How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

Welcome to the Huberman Lab podcast, where we discuss science and science-based tools for everyday life. I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine.

My guest today is Dr. Richard Schwartz. Dr. Richard Schwartz is the founder of Internal Family Systems Therapy, which is a unique form of therapy that's less centered on your relationship to other people, but instead focuses mainly on identifying the parts of yourself and your personality that tend to emerge in different situations and that tend to create anxiety, resent, or depression.

Another key feature of internal family systems therapy is that it's not just focused on fixing challenges within us, it also teaches you how to grow your confidence, openness, and compassion. Now, today's episode is different than any other episode of the podcast that we've done before, and that's for two reasons. First, Dr. Schwartz takes me through a brief session of IFS therapy so you can see exactly what it looks like in practice, and then he takes you, the listener,

through it as well. So as you'll soon observe and experience, internal family systems therapy allows you to work through challenging sticking points, basically the parts or feelings within you that you don't like to have, and then it shows you how to convert those feelings into more functional.

aspects of yourself. So as you'll soon see, internal family systems therapy is both super interesting and it's an incredibly empowering practice. It's also a form of therapy that's now been studied and for which there's a lot of peer reviewed science to support its efficacy.

By the end of today's episode, Dr. Dick Schwartz will have shown you that a lot of the negative reactions that we tend to have with different people and things tend to originate from a few basic patterns that once we understand, we can really transmute into more positive responses. It's a really interesting practice. It's one that you can apply today during the episode and that you can return to in order to apply going forward in your life.

Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize that this podcast is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford. It is, however, part of my desire and effort to bring zero cost to consumer information about science and science related tools to the general public. In keeping with that theme,

episode does include sponsors and now for my discussion with dr richard schwartz dr dick schwartz welcome thank you andrew it's delightful to be with you yeah i've heard so much about you and your work and internal family systems models i've had the opportunity to do a little bit of that work

To be honest, I don't know whether or not the person I did that work with was formally trained in it. So I'd like to start off by just asking you, what is internal family systems and what are the different components? And as we do that, I'm sure people are going to be thinking about these various components for their own life and the people in their lives. Well, originally I developed it as a form of psychotherapy.

which is probably the way it's used most now, but it's also become a kind of life practice and just a paradigm for understanding the human mind and as an alternative to the... culture's paradigm. So that's saying a lot. And it's been quite a journey. I know of Freudian psychoanalysis. I know of... you know, any number of different branches of psychology that have a clinical slant to them. There's cognitive behavioral therapy. What are the core components of internal family systems? Yeah, so...

One basic assumption is that the mind isn't unitary, that actually we're all multiple personalities, not in the diagnostic sense. But... We all have these, what I call parts, other systems call sub-personalities, ego states, things like that. And that it's the natural state of the mind to be that way. We're born with them because they're all very valuable and have qualities and resources to help us survive and thrive. But trauma and...

What's called attachment injuries and the slings and arrows we suffer force these little naturally valuable parts into roles that can be destructive. Often they don't like it all. But because they're frozen often in time during the trauma, and they live as if it's still happening, they're in these protective roles that can be quite extreme and interfere in your life. And, yeah, so I just stumbled onto the phenomena of 40, now I think it's 41 years ago. And it's been, you know, amazing ride.

So at the time, were you already practicing as a clinical psychologist? I actually have a PhD in marital and family therapy. So I was part of the movement in family therapy away from intrapsychic work. There was a polarization, and we thought we could reorganize families and heal all these symptoms just by doing that. We didn't have to muck around in the inner world. And I went to prove that, and this was about 1983.

by getting a group of bulimic kids together and their families and tried to reorganize the families just the way the book said to and failed. Kids didn't realize they'd been cured, and they kept binging and purging. So out of frustration, I began asking why, and they started talking this language of parts. And they would say some version of, when something bad happens in my life.

It triggers this critic who's calling me all kinds of names inside, and that goes right to the heart of a part that feels empty and alone and worthless. And that's so distressing to feel that the binge part comes in and takes me out. Takes me away from all that pain. But the critic comes in and attacks me for the binge. And then the criticism goes right to the heart of that worthless part.

So to me, as a family therapist, this sounded like what I'd been studying in external families, these circular sequences of interaction. And so I just got curious and just started to explore.

Are these different parts that exist within each and all of us, are they represented by a clear and distinct voice from the other, or do people typically experience them as... just the self like my inner critic you'll give us the other names and titles or is this happening typically below people's conscious awareness some of both so Most people are aware they're a critic, but other times you're not aware of these parts we call exiles that you've locked away because...

You didn't want to feel their feelings. They're stuck in these bad trauma scenes. And to survive in your life, you had to push them away. And so with those parts, a lot of people aren't really consciously aware of them. until these protector parts give space and open the door to the exiles. I'd like to take a quick break and acknowledge our sponsor. BetterHelp offers professional therapy with a licensed therapist carried out entirely online.

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and I always keep one with me when I'm out of the house or traveling. They're incredibly delicious, and given that they have 28 grams of protein, they're really satisfying for having just 150 calories. If you'd like to try David, you can go to davidprotein.com slash Huberman. Again, that's davidprotein.com slash Huberman. I definitely want to go into what the various protector roles or titles are, labels, excuse me, and the exiles. Before we do that.

Since you brought up the topic of trauma, this is a topic that I think many, many people are interested in. I'm just curious, how do you define a trauma? And why do you think it is that? traumas tend to lock us into a state that was representative of an earlier time. Why is it that it's so linked to this thing of time perception?

Yeah, the why question I can't totally answer, but it definitely is. And for me, traumas aren't necessarily traumatizing. So something bad happens to you. And if you can access what... You and Martha Beck were calling the self, capital S, and you go to the part of you that got hurt by what happened instead of pushing it away and locking it up, and you embrace it and you bring it closer to you.

which means going to your suffering, which is counter to what most of us try to do. But if you were to do that and you could help it unload the feelings it got from the trauma, then you're not traumatized. What's traumatizing is something bad happens. These more vulnerable parts of us, the most sensitive parts of us, get hurt or feel worthless because of what happened or get terrified.

And then we lock them away because we don't want to feel that feeling anymore. And everybody around us tells us to just let it go, just move on, don't look back. And so we wind up exiling. our most sensitive parts simply because they got hurt. And then when you have a lot of exiles, you feel more delicate, the world seems more dangerous, because anything could trigger that. And when they get triggered, they'll...

