👩‍🎤#10: No Bad Parts by Richard Schwartz - Book Summary & Key Takeaways

“The idea that you have one mind, out of which different thoughts and emotions and impulses and urges emanate. That’s the paradigm I believed in, too, until I kept encountering clients who taught me otherwise.

I want to help you take a look—a second look—at who you really are. I’m going to invite you to try on this different paradigm of multiplicity that IFS espouses and consider the possibility that you and everybody else is a multiple personality. And that is a good thing.” - page 6

“At its core, IFS is a loving way of relating internally to your parts.” - page 4

“I did an outcome study with bulimic clients and discovered with alarm that they kept binging and purging, not realizing they’d been cured. When I asked them why, they started talking about these different parts of them. And they talked about these parts as if they had a lot of autonomy—as if they could take over and make them do things they didn’t want to do.” - page 13

“I was shocked to find that I had parts too. In fact, some of mine were fairly extreme.” - page 14

“Over time it dawned on me that I was learning about a kind of inner system, not unlike the “external” families I was working with. Hence the name: Internal Family Systems.” - page 14

For example, clients would talk about an inner critic who, when they made a mistake, attacked them mercilessly. That attack would trigger a part that felt totally bereft, lonely, empty, and worthless. Experiencing that worthless part was so distressing that almost to the rescue would come the binge that would take clients out of their body and turn them into an unfeeling eating machine. Then the critic would attack them for the binge, which retriggered the worthlessness, and they found themselves caught in these terrible circles for days on end.

✋ At first, I tried to get clients to relate to these parts in a way that would shut them out or get them to stop. For example, I suggested ignoring the critical part of arguing with it. this approach just made things worse, but I didn’t know what else to do than encourage them to fight harder to win their internal battles.

I had one client who had a part that made her cut her wrists. Well, I couldn’t stand for that. My client and I badgered the part in one session for a couple of hours until it agreed not to cut her wrists anymore. I left that session feeling drained, but satisfied that we had won the battle.

I opened the door to our next session and my client had a big gash across her face. 😖 I collapsed emotionally at that point and spontaneously said, “I give up, I can’t beat you at this,” and the part shifted, too, and said “I don’t really want to beat you.” That was a turning point in the history of this work because I moved out of that controlling place and took on a more curious approach:

”Why do you do this to her?”

The part proceeded to talk about how it had needed to get my client out of her body when she was being abused and control the rage that would only result in more abuse. I shifted again and conveyed an appreciation for the heroic role it played in her life. The part broke into tears. Everyone had demonized it and tried to get rid of it. This was the first time it had the chance to tell its story.” - page 13-14

“Parts can become quite extreme and do a lot of damage in a person’s life, but there aren’t any that are inherently bad. Even the ones that make bulimics binge or anorexics starve or make people want to kill themselves or murder people, even those parts when approached from this mindful place—this respectful, open, curious place—will reveal the secret history of how they were forced into the role they’re in and how they’re stuck in that role, terrified that if they don’t do it something dreadful will happen.” - page 16

“If, on the other hand, you believe that the part that seeks drugs is protective and carries the burden of responsibility for keeping this person from severe emotional pain or even suicide, then you would treat the person very differently.” - page 18

“It’s as if each part is like a person with a true purpose.” - page 18

“These are often the younger ones that have frequently been called inner children in our culture. Before we get hurt, they are the delightful, playful, creative, trusting, innocent, and open parts of us that we love to be close to. They are also the most sensitive parts, so when someone hurts, betrays, shames, or scares us, they are the parts who take in the extreme beliefs and emotions (burdens) from those events the most.

After the trauma or attachment injury, the burdens these parts absorb shift them from their fun, playful states to chronically wounded inner children who are frozen in the past and have the ability to overwhelm us and pull us back into those dreadful scenes.” - page 70-71

“I’ve had clients who, when their exiles took over, couldn’t get out of bed for a week.” - page 71

“When you have a lot of exiles, other parts of you will have to leave their valuable roles to become protectors. It’s like your adolescent parts are pressed into military or police service.

Some of them take on the role of controlling the outside world so that nothing triggering happens—they manage our relationships, appearance, and performance often by yelling at us the way our parents or teachers once did so that we’ll try harder or look better. These are the parts that become inner critics.

Other parts take another approach and try to take care of everyone else while neglecting ourselves. Others are hypervigilant, and some are intellectual and are skilled at keeping us out of our bodies. There are many common roles these manager parts take. What they all have in common is the desire to preempt the triggering of our exiles by controlling, pleasing, or disconnecting us. 

Managers are parentified inner children. These parts carry heavy burdens of responsibility for which they are ill-equipped because they are young too.” - page 73-74

“Firefighters are another class of protectors entirely. Despite how hard our managers work to prevent it, the world has a way of triggering our exiles at times, of breaking through what psychotherapy traditionally calls our defenses.

