No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma and Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model

Excellent, helpful read. I’m learning so much and able to help myself because I understand myself.

Absolutely fantastic overview of IFS therapy. Not enough to be able to practice it with others. A full training would be needed for that. But useful for an overview or for some mild Self work. Reads at an easy to understand level, any adult should be able to comprehend it.

Amazing book. Deep, true, positive, sobering!

Good

Taking time to be still enough to listen to the voices in your head can help you identify what Richard calls "parts." I've found that there is immediate benefit to identifying your parts and separating them from your "Self," which is your wise and compassionate leader of your parts. It's the real "you."The overall message I get is that with IFS, you reconcile with your inner wounded child and you heal by helping them realize that everything is okay now that you're an adult. Connecting with your inner wounded child can be a major point of healing and, as his experience suggests, can produce profound results. However, I find that simply telling the inner wounded child that everything is okay because you're an adult now is not sufficient, and at worst is plain ignorant.On the topic of children. He makes an assertion on page 100 that "Young children can't fully access Self.... Children don't have the brain power to fully protect themselves in the world, regardless of how much parts might allow them to be Self-led. And this is partly why your parts lost trust in your Self's leadership when you were hurt as a young child - you couldn't protect them at the time, and they think they have to take over."This statement reveals a lot about the philosophy of IFS. It makes it sound like we will all become a collection of parts, no matter what, and it's only a matter of time before we do. This is his psychotherapy background talking. There is always childhood trauma. I wholly disagree that children are not capable of being Self-led. On the contrary, everything they do is from Self. They only develop parts after being "educated" by adults. They become hurt when an adult tells them to sit down, shut up, follow the rules. They become hurt when an adult does some unthinkable harm to them. Children don't have Protectors because they don't need them. They develop Protectors to deal with the moral judgements, evaluations, diagnoses, and harm they were subject to as children.Some people have left reviews about the political commentary in the book. I guess this is because he dares to utter the name of the current president.But the book is political for more reasons than this.He makes a counterpoint to the argument that meditation can't save you from a burning building by saying something along the lines of "well, of course not, but if you ever act out of Protector energy as opposed to Self energy, you will make the problems around you worse." This is nonsense. Women are not safe. Racial minorities are not safe. LGBTQ+ people are not safe. Financially struggling families are not safe. No amount of inner child therapy is going to change that. Not on a systemic level. And certainly not on an individual level.He quotes David Dellinger on page 140 who says something along the lines of "you can't change society in isolation and you can't change individuals in isolation if you want to heal the world." Schwartz suggests that IFS is an entire solution because if everyone practiced IFS, the world would be a better place. This reveals Dellinger's and the author's lack of knowledge of history. Real political change in America or any other country didn't come from IFS. Ever. I wouldn't entrust either of them to lead a political movement or organization if I needed it to exercise real power and produce real results.And don't get me started on his anti-intellectual "wave" spiritual stuff.He is ignorant to the inherent violence in languages of Western cultures. He is ignorant to the real, brutal effects of systemic violence and delusional as to the response necessary to stop it. He is ignorant to science itself (all of his evidence is anecdotal).Throw syncretism on top of that. Read Umberto Eco's 14 common features of fascism.All of that said, the majority of the book has helpful practices. If personifying your inner critics, cowards, children, etc. helps you identify your needs, then by all means, do so.I leave this comment to say that if we want the world to be a better place, we can start within (with IFS, for example), but real change requires real power, and that extends beyond self-help.

“No Bad Parts” is a fascinating and inspiring book. Dick Schwartz shows how healing and liberating it can be to enter our inner world, and to lovingly care for the pain, the anguishes, and inner struggles that haunt us. He presents a captivating, groundbreaking, and deeply humane therapy approach. Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy is not just a model of psychotherapy — it becomes a way of life.In IFS, we become aware of our parts: those conflicting inner voices, feelings and beliefs that can overwhelm and confuse us. We also become aware of our Self: the healing force we all carry inside. These conversations, these compassionate inner exchanges, between our parts and our Self sustain and strengthen us throughout life’s challenges and changes.His concept of the Self is revolutionary because he does not see it as broken, but as present in all of us. The Self becomes concealed by alienated parts, who are burdened with feelings and beliefs of traumatic experiences as they were fighting for our survival, most often during our childhood.We learn about why parts are frozen in time, becoming stuck in feelings and beliefs formed by those traumatic experiences. We learn how we can help parts unburden and become supportive partners in our inner family. IFS is a healing journey that reaches beyond one’s own soul and life. It touches the lives of others.It has always moved me how honestly and openly Dick Schwartz shares about himself, his own struggles, the history of his suffering parts, the development of IFS, and his experiences with IFS in his life. He does this again with his new book “No Bad Parts.” He is not someone who wants to be on a pedestal. He wants us to get to know what is going on in our inner world. He supports us lovingly in gaining appreciation for our parts and our Self — and in living Self-led lives. He empowers us to create harmony within and around us.As his client some years ago, I had unforgettable experiences on this journey. I remember coming into a session after I had sent the final version of my essay “Facing a Wall of Silence” to the editors. As I listened inside, I did not notice any parts. Instead I had a strong feeling of being alive. He asked me to imagine walking up a path and leaving my parts behind. When I did this, the feeling of being alive only intensified. He invited me to ask this feeling what it had to tell me, and the first thing I heard was: “This is what you are here for.” The same feeling returned strongly and for some time, years later, when I wrote “Alice Miller: War and Betrayal Trauma.”Although I have a part who is very skeptical of spirituality, it acknowledges these experiences as real, valid and convincing. In retrospect, it seems that — without being aware of it — I was on a journey and had a calling, which IFS helped me fulfill.It is a profound relief not to be demeaned by some arbitrary diagnosis, but to understand how our history impacted our parts — and forced our Self into being locked away. It is deeply gratifying to come to value our Self and to live with Self-leadership.The experience that my Self can be there, reliably and lovingly, with compassion, for my parts when they come up, and struggle, and need to share, has been life-changing. It has brought hope and joy and love and courage into my life.Dick Schwartz shares his insights and experiences bravely and honestly. The wealth of those experiences and insights is comforting and invigorating. And comforting and loving is the IFS therapy approach, which is a blessing as we can actively heal our traumatized parts, harmonize our inner system, come to cherish our parts’ true essence, as well as our Self — and find our place in the world.I am grateful for my IFS journey, for Dick’s open heart and generosity when confronted with my vehement protectors, and for the encouragement that his book “No Bad Parts” provides in continuing my journey with IFS.

What an eye-opening book. My therapist recommended this book and I'm glad she did.

I feel like I've been playing the game my whole life, just figuring out the rules as I go, and now I've been handed the instructions!