They'll blow up. They'll take over. So it's like these flames of raw motion come popping out. So other parts are forced into these manager roles or these protective roles. And some of them are trying to manage your life so that you don't get triggered anymore, so that, for example, nobody gets close enough to you to trigger any of that, or so you look really...

good so you don't get rejected or perform at a really high level to counter the worthlessness. Many of those become the critics because... In their effort to try to get you to look good, they're yelling at you to try and behave and do what they want so you look better. And then there are other what we call manager protectors that are, for some people...

particularly women, on these massive caretaking parts that don't let them take care of themselves and take care of everybody else. So I could go on and on. There's a lot of common... manager roles. And I want to make clear as I'm talking about this that these are not the essence of the parts, and that's a big mistake that most of the field has made, is to assume the critic is just internalized critical.

parental voice instead of listening to it and hearing that it's desperately trying to protect you. So none of these are what they seem. That's the role they've been forced into. And the analogy, again, is to an external family. like kids in dysfunctional families are forced into these extreme roles that aren't who they are. It's the role they got forced into by the dynamics of the family. So the same is true with this internal family.

So most of us have a lot of what we call managers. They got us here. They help us in our careers, and other systems would call them the defenses or the ego. And, you know, in spirituality, they get vilified too. But their whole MO is keep everything under control, please everybody. and you'll survive. The world has a way of breaking through those defenses, triggering an exile. When that happens, it's a big emergency.

Because again, these flames of raw emotion are going to overwhelm you and make you have trouble functioning or even getting out of bed. So there are other parts that immediately go into action to deal with that emergency. And in contrast to these managers, they're impulsive, reactive, damn the torpedoes. I don't care about the collateral damage to your body, to your relationships.

I've just got to get you higher than those flames or douse them with some substance or distract you until they burn themselves out. So we call those firefighters. And again, these are just the roles.

When released from these roles, they'll transform into being something very valuable. So the inner firefighter role is one of the exiles that surfaces under conditions of... a lot of emotion maybe we could um this is a beautiful description and i'm completely on board this idea that we have multiple aspects of self or selves inside jung said that too i think right like young had all this a long time ago

Yeah, and what I like about this protectors slash managers versus, again, not versus because they're combated, but as a distinct category, the exiles is, it just feels very true to me. And I like the directness of the language. So maybe we could just like create a mental grid for people. Like if, let's say I came to you as a patient and I said, listen, I, you know, I'm.

i'll just be direct i'll be honest why not do it let's do it let's do it secretly i brought you here to get therapy no no um but okay so i'm somebody who uh for a very long time has been able to organize his life I tend to have smooth interactions with my coworkers, great friendships. I now have a very good relationship with my immediate family. very good in fact i'm still working on a few things with a few people but i'm living in a mode of uh great uh joy and appreciation these days however um

I'm not going to give the details of this for sake of privacy, but the other day I was in a discussion with a family member. They had a grievance with me that I felt we had already addressed, and it became... very high friction conversation very quickly to the point where we tabled as an idea that maybe we just take some like serious space like um which was not reflective of

how deeply I love this person or they love me. It was just a feeling of both of us just being in this like high tension place. And fortunately the conversation ended well with a path forward. that involved more contact, not less, that both of us feel really good about. But in that moment where I'm feeling overwhelmed and they're feeling overwhelmed.

What's going on there? We're both adults. So overwhelmed with anger at each other? Frustration. Frustration, yeah. Frustration. Like that previous conversations, I felt I hadn't... I was saying things, they were saying things, but I feel like there was so much underlying tension based on a history of poor communication nested on top of the... kind of an intensity of emotion that we both tend to carry. And somehow we just like couldn't parse things from that state. Yeah.

And so I sat in my chair and I just told myself, okay, I'm going to not say anything for five minutes because I know myself. Right. It's not that I thought I would say something really barbed wire, but I just thought this is not going to work. Like I'm... slamming my head against a wall they're not hearing me i'm clearly not hearing them and i the thing that helped me through that was just because it was what was taught to me i just decided to surrender

And the word surrender used to mean to me letting go of truth. Yeah. And it felt really scary because when you say surrender, it's almost like saying one context is it. Surrender means you're right no matter, and you're right. I was just going to say that's right. But I've come to realize that surrender to me is just surrender in the moment. Yeah. So that I can get better optics. Yeah. Internal and external optics.

So to me, the thing of embracing surrender in those types of moments, very uncomfortable. But I now have learned it's a great way to get perspective. But even as I describe it, the whole situation was so heavy. I came out of that call, even though it ended well, and was like, ugh. Yeah. Like, ugh. That was like, I'd...

Never run a marathon, but I'd rather run a marathon than do two of those a week. Totally agree. Yeah. I had one of those with my wife a few days ago. Okay. All right. Well. And, yeah, very similar. Just caught that part. and said, okay, let's just let it go for now, and we'll talk later. So I could give you my take on what happened, but if you wanted to, we could just go in and do a little exploring. Sure. Yeah? Yeah, sure.

Okay, should we start with the frustrated, angry part? Sure. All right, you ready? I believe so, yeah. Okay. So remember that feeling. And then focus on it and find it in your body or around your body. Okay. Where do you find it? Somewhere between the middle of my midsection and up. Like right behind my forehead, like there's pressure. It's great. It's great you have such clarity about it. So as you focus there, how do you feel toward this part of you?

Oh, no, it's very unpleasant. So you don't like it? No, I don't like it. Yeah, which makes sense because it does, you know, sometimes escalate things with your friend. It doesn't leave you feeling good. So I understand why you don't like it. But we're going to ask the parts that don't like it to give us the space to just get curious about it and see if that's possible. Okay. Okay. So how do you feel tomorrow now? A little bit of relaxation in the head part of it. Yeah, it's...

It's funny how when you asked me to localize it, it's so clear. It's like this thing inside me. It's like about the size of like a teddy bear that's just like, oh, but it's not a good thing. It's like pushed up there. But then when you said to get curious about it. It feels like it kind of drops down a little bit and kind of moves in, maybe softens a little bit. So you do feel curious toward it? Yeah. All right. So go ahead and ask it what it wants you to know about itself. Silently.

Up to you, either way, whichever is more comfortable. Well, since this is a podcast and none of this is comfortable anyway for me to do in public, if I'm quite honest. Yeah, just ask inside. Sure. No, I'll do it out loud. Okay, so what do you want me to know about you? Yeah, and just wait for the answer. Don't think. I know you've got a big cognitive part, so we're going to ask that one to relax.

And just whatever comes in terms of the answer, just wait for it. Well, my answer is based on the feeling that occurred immediately after asking it, which was, the answer was, I... I can dissipate. And then I kind of felt it dissipate. Okay. So it feels like an energy that when condensed sucks.

But when I look at it, softened a little bit, and then asked the question you asked, and then it feels like it just kind of went into the rest of my body, but not poisoning the rest of my body, just kind of mixing in with... Of course, we're speaking in mystical terms here. So it relaxed. It may not have dissipated in the way we think about that. It might have just relaxed more. But just keep asking it.