When that happens, it’s a big emergency.

To many of your protectors, experiencing the pain of your exiles feels like you might die. Consequently, most of us have a set of parts whose job it is to deal with these emergencies, parts who will immediately go into action to put out that inner fire—the flames of emotion bursting out from the exiled place.

In contrast to the managers who try to preempt anything that’s going to trigger the exiles, these firefighter parts are activated after an exile has been triggered and desperately (and often impulsively) try to douse the flames of emotion, get us higher than the flames with some substance, or find a way to distract us until the fire burns itself out. 

Your firefighters will resort to desperate measures with little regard for the collateral damage to your health or your relationships. All they know is they have to get you away from those feelings right now or else! Sometimes their fears of your death are warranted, because suicide is an option for some firefighters if other solutions don’t work.” - page 74-75

“Client after client, the same mindfully curious, calm, confident, and often even compassionate part would pop up out of the blue and that part seemed to know how to relate internally in a healing way.

And when they were in that state, I’d ask clients, “Now, what part of you is that?” and they’d say, “That’s not a part like these others, that’s more myself” or “That’s more my core” or “That’s who I really am.”

That’s the part that I call the Self. 

And after thousands of hours doing this work, I can say with certainty that the Self is in everybody. Furthermore, the Self cannot be damaged, the Self doesn’t have to develop, and the Self possesses its own wisdom about how to heal internal as well as external relationships.” - page 21-22

“We all have managers that are Self-like or Self-lite. We don’t typically detect them, because they’re so blended and involved in most of our interactions with the world. They often believe they are us, and we often believe that too. But they’re just a really convincing kind of protector. They make us nice, polite, and caring, for example, but only to persuade other people to like us and think we are good.

And they’re often the ones responsible for keeping certain parts they don’t approve of exiled. Unlike the Self, Self-like managers have protective agendas and aren’t fully authentic when they convey caring, gratitude, or respect. Just like any other protector, we need to relieve them of their huge burdens of responsibility.” - page 92

DICK: So what would you like to work on?

SAM: Well, you have this piece in your work about a trailhead, taking note of an area that might be juicy or interesting to work with. I got bullied when I was in eighth grade, and the way I experienced it was that it was bad. Yeah, I took it inside myself. It felt like it shut down some pieces of me.

D: Beautiful. So do you want to focus on the pain of that? Or the shame, or do you want to focus on the part that shut you down?

S: That one—the shut down one.

D: So go ahead and find that part of you that’s shut you down and see if you can find it in your body, around your body.

S: What am I looking for, Dick?

D: A numbing part maybe…. Here’s a way to do it. As you think about going to that thirteen-year-old boy in there, what comes up in terms of fear?

S: I don’t feel fear. I can see that boy and he’s soft or weak and I don’t feel connected to him.

D: How do you feel toward him as you see you there?

S: I don’t want to be with him.

D: Okay, so focus on that feeling like you don’t want to be with him and ask that part what it’s afraid would happen if it let you be with him.

S: Um, it looks to me like he’s scared he’s gonna get physically beat. Yeah, almost like maybe afraid of me.

D: Okay, but how are you feeling toward him?

S: I want him to toughen up. He should just lash out and defend himself.

D: Right. Tell that part we understand why he’d want that, but we’re going to ask him to give us the space to try and help this boy a different way and see if he’d be willing to step back and relax in there a little bit.

S: Do I actually say something to him?

D: You don’t have to say it out loud, just inside, and see if you can sense that part receding or relaxing.

S: Yes, that angry lashing out part would be willing to step back.

D: As it does, how you feel toward the boy now?

S: A bit closer. Like my brother.

D: Yeah, good. Okay, so let him know that you’re there to help and see how he reacts to that news.

S: Yeah! He feels good. Almost like he’s more filled with life, and he’s kind of peppy and cool.

D: That’s great. Yeah. Okay, so ask him what he wants you to know about himself and just wait for the answer to come.

S: I’m getting that he wants to be on the baseball team. Now it’s like we’re friends. Yeah, he’s opening up, and it’s like we could have a really fun time if he slept over.

D: That’s nice. Okay, Sam, then go ahead and ask him to really let you get a sense of what happened to him to make him feel bullied. Just wait for whatever he wants to give you in the way of emotion, sensations, or images.

S: He’s saying that he was surprised. He was betrayed. He thought it was all cool between him and the guy, you know like they were on the same side, and then all of a sudden, he’s calling to say he’s going to beat the shit out of him.

D: Okay. Does that make sense to you, Sam, that that would feel terrible?

S: Sure.

D: Yeah. So let him know that you get that. And whatever else he wants to give you and what it was like for him.

S: I’ve done so much thinking about this that I’m having trouble separating out my assumptions around it from my memories of it.

