problems from within. Experiencing Self as Schwartz describes it is for me akin to experiencing what Tolle calls Consciousness and what others may refer to as God or Oneness, the Source and many other terms. My own is Universal Consciousness though the words are really all irrelevant.
Self is that part of you that is exactly the same now as when you were a little boy or girl, happy or sad, terrified or ecstatic. It is the same part of you that will be there when you let go of your final breath. It is also the same in all of us, suggesting that all of us are of one mind at some vast level. When you access Self, especially in IFS when comforting Parts of yourself that are scared or angry, you start to understand all of this.
Parts explored
We are all familiar with the phrase: There’s a part of me that… and fill in the blank – hates, loves, likes, dislikes, wants, needs, will never, always does. What IFS shows us is that those Parts of ourselves that have views, often contradictory ones, are what makes us up and what drives our behaviour.
Our Parts for IFS are like real beings inside us, often frozen in time whenever they came into existence. They are most often child like Parts of ourselves and Schwartz divides them into two groups – exiled Parts (Exiles) and protector Parts (Protectors). In broad terms Exiles are those Parts of ourselves that often carry great pain. So an exiled Part may be a very angry Part of yourself that at a subconscious level you feel could really hurt yourself or others if let loose.
Protectors are those Parts of yourself that protect you from becoming aware of your Exiles. So, you may have a Protector that has learned that anger is a terrible emotion and so must be kept at bay at all costs. This Protector may then takeover to make you sick, or make you successful in business, or make you a people-pleaser or an alcoholic – all in the name of keeping anger at bay.
Of course no-one is ever so one-dimensional. This is both the lesson and prime usefulness of IFS. Though one of your Parts may take a dominant role to make you sick, you are not just your sickness. You are more than a people pleaser or alchoholic or successful in business. We have a tendency though to run with whichever Part becomes dominant and start to see ourselves as one-dimensional, whether that is healthy or unhealthy, good or bad.
The title of this book, No Bad Parts, is a vital signpost. Though it may feel like a Part is bad (because it is helping make you sick or hurting others for example) your Parts are always doing their best to protect you. They just have a limited viewpoints – seeing only the Exile they need to protect, not seeing the whole person that you are, made up of all these Parts and anchored in Self.
Healing Your Parts
IFS would not be much of a therapy if it didn’t help you improve your life. Happily it is excellent in this regard. Through the IFS process you will find you can have conversations with your various Parts – finding out what thought, feeling or emotion has been exiled and why a certain Protector feels they must protect you from this Exile. We’ll discuss the process in more detail when looking at the next guide book – Self-Therapy, as this for me was a more useful in the field of practical application.
What is important and what No Bad Parts excels at is showing the philosophy of full acceptance and the transformational power which comes from allowing space inside for all your Parts. There is no need to ignore those words of self-criticism that come up when you try something challenging. Nor do you have to simply accept them and act anyway, knowing that eventually they may subside. Instead you can engage with those self critical Parts of yourself. You can find out where they came from. You can find out why they think criticsing is a good idea. And, you can heal their wounds, release them from their role as critic, and feel them transform into an ally.
a Self Led Life
This is the goal of IFS – a Self-led life, literally living in the world with a viewpoint rooted in and led by Self and this is the subject of Part Two of this book.
Being Self-led doesn’t mean you are living an unemotional monk-like life with all Parts perfectly settled and happy. Rather you are able to accept all Parts of yourself and become more easily aware when you are triggered. So, when anger, or shame or fear for example strikes, you can more easily access Self rather than blending (fusing in ACT) with your affected Parts and acting out from those points of view. Instead you can understand, or at least start to understand, what is really underneath your emotions.
A Self-led life is also one where you feel more connected to other people as you know that the same sense of Self is in all people. We are all connected.
Though with IFS, like any psychological therapy, there is the temptation to overreach, to constantly self-examine in some blind urge to heal all your Parts and reach a kind of IFS nirvana, there is also for me, within this approach the way out of this dead end.
By feeling Self more often you can come to see its infinite properties and in this you can understand that because there is no end to Self, there is no need to find an endpoint where you are fixed! You were never broken, just in need of a way to meet those Parts of yourself that required healing. And, as life always gives us challenges, there is always healing required. This doesn’t have to stop you in any way, it just becomes part of the practice of living.
The Bigger picture
No Bad Parts gives an introduction to IFS and explores its major concepts and also shows how to apply it and make your life better on a daily basis but it’s difference to other books about IFS comes in Schwartz’s focus on the therapy’s parallels and potential integrations with Spiritual traditions.
These connections are elaborated upon throughout the book and particularly in chapter three where the concept of SELF in capitals is introduced. This is Schwartz’s way to describe the more universal sense of Self that can come through connecting to Self using IFS. Schwartz sees SELF as akin to God in the Christian tradition, but more of a God of love of all things and people I think than a traditional God of punishment and reward.
As Schwartz says in the same chapter about finding SELF through Self, “What we’re talking about transcends any particular religion and doesn’t even require that you believe in something spiritual, just that you come to accept that there is this beautiful essence in you and everyone else.”
where i see this book in the roadmap
I relate this book to Stages Four, Five and Six of The Roadmap. As a Stage Four guide it will help you understand yourself without judgement, allowing you to stop trying to chase away unhelpful thoughts as so many other therapies often do. It also goes deeper than a mindfulness approach to your thoughts, both allowing thoughts and then finding out why they are there in the first place. It works in this way along with the next book, Self-Therapy, examining why you think as you do and how these thoughts first started as well as how to heal these wounded parts.
In Stage Five this book will help soothe those Parts fearful of death and in Stage 6 this book will help connect you to what Schwartz calls the Self and is close to what I refer to as Universal Consciousness. I do not think Schwartz’s Self is exactly the same, simply because it talks and Universal Consciousness is a sense of, a feeling of, rather than a dialogue with.
However, as I said before, the words are really irrelevant and the importance of IFS is in helping us on our way to connecting our World Identity to the oneness of Universal Consciousness and Infinite Existence. This brings health, peace and freedom.