What's it afraid would happen if in that context it didn't try to take over in the way that it did? Just ask that question. That if it didn't try to take over? Yeah. What's it afraid would happen if it hadn't tried to take over? Oh. Just wait for the answer. Yeah, that's a good question. Okay, so what would happen if you didn't take over my system that way, condense from my stomach to my head when I'm feeling that way? Yeah.

Don't think. Yeah. The answers are coming really quick. That I wouldn't be able to discern the truth. Okay. So the truth is really important to this part of you. Yeah. Yeah, because it tends to surface when I'm hearing something that I believe to be fundamentally untrue, typically about my thoughts or feelings, right? I've come maybe with age.

I've come to the conclusion that two people can look at the same interaction or same thing and have two very different versions of it. I'm okay with that. The part that I'm... very very sensitive to people in my life know this is when someone else tells me how i feel right what my motives are or how i feel that to me is like like that that's a kind of a hard um

fast way to engage this thing. Okay. So just stay with this thing. Just stay with it. Okay. And let it know you get that, that having people misinterpret your motives is really, really hard for it. And ask it more about that. Just, again, don't think, but ask why that's so hard. Why does that bother it so much? And what's it afraid would happen if it let that go? Yeah, so what?

Why are you afraid to – why do you have to step in when that happens? My answer is not going to be very satisfying for the listeners or for me. It's saying, because if you can't hold on to your truth, then nothing will make sense. So there's something about making sense or not.

nothing making sense that it's really scared of is that right yeah i mean uh i decided to become a biologist um and to try and understand the meat inside our heads and body that is the nervous system because i felt and i still feel that it uh it can reveal some fundamental facts or truths as um you know understanding reality as it were, is really important to me because I feel like humans, including myself, of course, are so prone to misinterpretation. So...

Like the truth as a thing out there, I'm willing to let go of completely. Right. Like completely. Right. The truth as it exists for knowing for certain what my motivations were. Or what did or didn't happen. But typically it's about motivation. What did or didn't happen, you usually can parse with somebody. That's something I feel I need to protect at all costs. Yeah.

So speaking of protect, and so this is a protector part, right? Ask it if it's protecting other parts of you that are vulnerable and get hurt when someone misattunes to what your motive is.

Just ask that question, don't think. That's an easy, that's a fast one. Not easy, but it's a fast one. Yeah, the part of me that feels injured by that is the fact that... I believe that I, at least at the beginning and throughout most of a relationship, and even if a relationship ends for whatever reason, that my... I know it's my nature to try and imagine as much goodness in the intent of the other person as possible. So if I were to let go of this response.

I keep going. In my mind, I'm calling it like this, like, it's like a titanium teddy bear shaped thing, but it doesn't, it doesn't feel like a, it's like a titanium block there. I would. um potentially move into a mode of judgment um of them it's interesting because i there are many people from my past and maybe even a few from my present that people close to me who are pretty well qualified tell me like i should dislike them or cut them out of my life and um i don't

There are a few, maybe one or two instances of people I've cut out in my life, but it's my inclination always to just try and see what can exist. And that part feels important to me. I don't know why it's important now that I've come to think about it. Well, we can ask. So what I'm hearing is this guy, this titanium guy, is keeping at bay another part that can be very judgmental of the other person.

Yeah. I don't like feeling that. Yeah. It feels energetically wasteful. Yeah. And it feels more than that. It feels incredibly sad. Yeah. It's sort of like, I think to, to accept that part of myself is to. kind of give up on some fantasy which is probably an unrealistic fantasy which is why i'm calling it a fantasy i realize yeah yeah like this um because i i look at

And I always have since I was a kid. I look at people as we are among the animals. We're the curators of the earth because we're good at technology development. But aside from that, just like you wouldn't... I can't imagine that a raccoon... looks at another raccoon and it's like, that's a bad raccoon. It's just a rabid raccoon. And they just, I sort of yearn for the same.

Yeah. The same sensitivity to our own species. I get that. Yeah. Like, I don't hate anybody. Well, there might be parts of you that do. I hate behaviors. Okay. I hate things that people have said or done. Not certainly mostly to other people, not to me. But I, yeah, being like really being angry. at someone in a in a pervasive way not just in the moment yeah is something that's very difficult for me but what i'm hearing what the what we heard from this part it's afraid if it doesn't do this

a part that judges the other probably in a not-so-nice way would be released. Does that sound right? Yeah. So there is that part in there. It's just that you've been able to kind of exile it. Yes. Okay. Yeah. I'm comfortable with the idea that you take the appropriate amount of distance, could be zero or could be near infinite, but that...

I should take the appropriate amount of distance from things and people so that I can be in the most loving stance toward them or that. I'm not trying to sound technical here with all the parallel constructions, but I've thought this through a lot. Like there's some people that...

There's no limit to the extent to which I want to interact with them. We have other things to do. We're not going to spend all our time together. And then there are other people that I love them, but I know that I have to. keep a certain amount of distance in order to continue to love them. This is the same thing. So in that moment, it's almost like, but it's coming up without my conscious thing. It's not like saying, listen, that's the kind of person I can talk to.

once a month or something. And I'll just add, you know, in professional settings, not now, but in the distant past, when I was in a very hierarchical structure of, I'm still in academia, I still teach, but not. running research anymore formally. You know, like I had a couple senior colleagues that I really loved and respected, but that they...

they would say or do things that I thought were frankly unethical to other people. And to me, I felt them as kind of abrasive. So I might, like the physical manifestation of this is, I would make it a point to... like walk past their office door quickly so that they didn't say hey because i don't want to interact but i i don't

I'm not familiar with cutting people out of my life. Right. I'm just not familiar with doing that. I sort of don't believe in it as a value. Let's pause for a second. I'll give you a little overview where we are. So we started with this guy who came up with your friend and is trying to protect that relationship because if you continue to be misunderstood in terms of your motives, it would have an impact.

Does that sound right? Yeah, the only thing I'll, as a family member. Okay. Yeah, not that matters, but close family member. Got it. Yeah. And in exploring this part...

asking what it's afraid would happen if it didn't do that. So there's this other part that might come out that would be very judgmental of that family member and really might have a... bad influence on your relationship with that person does that sound right that's correct okay so we have these two well we have you who's noticing all this which we should talk more about

And then we have these two parts that are sort of polarized, but one, the judgmental one, you really don't like. And so you really go to lengths to keep at bay. And you kind of admire this guy, but you also know that he can... get in the way at times too does all that sound right yeah that's right because i'm describing a recent situation where the presence of this like titanium teddy bear sorry i don't know why that's amusing to me to say that um

the shape of a teddy bear. I'm not seeing a teddy bear in there, but roughly that size and shape. It creates a protection, but a pressure internally that's super uncomfortable. It's actually taking me a couple of days to dissipate this.