D: Yeah. So we’re going to ask the thinking part, the narrating part, to give us some space, too, just like we did the others, and see if that’s possible. See if that thinking part would step out too.

S: Okay, it did.

D: Then go ahead and ask the thirteen-year-old again to really let you know what happened and how bad it was.

S: Just the rejection. I feel like I was there, and then I pulled back from it.

D: Yeah. So find the part that pulled you back.

S: He’s afraid I’ll feel too much. It’ll be embarrassing. I’ll judge myself.

D: Is he afraid of that original tough guy? He would beat you up for having cried? [Sam agrees] So we don’t have to keep going if that’s too scary, but let’s ask that tough guy to go into a contained room in there for a while. Just tell him we’ll talk to him afterward and let him out.

S: He gets that.

D: Okay. So now see if the part who came in to pull you away can let us go back. I promise if they really let you go all the way with this, we can heal this bullied guy so he’s no longer stuck back there. He’ll no longer feel bad and then they won’t have to worry about him. They just need to give us the space.

S: Well, the tough guy says he’ll stay in the room. Says he’s ready. He’s going to give us the space.

D: Okay. That’s great. See if you can get back to that boy.

S: I don’t feel like I’m with the boy.

D: So there’s another part in the way. Just ask whoever is blocking what they’re afraid would happen now if they let you be with him.

S: Not getting anything—getting more like an empty space.

D: All right. So let me talk to the part directly. Okay, so you there? Are you willing to talk to me?

S: Yes.

D: Okay, so you’re the part of Sam that’s blocking him from being with the boy now, is that right?

S: Yes.

D: And what are you afraid would happen if you let him go back to the boy and feel some of that?

S: Connecting to that weak boy would soften up the whole person.

D: And what would happen then if Sam was softer?

S: I’d have to change this whole person that I spent so much time constructing. I run a tight ship is what I’m trying to say. Everything works the way I do it.

D: I got it. All right, well, we don’t wanna screw everything up for you. On the other hand, I think some of why you have to keep the ship so tight, of how hard you have to work, is probably because this boy is in there and you’re trying to keep Sam away from him.

S: That’s true. D: And what I’m offering is the possibility of not having to work so hard because the boy is going to be feeling good.

S: Okay, but if I wasn’t here, then how am I going to help Sam achieve, do everything?

D: I get that. So we won’t do it without your permission, but if you’re willing, I promise we can do what I just said, and you’ll be freed up to do something else.

S: Yeah, well, if it’ll ultimately be better for Sam, I’m into it.

D: All right, that’s great. So if you don’t mind going into the waiting room just till we’re done and let me talk to Sam again. Sam, see if you can get close to the boy now.

S: Yes, I feel close to him.

D: Good. Let him know you’re back and you’re sorry that you let these parts pull you away. And tell him you’re ready to know the rest of it. Everything he wants you to get about how bad it was.

S: Yeah. He feels really small. Younger than thirteen. Way younger. Yeah. Maybe like a two-year-old.

D: Okay. How do you feel toward the two-year-old?

S: Tender.

D: Nice. So let that part know, too, that you’re with him and you care about him. And just see what he wants you to know.

S: I’m feeling a lot of love right now. I feel like my heart is opening. And, yeah, I’m feeling love toward the thirteen-year-old too. Like a tenderness, like a father.

D: Yeah. So let them both know.

S: It feels good. It feels really, really sweet.

D: Yeah, we can just stay with this for a while if you want. But also be open if there’s something they want you to know.

S: I feel the thirteen-year-old me. I see him and he’s dressed in sort of the awkward clothes of a seventh- or eighth-grade boy. Feeling that he’s not pubescent or developed enough. His clothes don’t look right and he couldn’t defend himself right. That, like, his bones feel brittle. I don’t feel disgusted by him. I’m empathizing now.

D: Let him know, and see if there’s more he wants you to get about all that.

S: He wants to be funny and popular and it hurt a lot. Being bullied smacked down that idea of being popular. Really shut him down. Yeah. And I’m thinking about how later when I developed, when I was nineteen and in college, and I figured out a way to be cool, how important that was to me.

D: Of course. Just tell him you’re getting all of this and see if there’s more he wants you to get.

S: Yeah. There’s no mean-spiritedness to him. He’s not angry. He’s more “just don’t hurt me,” but still kind of optimistic.

D: Good. But ask him if it does feel like you now get how much it did hurt. Or if there’s more of that he wants you to get.

S: Yeah, I’m accessing a more “dark night of the soul” type of feeling from him and the terror.

D: Let him know you’re good with that. You really want to feel it. As much as he wants you to. Does he feel like you really get how scared he was now?

S: He says he does.

