Introduction to Internal Family Systems

This is an excellent, accessible, and powerful overview of the fundamental ideas in IFS. I am a practicing psychiatrist, and have found IFS to be a terrific way of working with people. IFS addresses people as complex, social beings, and appreciates their complexity. But at the same time, it avoids the guild-language jargon of conventional psychobabble. Dynamically trained therapists will find in IFS a congenial way of using their knowledge in a much more accessible form for their patients. Also, IFS is fundamentally optimistic about the capacity for humans to live fulfilled, happy lives. Strongly recommended!

I purchased this book after researching a bit on IFS and noticing that it is a required reading for the trainings offered by the IFS institute if you want to become certified or official. This book is an easy read and maintained my attention. I especially appreciated the multitude of metaphors, examples, and quotations to help the reader understand each topic in question. I believe that this book is primarily geared towards letting client's of therapists using the IFS model/intervention understand the process and purpose, and not necessarily how to use the model; which is what I was expecting in addition to some explanation of the origin and terminology. That may have been a fault of my own, but it is OK because I still found this book to be useful. I am eager to learn more about this model and how it can be applied to therapy. IFS generally reminds me a lot of Acceptance & Commitment Therapy (ACT), but it uses different terms. I expect that I will use more ACT in my work setting and use this as an intervention to achieve distancing the "Self" from thoughts.

This book opens the door for a person to get to know themselves better, and help that person to work through unresolved issues, opening a person to a fuller life and more personal empowerment.

Super fun to read!

I think the author spends a little too much time repeating in creative ways the importance of having compassion for our parts, a lot less exploring of some of the scientific evidence behind some of the rather bold claims presented or clarifying the more thorny topics. For instance, Schwartz brought up the interwoven relationship between the body and mind by suggesting that for some people, “firefighters use the body. Sudden pains or illnesses can be effective distractions. Firefighters can amplify physical pain or disease that already exists, lower resistance to viruses or bacteria, or push physiological buttons that trigger genetic conditions.” Most readers, I would argue, would have thoroughly enjoyed and appreciated at the very least a brief mention of the studies and body of work that allowed the author to state these findings so matter of factly. Another example that is at the forefront of my mind is the lack of detail in the discussion about the self imitating part, and being able to recognize it. The author himself mentioned when he narrowly caught one of his clients not being in his Self, through a “hollow compliance, protective distance, and slight condescension” in his tone and words. It would have been so much more informative for the reader to have concrete understanding of what exactly led the author to come to this conclusion about his client. Albeit, he does note how he himself detect the self imitating part in myself which is to “check to see how open [his] heart is or to notice if [he has] an agenda while [he interacts] with someone.” I do have trouble with subjective measures such as “openness of the heart”, but that is unfortunately not something the author can help me with, however I think most would have appreciated a more in depth discussion of this agenda-less being: how can one be in Self while interacting with a part with the objective of healing, since the presence of this objective itself by definition would lend to the leading part to be categorized as a self imitating part.

For anyone struggling with Complex PTSD, this book is a must read. IFS therapy has been one of the most effective and permanent treatments I've experienced.

great reading for both psychologists and general public

This book rocked my world. The articulate and thorough description of the human inner life is remarkable. I am filled with hope and self-compassion as I sit with this deeper understanding of my inner world and how it shapes my current life. I feel like I have an essential new roadmap for finding my way to a more balanced and freer life.

It appears to be a no nonsense simple - but not easy - effective approach to resolve our issues which are holding us from being and acting our true selves.

Super

The book is easy to read, and having read No Bad Parts by the same author, I now have a better understanding of how and why he came to develop Internal Family Systems for use in family therapy. Very grateful to Richard C. Schwartz for his work in this field.

Having stumbled across Internal Family Systems in Gabor and Daniel Maté’s The Myth of Normal and Bessel van der Kolk’s The Body Keeps the Score, I was intrigued by Schwartz’ “methodology” for exploring of what John O’Donohue in Anam Cara refers to as “the landscapes of our inner world” which “never reveals itself cheaply”. A number of aspects of Schwartz’ Introduction to Internal Family Systems struck me as profoundly and refreshingly useful. Firstly, the way in which Schwartz describes the core of the human Self as having beautiful qualities such as curiosity, compassion, calmness, confidence, courage, clarity, creativity, and connectedness, the “original blessing”, which he contrasts with the post-Augustinian doctrine of “original sin”. Secondly, his acknowledgment that “on the rocky road of life, we are all, to varying degrees, rejected, humiliated, abandoned, and traumatized. We all have pools of pain and shame and protective strategies that are reinforced by our culture”, in which we “absorbed a great deal of disdain for weakness and impatience with emotional pain”. The third deeply impactful realisation was Schwartz’s assertion that, “just as our bodies know how to heal physical injuries, it seems that we all possess an innate wisdom for healing ourselves emotionally”, that resonated with Hegel’s beautiful phrase “The wounds of the spirit heal and leave no scars”. It seems that Schwartz’s monumental work provides readers with “directions” for exploring our inner worlds of which John O’Donohue describes the advantages in Walking in Wonder: Eternal Wisdom for a Modern World: “If we can somehow bring the difficult things with us into the realm and the light of our souls, it is unbelievable the healing that will achieve itself in us”. I found the prospect that people “at war with themselves”, “knotted in dysfunctional inner relationships and … their outer relationships paralleled their inner ones” could change by “changing the way they regarded and interacted with their thoughts and emotions” so that “they felt less inner turmoil, liked themselves more, and got along better with the people in their lives” rather astonishing. I experienced the way in which Schwartz manages to integrate Western and Eastern philosophies (refer to Eckhart Tolle’s The Power of Now) useful in growing my own understanding, also of the role of psychedelics in the healing of trauma (even though Schwartz did not touch on this aspect). Lastly, I was deeply touched by Schwartz’ raw vulnerability and authenticity in honestly and openly describing his own internal and external challenges. While I understand that developing ideas of such deep dimensions may have required much time to refine, I cannot but wonder how different my life would have been had I read this book thirty years ago. I thank you for sharing your insights.

Very good overview for IFS