And I do think somewhat counter to the way I'm describing it, it doesn't prevent me from saying something. It actually, if it's... too much it's almost like that's when words start coming out and they're not kind right so it's not a real protector in the sense like it's preventing me from

course of action I don't want to take. Right. It's more, it feels like it's kind of extruding all this stuff. And obviously I'm responsible for my words and actions. I know that, but it does feel like it, it creates kind of, it takes over. Yeah. That's the way to put it. So let's go through that again. So first of all, I'm so grateful that you're willing to be this vulnerable and expose these parts.

So this guy, actually they're both probably what we call firefighters. Very reactive. There's maybe some other very vulnerable part that is involved here we haven't heard about. But... If we continue to work together, I would work to get permission to go to the judgmental guy, too. And what you would find is he's a protector, too. He's not just a bunch of negative thoughts about people. And as I was hearing earlier, you've spent a lot of time in your life.

trying to be fair to people and to not judge them and to see them. What they do is just their behaviors and not who they are, which is great. But in the process of doing that sometimes... we wind up having to push away the parts that want to judge and want to hate and so on. And what I find is if we can go there and get to know them... They're just protectors too, and they're young, and when they are able to unload the hate they might carry, the judgment, they'll transform.

This is a model of transformation in that sense. There are no bad parts. You go to everybody in there, regardless of how you think how bad they are. And you get curious about them and you learn how they're trying to protect. And then we help them out of their protective roles and help them trust. There's a you, who you talked about with Martha.

who can run things, that they don't have to do it because most of them are young, and get them to trust this you to handle your family member rather than they have to... take over or try to take over in the way they did. Does this make any sense? Yeah, it makes total sense. You know, what you said at the beginning, permission to go to the judgmental part, I was just in my mind, Flitz.

when i hear that flits to um you know two possibilities one's a novel possibility one's a familiar possibility the familiar possibility is if i were to really feel the disappointment that i'm feeling when this pattern in the in the other person shows up again because at least it seems to i'm very familiar with the pattern right then um

it would fundamentally change the way that I feel about them. That's right. Like I'm trying to hold on to the goodness. The relationship, that's right. But of course, I want to be very clear. not just for anyone listening, but for myself too, that clearly the protecting role of this titanium teddy bear has created something where what...

the times when things have broken through from my side, they're not kind. Right. And, or they're spoken in a way that just is not constructive. Right. Right. So. Yeah. And then the second possibility is that I hadn't considered this possibility, but the second possibility is that were I to let myself feel that disappointment. that maybe the relationship could persist. Like I've been looking at those things as mutually exclusive. And as I say all this, I also realize that...

Well, the honest disclaimer is like, I don't want to give the impression that I don't judge people. I'm human and I certainly do. I'm just saying that when there's a relationship that I wish to maintain, I'll go to great lengths to push aside knowledge of my own experience and or just judgment. I've made this – I've engaged in this pattern in ways that ended up being extremely destructive to me by completely like...

putting the blinders on to things that were right in front of me and that's what i'm talking consciously that's what i'm talking because i adored uh the person so much in other dimensions like that you know and you know it's not a for lack of a better word a holistic way to approach things But I also will say that in contrast to those types of relationships, the relationships where the titanium generator is not required feel to me.

So like by comparison, but also in the absolute scale feel to me, like the best possible relationships one could have. They're like pinch me type of relationships, like my friendship, some of my relationships to family, like my... coworkers and there are others too. I've certainly had romantic relationships like that, relationships, my relationship to my dog, as trivial as people might think that seems that the contrast of that, like where there's no need.

for this protector part, it's like the best thing because it feels completely safe and uninhibited. I never have to worry that I'm going to be taken over from the inside. Yeah. Nor do I ever worry that I'm going to really screw up. Yeah. And I hope that if I do screw up, they'll tell me. But it's the complete absence of fear. So let me check in and just see how this has been to discuss and focus and so on. What's it been like to do this process? It's a lot.

In the sense that I don't like feeling that titanium thing. Teddy bear. Teddy bear. It's been very informative. So it's balanced by that. And maybe that's why I'd. I went into a little riff about the pleasant relationships and how outsized positive they are for me. They're like a salve and an elixir for me. So maybe I gave myself a little like wash over with that because it's pretty uncomfortable. Yeah. But it's been it's really informative.

And it also tells me that the internal family systems work that I did with someone else was an attempt at this, but so very different, which makes sense because this is your art and science. So I'm grateful. Yeah, it feels good. What I was saying earlier is if we were to pursue it, we could get to the point where the teddy bear guy could unload the feelings he carries that makes it so uncomfortable.

And he would transform. How would we go about doing that? You would focus on him again. We would explore more of what he's protecting. Either we would go to the guy he's trying to keep at bay that would ruin a relationship, or often these parts are protecting something much more vulnerable from your past. Some young part that's stuck somewhere in the past.

That has a big issue about being misunderstood in terms of motives or something. Yeah, it's not that I need clarity on this right now, but it's more that it protects. the possibility of a relationship at all yeah like i think the fear is like if i were to look through my lens of truth what's happened or is happening in the moment if i were a quote unquote better boundaried person it'd be done yesterday yeah

So it's sort of like a desire to live out a fantasy. Got it. I mean, if I'm honest. So that would be the part that we would go to that it protects, that has this fantasy of what... a relationship should be or could be, who might be stuck somewhere in the past. And we would witness, you know, you talked with Martha about compassionate witness.

We would witness where he stuck and what was happening back then. And then I would have you go in and get him out of that time period. Then we'd have him unload the desire for that fantasy. that keeps you getting hurt. And then I would have the teddy bear see it doesn't have to protect him anymore. And then we would help the teddy bear unload the feelings he carries.

and then he could relax, and they would all start to trust you, which we should talk about a little bit now. Who is you who's separate from these others? For the record, I never owned a teddy bear as a kid. I had a stuffed frog. I had a teddy bear. Well, I'm not embarrassed to. I had a stuffed frog that I love. I'm afraid of the frog. Yeah.

So I don't know where the teddy bear thing came up, but the shape was so very clear. But let me just elaborate on what I was just saying, because when you separated from him and you found him here... And I asked you how you felt toward him. And you had an attitude about him at first, remember? And we got that to relax and got curious about him. Then you started to access more of what I call yourself with a capital S.

So it comes through curiosity. Well, often starts with curiosity. And just to backtrack a little bit, so when I would have these clients in the early days... starting to work with these parts, like the critic and so on. And once I got hip to the fact they weren't what they seemed and they deserved to be listened to rather than fought with, so I would...

I would help the parts that hated them step out, and clients could do that pretty readily. And then I would say, now how do you feel toward this critic? And spontaneously people would say, I'm just curious about why he calls me names all day.