D: Good. So, Sam, I want you to go into that time period and be with him in the way he needed somebody then and just tell me when you’re in there with him.

S: I’m there. I’m letting him know I’m a friend—a protector.

D: Great. How is he reacting?

S: He feels good. He has somebody on his team.

D: That’s right. Ask him if there’s anything he wants you to do for him back there.

S: He wants me to bring him into adulthood where you can have sex and do grown-up things. He’s always been interested in being in that realm.

D: Okay, we’re going to do that, but first, does he want you to do anything with the bully or anything else back there before we take him out?

S: No. He doesn’t seem vindictive. It doesn’t seem like he wants anybody beat up.

D: All right. So let’s take him wherever he wants to go. Could be the present, could be a fantasy place. Wherever he wants.

S: He wants to be at Burning Man.

D: Oh great! Okay. [Pause] How’s he like it there?

S: A little shy.

D: Let him know that you’re gonna help him learn the ropes there. And tell him he never has to go back to that bullying time again. [Sam cries hard with relief] Yeah. There’s all the relief, right? That’s great. Yeah. He never has to go back there. That’s really great, Sam.

S: Amazing, man. It’s like tears of joy.

D: That’s really great. And he never has to go back, and you’re gonna be taking care of him now.

S: It’s so great. It’s like what he’s always wanted.

D: There you go. And ask now if he’s ready to unload the feelings and beliefs he got back there that he’s been carrying all this time. Ask where he carries all that in his body or around his body, throughout his body.

S: Around his head. Around his head, around his hips and heart.

D: Okay. Ask what he wants to give it all up to: light, water, fire, wind, earth, or anything else.

S: Light.

D: All right, Sam, so bring some light in and have it shine on him. And tell him to let all of that go out of his body, off his body. Just let the light take it away, no need to carry that anymore. Have him check his body, make sure he gets all of it out. Yeah. Just let it go into the light. That’s right. Tell him now to invite qualities into his body that he wants and just see what comes into him now.

S: Like a pride and kindness to others. Just like a good superhero type of feel.

D: Great. So how does he seem now?

S: Like my younger friend. But safe, you know, and strong.

D: That’s right. So let’s let all these guys out of the waiting room and have them all come in and see him now and see how they react. Let them know they don’t have to protect him or they don’t have to keep you away from him anymore, so they can start thinking about new roles.

S: I see curiosity and befuddlement on the tough guy’s face. He’s totally confused that he’s not me.

D: No, he’s not you. Make that clear to him. He was beating up that kid, which wasn’t good, so …

S: Right!

D: He needs to think about a new role now. Ask him what he’d like to do if he really trusted he didn’t have to protect you like he used to.

S: Well, he’s saying he’s so good at everything. Can he just choose? He’s really, really high on himself. Really. He sees everything that’s good that I’ve done in my life, he’s taken credit for. Yeah.

D: He can think about a new role. He doesn’t have to decide right now. So how’s it feeling in there now?

S: It’s feeling spacious. It’s feeling interesting and different.

D: Yeah. Okay. So does it feel complete for now?

S: It does, and I’m interested about how I can get in touch with this tough guy to let him know that although he is not in control of the show, he’s still important to me.

D: That’s exactly what you gotta tell him. You don’t have to work to get in touch with him—he’s around all the time. Just focus on him and talk to him about it. So. Come on back. It’s a beautiful piece of work, Sam.

S: Yeah. Thank you. I was not expecting that.” - page 38-46

“Even when they are exiled, their burdens can exert an unconscious effect on our self-esteem, choice of intimate partner, career and so on. They’re behind the overreactions that seem mysterious to us and leave us perplexed as to why certain small things hit us so hard.” - page 71

“An exile is healed when Self retrieves it from where it is stuck in the past. Then the exile can unburden and begin to reintegrate with all the other parts in the system. When that happens, the system feels far less vulnerable and protectors also feel freed up to unburden and take on new valuable roles. Thus, all the protective energy that went into keeping you from being triggered and keeping your exiles at bay is freed up for healthier endeavours and you have new access to the wonderful feelings and resources of your healed former exiles.” - page 86

“ … if you can become the primary caretaker of your own parts then you free intimate partners (or therapists, parents, children) from the responsibility of taking care of raw and needy exiles.” - page 103

“By tormenting you, they mentor you about what you need to heal. That is, the emotions they trigger are usually valuable trailheads. If, instead of blending with those emotions or beliefs, you investigate and separate from them, they will lead you to key exiles.

Tor-Mentors are so valuable because often you aren’t aware of those parts until they or their protectors are activated. Your managers had buried them so far inside that you had no idea. You might have had a nagging sense of them, but your managers found a way to distract you so you wouldn’t go there.” - page 145

“When you can love all your parts, you can love all people.

When your parts feel loved, they allow you to lead your life from Self.” 

- page 178