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

“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.

Wow, what a book! I learned a little about Internal Family Systems from other authors & spiritual directors&became especially interested when I heard spiritual directors in my program talking about how to use it with directees. This is a powerful paradigm that I’m finding helpful in my own soul work, & I’m looking forward to learning more so I can use it with directees. The book is accessible for folks like me who aren’t therapists or psychologists. Schwartz explains how he began to apply his knowledge of family systems to what he identifies as different parts we have within us that relate to 1 another much like our external families do. We have parts that, often at a young age, were traumatized & become frozen in that time period. Protector parts developed, sending vulnerable parts into exile, & may become triggered by anything that threatens the safety of our exiles. When we become aware of, listen to, & work with our protectors, we can gain their trust so they will stand down &allow us to find & heal our exiles. Then the protector parts are freed up to serve healthier functions. Schwartz includes transcripts to model how this work is done with his clients. He provides exercises for readers to try on their own & gives recommendations regarding at what point to seek help from an IFS-trained therapist. This model fits in perfectly with Enneagram work & the idea of nonjudgmental self-observation, as well as self-compassion. It feels a bit odd at first, but it makes a lot of sense & has been really helpful for me. One of my favorite things about this model is Schwartz’s assertion that we all inherently have what we need to heal (though we may need a therapist to guide us), & once the Self emerges (or what we would call “True Self” or “Essence” in Enneagram work), the Self seems to know what to do to respond compassionately to the parts & exiles in a way that is healing. I highly recommend this book & am excited to continue practicing & learning about IFS! This would be a great one to read and study in community.