Or even would say, I feel sorry for it that it has to do this. I'm going to help it. And when they were in that state, and I... would ask what part of you is that that's great let's keep that around they'd say that's not a part like these others that's me that's my essence or that's my self so i came to call that the self with a capital s

40 years later, thousands of people doing this all over the world. Turns out that that self is in everybody, just beneath the surface of these parts, so that when they open space, you can access it quickly. It has all these great qualities, what I call the eight Cs. So curious, but also calm, confident, compassionate, courageous, clear, creative.

and connected. And that person knows how to heal these parts. So once I get somebody in a lot of what we call self, I'll just say, okay, what do you want to say to this part? And how does it react? And now what do you want to do with the part? I can kind of get out of the way. And one of the hallmarks of IFS, as opposed to a lot of other therapies, is that it's not so much about me becoming that.

You know, good attachment figure to these hurting parts of you, these inner children. You become that. You become the good attachment figure yourself or the good inner parent or the good internal leader. for these parts, and they come to trust you as a leader, and then you get into it with your family member, and you just remind the partner, I can handle this, just let me stay. And now when that happens with my wife...

Sometimes, on a good day, I can stay in the C-word qualities and have a totally different conversation with her than if that protector took over. I'd like to take a quick break and thank our sponsor, AG1. AG1 is an all-in-one vitamin mineral probiotic drink with adaptogens. I've been taking AG1 daily since 2012, so I'm delighted that they're sponsoring this podcast. The reason I started taking AG1 and the reason I still take AG1 is because it is the high...

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if I may, wise to think about. One is, yeah, in the classic psychodynamic or CBT model of therapy, it's clear that the... client or patient sometimes it's called right patient um therapist relationship is one where it takes on certain um components that exist in the outside world with other people and it's always um slightly bothered me slash concerned me that that's the structure. And as you said, in IFS, internal family systems, you become your own therapist, if you will.

for lack of a better way to put it. I like that because there's so much discussion nowadays about, you know, parenting yourself and this kind of thing. learning to mother yourself and father yourself. And I actually think there's great value in that. I mean, I learned by living alone, you know, how to cook for myself and clean for myself. These are...

I'm mapping to stereotypes here, but also to protect myself and to, you know, organize myself and be very, very disciplined. And actually running a laboratory was a great teaching there because you're basically a single academic parent. to all these people. So you have to, you quickly realize where you lack maternal instincts and where you may lack or over.

overemphasize or have hypertrophied paternal instincts. So that was a good forum to see my weaknesses and hopefully some strengths too. So I like this idea that one can play those roles for oneself. How is IFS typically done if somebody doesn't have access to a therapist who's expert in it? Or is that really the only proper gateway into it? No. Because I'm sitting here with the master.

the the founder and um and i'm very grateful by the way for the work we just did so thank you it feels good i i was a privilege yeah thank you yeah likewise um But most people won't have direct one-on-one access to you. So it's very experiential.

I imagine in books and courses, people can learn how to do this. And by the way, this was not preconceived as a pitch for books and courses, but I'm wondering, can somebody do this on their own the very first time? That's what I want to know. Yeah, yeah. For a long time, I resisted trying to take this directly to the public because I learned the hard way that some systems, particularly people with huge amounts of trauma, are quite delicate.

And if you start going to these, you know, the part we talked about that's vulnerable inside, that has this view of relationships, this kind of idealized view of relationships of yours, would be... what i call an exile that if we were to go to it and when you know we won't today because it requires a lot of vulnerability but if we were to

A lot of extreme protectors might come out, and then people start to get scared. So it took a long time to figure out how we might bring it to the public in a safer way. And so we just put out a workbook for people, and it doesn't involve necessarily going to those places, but there's a huge amount you can do just by working the way we started to.

with these protectors and getting to know them and know that they're not you. They're just a part trying their best. And know it's not anything negative. That judgmental part you've got such an attitude about or fear of. If you were just to begin getting curious about it and getting to know it a bit, you'd find out that it's a very valuable part that has a lot of discernment, like you said.

You know, and wants desperately to keep you from getting in these relationships where you get hurt. And gets so judgmental because you don't listen to it. Do you follow what I'm saying? I do. I do. In fact, something pops to mind. Maybe I could just ask you about it. My mind's right on what you're saying, but something occurred to me as you said it, which is...

If I were to, for instance, really feel the feeling of like, hey, that's really screwed up or like that's not like actually feel the disappointment or judgment that this titanium teddy bear is trying to protect against. And I realize it leads to a lot of role confusion and identity confusion. That's right. And I'll just be very blunt. It's probably not the best thing to do on a podcast, but I'm going to do it anyway, which is, you know, this is how I feel about modern politics.

I see things on the left that make sense to me and things that are, to me, just absolutely ludicrous, inappropriate, and offensive, and just badly wrong. I see things on the right that make a ton of sense to me and also things that are inappropriate, offensive, and wrong. And as a consequence, I'm trying to see the best, the goodness in both sides.

and just kind of create this kind of Swiss cheese model of the world. I'm talking about politics because it's just simpler to do, and people at least know what the groups we're talking about. But then it... it leaves me in a place of no affiliation and i'm then between one of two stances one of just kind of standing there being like yeah well there's no real position in the middle that is an official position in the middle but

it also makes me just want to put up the middle finger to both and say, I'm a double hater. But of course I'm an adult and a citizen who cares about people in the country. And so I feel like. To be an adult, I can't opt out. But there's, like, I feel unaffiliated. I feel like there's no option for me. And this maps pretty well to, I think, the identity and role confusion that I feel when I... place my my again understanding the truth is a complicated thing but my

judgment on things and people. It's like, well, then what is my role as a son? What is my role as a partner? What is my role if this thing is true? And so it's a way I'm realizing of protecting the simplicity of a role. That's right. And I did grow up in a home where like the roles were like, you know, your son, you do certain things like, you know, you do, you know, and so, but I also have a rebellious side to me. So the...

The role confusion is something that I imagine a lot of people are familiar with. Yeah. And when one... And I also believe that when you just really say, well... They did something bad, therefore all bad, therefore I'm part of the opposite team. Right. That to me is an unlived life. But I see a lot of people do it. And actually, sometimes I'm envious of people that have that ability because they seem so unconflicted. So it's a tough thing to be a thinking, feeling person at the level of nuance.

Yeah. It kind of sucks sometimes. Yeah. I'd rather do that than be a double hater or just cleanly opt in. Does that make sense? Totally makes sense. And what I'm hearing is that when you're looking at a person or a political party or issue in the world... You'll hear from these conflicted parts. They each have perspective, just like our country now hears from these conflicted parts. But you don't have a lot of access to what I'm calling self in those contexts.

Because C, one of the C words is clarity. So, again, as I was listening to you and Martha, you were talking about how there are times where you just have this sense in your body of what's right or what's true. That's what I'm calling self. Self has that clarity. And self sees injustice, and self, some of those C words are courage, confidence.

and clarity. So there's an impulse also to act to correct imbalance, to correct injustice too. So self isn't a kind of passive witness as it is in a lot of spiritual traditions in IFS. It's an active inner leader. It's an active external leader. And too often, our actions are driven by these protective parts. And that's true in our politics now, too. So one of my goals is to try to bring more self-leadership to the world, to these conflicts. But to do that, people have to...

They have to release these extreme beliefs and emotions they got from their traumas in the past. We have a concept we call legacy burdens. So many people have... inherited these extreme beliefs and emotions that came down through their ancestors and drive their parts, drive their extremes. And many conflicts in the world are driven by these legacy burdens. And we've gotten good at helping people unload these things.

Yeah, we've seen this in the Middle East recently. Totally. And we're doing a lot of work in the Middle East. So we have training programs there. And one of my visions is to have large scale. legacy unburdenings where large groups of people come together and we help them unload the Holocaust legacy burdens on the one side and the, you know, the 1941 legacy burdens on the Palestinian side.

and have more self accessible to each side. And when, like when we do couples therapy, we do other kinds of negotiated conflict. If people's parts start getting into it, we'll just say, time out. You sort of did this on your own with your family member. Just say, time out. I want both of you to go inside. Find the parts that have been doing the speaking.

Don't come back until you can speak for them but not from them. And come back in these C-word qualities, in that state of self. If we can hold people in that, it's really easy to get out of the conflict. If their protectors are going at it all the time, conflicts never change. Do you think that people who have the reflex or the ability...

to kind of somaticize a bit. Like I obviously, I don't think of myself as somebody who's like psychosomatic. I don't have stomach aches and headaches and stuff unless I caught a virus, you know, but.

but I can feel where certain things are in my body pretty quickly and always have. Do you think that IFS lends itself better to people who... you know feel things somatically versus people that are like really cognitive and in their head because i have that component too i can actually feel the switch yeah like i do it through i'll go into like a narrative and then i start to see the structure like up here yeah

Yeah, that happened several times when we were working together. Like I would have you stay with something and then the narrator part would kick in. Yeah. And then I would try to refocus you. Mm-hmm. You know, I lived in Boston for 10 years, so I worked with lots of cognitive people who didn't know their bodies, who had, you know, just were in that rat race to try and get tenure and so on.

Been there. Yes, me too. Tenure is nice, but one should tend to their emotional selves while they're pursuing it. But just to answer your question, they can do it. But we first have to start with that thinking part and get it on board and get it to step out and to stay out long enough that they can feel their bodies. Yeah, you know, it lends itself to anybody, but with people like that, it takes a while for that thinking part to trust that it's safe to let them into their bodies.

So if we were to just step back for a moment and do sort of a top contour summary of the process. Someone brings forward a... a recent or distant memory of something that made them feel not good. And you try and localize some sensation in the body, get a sense of its location. Let me pause there, I'll tell you why. Because if they find it in their body and they direct the question there and they wait for the answer to come from there, they're less likely to be in their head.

So it sort of short circuits that thinking part. And so many people come to therapy and that thinking part thinks it's supposed to do the therapy. It's, you know, CBT or whatever. Even a lot of the more – not experiential, but a lot of the more psychodynamic therapies, the thinking part is really trying to explain why they feel stuff. Right.

So this is getting them out of that and getting them to actually listen inside into what they think is their body, but it's really these parts that live down there that they haven't had access to because the thinking part... is running things so much got it and then one places some attention from the stance of curiosity they were like what's there what's it what's it trying to say exactly so um and then you start to reveal that

underlying layers of what's it protecting what are the what are those things that are protective trying to say yeah it's not even you're trying to reveal it's just that you're asking these questions and the answers start coming i see oh i love this because i'm a big believer in seeding the unconscious mind and then letting things surface either in sleep or in

meditative states or has internal family systems been combined with some of the therapies that are now getting tested still in clinical trial stage? around psychedelics? Yeah. In fact, two days ago, we just completed an IFS and ketamine retreat. Oh, wow. And we're doing it more and more. Like I said, I'm trying to bring this more out of the psychotherapy world. So we invited 32 leaders to come of various kinds and had three days where they...

do ketamine and then do IF. The nice thing about psychedelics is it puts those manager parts to sleep somehow a lot of the time. Yeah, I've been open about the fact and I always have to provide the disclaimer. I don't just say this to protect me. I say this to protect listeners that I do think young people.

should avoid psychedelics the brain is already in a psychedelic state uh it's it's the the amount of plasticity and this is is really tremendous and this is coming from somebody who regrets it but I did psychedelics recreationally as a kid, and I regret it. I returned to them later in a clinical setting and derived a lot of benefit, I think, from them, namely high-dose psilocybin. and mdma but both of those are still very much illegal uh you can get into a lot of trouble for taking them and or

certainly for selling them. So that's the cautionary note there. And the clinical trials are really impressive, in my opinion. Spectacularly impressive, especially for MDMA and for the treatment of PTSD. But the FDA... This last year did not approve MDMA as a treatment for PTSD. I think going forward in the new administration, it's likely that it will get approved. Who knows? Who knows? So anyway, that's a bunch of pseudo legalese jargon, but it's sincere. If I were an 18 or 19 year old person.

or 30-year-old person listening to a conversation about psychedelics and how they can be helpful. I would want to also know that... There are instances where people take them and they don't have the appropriate guidance in and through it and out of it. And it leads to serious problems. So this is a real, real thing that we're talking about. That's why.

These academy and clinics where they just hand them the drugs and the medicine and just leave them on their own are scary to me. I'm proud to say that IFS has been adopted as one of the primary. models for psychedelics now great because it's a really nice fit and as i was saying earlier that what i see happening often not always is these manager parts go offline

And that releases a lot of self. So you start to just feel those C-word qualities emerging. And that's a big invitation to all these exiled parts to come and get attention. And so as people come out of the ketamine experience, I can work with them for 15 minutes and do something that would take maybe five sessions because they can get access to parts that they couldn't get.

Or it would take a long time to convince their protectors to let us go to. And we can unburden those exiles and then bring back their protectors. So I love it. And ketamine is the legal one, so that's why we do it. And the other nice thing, and I don't know as a scientist how much you would go with this, but... Ketamine, again, because it opens the door with these protectors, you can also taste what I call the big self. You taste this, what they call, non-dual state that can be quite blissful.

And some people go, God. And then as you come back, you have this sense of, I'm much more than this little body and this little ego. There is something much bigger. And that's why they're using it with End of Life and why it did. And psilocybin has such a big impact on depression. Because it sort of lifts you out of this little box your protectors have you in to know that there's something much more. Interesting. I've never tried ketamine a few years ago.

um and i've talked about this publicly as well i i um started um developing a pretty deep relationship to to spirituality and God and most, mostly through the path of, of non, of giving up control. I mean, they're just breaking news folks. You can't control everything, you know, and, um, uh, you can control certain things, but, um,

most things know. And the way you describe ketamine is very interesting because as a dissociative anesthetic, it works in such a fundamentally different way than say MDMA, which is...

and empathogen, which makes people feel so much more. I mean, I sort of half joke that the, aside from the safety legality stuff, the concern I have about MDMA is that If one is not in the eye mask, if you don't have somebody guiding you through it and taking some notes, if you listen to a piece of jazz or classical music or your favorite rock and roll.

album or you're there with your dog or cat or plants. I mean, you can spend the entire four hours bonding with the plant. Right. You're not going to run off and get married to a plant. You're not going to try and fornicate with a plant, but. But it's a very precious, but very labile. Totally agree. Because it's such a strong empathogen that whatever you direct your attention to, internal or external, is going to hypertrophy. So you just have to be really careful. Totally agree.

And given that the neurotoxicity issues seem worked out and that if it's actually MDMA and isn't other things. By the way, the big study that showed neurotoxicity of MDMA in non-human primates, turned out they were injecting methamphetamine. What? yeah that paper was retracted it was published in science we'll provide a link to the paper and the retraction that the retraction was not as publicized wow methylene dioxide methamphetamine mdma

has not been shown to be neurotoxic, provided that's what people are taking. And not taking some combination of other things. Yeah, it's a real tragedy the way that retractions don't get nearly the... kind of popular press coverage that initial studies do, regardless of whether or not the initial study was positive or negative. In any case...

I do believe there are other routes to calming down the forebrain in the context of doing this kind of work that I'd just like your thoughts on. Sure. When I first wake up in the morning, I'm in kind of a liminal state. thing that i don't want to think about

comes to my brain. I can't avoid it. It's like the protectors are not available. They're still asleep. So that seems valuable. I've tried recently to keep my eyes closed. Sometimes I'll get up and use the bathroom, but keep my eyes closed, stay in that still state. explore the contours of that thing. Provided it's done safely and not anywhere near water. Cyclic hyperventilation breath work done for a few minutes.

So we're cycles, you know, we think can change the... brain activities of the forebrain kind of comes off of line a bit so all these things just do those put managers to sleep put managers to sleep like when you

Go to sleep, your managers go to sleep, and then you have these weird dreams, and that's because your exiles have access to your mind now. And they're trying to give you signals about what they want. The other thing I'll say about psychedelics and... the breathing too, is that as your managers go to sleep and your exiles start coming in, it can seem really terrifying because...

These parts are stuck in horrible places often with a lot of terror. And so what's called bad trips is them trying to get attention. So they'll come in and they'll totally take over and you look like you're having a panic attack. But what we've learned, and this happened a few times last week, is instead of thinking of it as a panic attack or a bad trip, to welcome it.

here's a part that needs a lot of attention. It's taken over entirely. But if I were to say, okay, Andrew, I see you're really scared, but how do you feel toward this really scared part that's here now? and I could get you to say, I feel sorry for it, then I would have you start to get to know it and work with it and comfort it rather than have a panic attack. You would access calm and those C words.

And then it becomes a hugely useful healing of something that's in you that's stuck in a terrified place. I'd like to take a quick break and acknowledge one of our sponsors, Function. Last year I became a Function member after searching for the most comprehensive approach to lab testing.

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has a wait list of over 250 000 people but they're offering early access to huberman podcast listeners again that's functionhealth.com slash huberman to get early access to function what is so striking to me is that And Martha taught me this practice of when we think about the things that create shame for ourselves, if we're able to go up. and really look at those and own them, not from the perspective of, I'm proud of them, but own them as in us and not of us, you know, that.

it's incredibly freeing and indeed it is so freeing right it's like the if this if there were like a secret to life like uh it would at least include that yeah um because let me rip off rip off of that just as an example like i do uh i've done workshops

where I have people work with their racism. You're speaking of something very shameful. And a lot of people say, I'm not a racist, I don't have any racism. But if I really convince them to... look inside and check, they'll find there's a little part in there that does spout racist things when they meet somebody of a different skin color, has these white supremacy beliefs, and they're really ashamed of it.

So if I were to have you focus on that racist voice in there, you would have to get a lot of the parts that are ashamed of it to step out. And then I would have you get curious about it rather than ashamed of it. and ask it about where it picked up these beliefs. And it could tell you. And then I would ask, do you like having to carry this racist stuff? Usually I'll say no.

If it's ready to unload it, we can just unload it. So one of the key things to know is these parts are not the burdens they carry. They're all good. The little guy who's got the racist rant. is a part that got stuck with his beliefs. But when he releases those beliefs, he transforms into being a good. And the mistake our culture makes, the mistake that... that most psychotherapies make is to assume that he is that racist rant and to try to exile him. But it's a different way of understanding.

even very seemingly evil people, that they're dominated by these protectors and they're so afraid of their exiles. And they relate inside in the same way they relate. So if they hate parts of themselves, they'll hate people who resemble those parts of them. They'll try to dominate those people. Do you follow what I'm saying? Yeah, and I'd like to really go into this a bit because...

We hear all the time that when we're upset about something, it's something in ourselves that we're really upset about. And for me, that isn't always true, but that's sometimes true. Yeah. So if I'm upset about the intolerance of good ideas from people in opposite groups of each other's good ideas, this logic would say that I'm – really just disapproving of that aspect of myself that is like black and white judgmental. Which we already established. Got me. Then again, you're the therapist, so.

Right. So is this always true? Not always. Okay. But a lot of the time. So if... You can come to have compassion for that judgmental part of you and not be embattled with it and actually see it as desperately trying to help you be more discerning and help it unburdened and get out of this role that it's in.

Because in the role that it's in, it can be destructive. We're not trying to minimize that or say, you know, when I say all parts are, there are no bad parts. There are no bad parts, but they can get into very destructive roles. And they can carry.

these burdens from the past that can drive them to be harmful. But part of my work is to help all that change. And so if you were to start a new... relationship with that judgmental part of you, then you would see past the judgmental parts of other people, and you could see the exiles that drive those protectors. And you would have compassion for them. It wouldn't mean you wouldn't stop them or stand up to them. But you would do it with compassion rather than from these hateful protectors.

I think it's important that people hear that. Namely, that if we get in touch with these parts of ourselves that are protectors, that... it makes us less vulnerable, not more vulnerable. Totally. Both to, quote-unquote, attack, but that also, I guess put simply, that in understanding... of ourselves and compassion for ourselves one develops understanding and compassion for others but that doesn't mean that you're um opening yourself up for harm that's right

And the opposite is actually true. The opposite is actually true because these protectors will generate often what they fear. So by being so protective, they'll create protectors in the other that will attack. Whereas if they could stay in self, self can be very protective with those C-word qualities, very forceful, sometimes fierce. This idea of... I'm definitely following that we will sometimes create in others what we fear because it allows us to engage in this.

unhealthy dynamic. It seems so counterintuitive, right? Maybe we take a kind of classic set of examples that I think are pretty common. A person who's codependent with somebody who's a substance abuse addict. or somebody who's very timid and always wants to pacify and somebody who's very dominant. When I zoom out from the second case, it actually kind of makes me chuckle how...

Crazy that is because if you think about it, a person who is very dominant doesn't need somebody very timid in order to feel dominant, right? They could probably – feel whatever power it is they need to feel with somebody who is less timid and maybe the relationship would be healthier. But that's not how people tend to other select. It's kind of interesting. So it raises a...

Perhaps a bigger question, why do people select people that are fundamentally bad for them? Okay, so I did a book called You're the One You've Been Waiting For, and in it... I talked about this whole issue and so for a lot of people you get hurt by your parent and there are parts that want to protect you from your parent. But there are other parts who are desperate, who took on the worthlessness from being rejected by your parent and are desperate for redemption. Do you follow this? And so...

As you leave and you're looking for a partner, that part from a subconscious place can influence your decision to find somebody who resembles that parent in their effort to be redeemed again. Is this anything like the sort of repetition compulsion? Yeah, exactly. That we tend to repeat a pattern over and over again as an attempt to resolve, not just a manifestation of like...

That's a version of what I'm talking about. And so you find somebody who does resemble that person, that parent, and unfortunately they do resemble that parent. And so they'll hurt you in the same way. And then your protectors... go into one of four modes. They'll say, I've got to change that person back into who they're supposed to be. So they'll try to change the person's behavior.

Or they'll say, I've got to change myself so they'll be who they're supposed to be. Or they'll say, oh, this wasn't the Redeemer after all. And they'll go looking for the real Redeemer who's still out there. And it's always inside. And, yeah, that's what I try to do is to help them see that that Redeemer is inside of them itself. And if we can go to that exile who's got this thing for this parent-like person.

and help it connect to self, and help it unburden, that whole repetition compulsion disappears. Because now they can take care of themselves. They trust self to do it. They don't need that from some other person like that. And so when we're working with couples, and you always find some version of that in couples. if we can get each of them to become their own good attachment figure, good caretaker inside, that frees up the partner. Because when this exile is leading a relationship...

Your partner feels a lot of sort of demands or feels a lot like your partner has to take care of that young part of you and can't, can't fully do it. So there's always this.

this uh sense of oh a burden you know what i'm saying yeah yeah it's so interesting how romantic relationships are where these patterns get repeated and at the same time i i numerous examples in my life of healthy relationships is that usually the case because people have done the work before or because they had a minimum of trauma in their upbringing oh yeah yeah what percentage of um kids Adults as well. Do you think had a minimum of trauma are just because of the way they're wired?

and the way the stuff is organized within them that they naturally attach to a good partner and are pretty healthy is it like 25 30 does it I really can't say because my sample is very skewed. I'm working with psychotherapy patients who always have a lot of trauma. So I really can't say. I mean, I'm very biased. Well, half of marriages in this country end in divorce and presumably of the ones that don't, I'm guessing somewhere between a half and a quarter of those.

People are really unhappy. Sounds so pessimistic, but if you just look at the numbers and I'm an optimist, I already acknowledged that I don't like to think about bad stuff. And I, you know, so. Yeah, I'm guessing that a lot of people repeat these patterns, but it seemed as if maybe 20, 30 years ago because these ideas weren't discussed really. many fewer people were in any kind of analysis or personal exploration work, that as a society, we defaulted to just sort of role execution.

father and a husband so you do certain things and you don't do certain things you're a you're a wife and a mother so you do certain things and you don't do and so on um and i think nowadays there's a lot of discussion about you know is is there a resurgence of organized religion because we've drifted so far from this kind of core structures. I mean, love your thoughts on that. And also what you think doing this kind of internal work on.

oneself without requiring any input or participation from another what the value of that is it sounds like there's tremendous value to just doing this work for oneself, maybe with someone trained in IFS. Yeah. I mean, like I was saying, there's a lot you can do with working with your protectors and helping them get to know self. Like, we didn't do it, but...

Had you asked that titanium teddy bear how old it thought you were and just really waited for the answer, most people will get a single digit. it still thinks you're very young, and it still thinks it has to protect you the way it did when you were very young. And just even updating it creates a huge amount of relief with these protectors.

So there's a lot that can be done just by working with protectors, introducing them to self, helping them see they don't have to keep doing this all the time. Some protectors, it's very hard for them to totally drop their weapons. until what they protect has been healed. So that's where the therapist comes in. So, you know, there are coaches doing this work, for example.

They'll work with some executive and they'll do great and then they'll get to an exile. And then they'll have the person see an IFS therapist for a couple sessions to heal the exile and then come back. Because, you know, coaches aren't trained as therapists. Right. So, yeah, there's still need for therapists. But, yeah, but you can do a lot on your own.

I'm struck by how experiential it is as opposed to just conceptual. I mean, obviously the concepts are important, but I think internal family systems was... described for me previously kind of mapped out for me on paper i got a sense of it actually with some objects placed out and these um and it was helpful but it um i think just having done a little bit of it today, the only by...

actually feeling the sensations in the body associated with it does actually really make sense to me i mean it made sense cognitively but that's so very different it's very removed yeah it's like me telling people you know get out and get sunlight in your eyes in the morning and set your circadian rhythm like you can

that you can know the underlying mechanisms the neurons the pathways the hormones etc but at some level until you experience what that's like for two or three days in a row it's you might as well be reading about um i don't know titanium teddy bears you know yeah exactly and that's why I'm so grateful to you that you were willing to try it and because it's true as I describe it to people they don't really get it until they actually

Feel it, experience it. And it is very different from many other therapies, which are much more cognitively based, because we're trying to bypass that and actually get to this raw stuff in here. in order to be deliberately repetitive. I wonder if it would be useful to the listeners to, would it be possible to just pose the questions to them as an exercise that they could do in real time? Totally.

Thank you so much. I think that would be tremendously valuable. So I'm going to have to erase myself here. For once, I'm going to be quiet for a little while, folks. And you are the lucky patient. that gets to talk to Dr. Schwartz here, and he's going to pose a series of questions, and we'll allow some moments of break or silence.

for you to be able to tap into the answers to these in real time. That way you don't have to create a parallel construction of what we did earlier. Yeah. And let me lead by saying... Please don't do this if you have fear about doing it. But if you're interested in some inner exploration, then... I'll lead you through some of the steps. So as you've been listening to our conversation, I'm speaking to the listeners, you may be thinking about some of your own parts, particularly...

your own protectors. And if you can't think of any, most people have a kind of critic inside or part that makes them work too hard or a part that takes care of too many people. So I'm going to invite you to pick a protective part to try to get to know for a few minutes. And just notice that inner voice or that... emotion, that thought pattern, that sensation, just focus on it exclusively for a second. And as you do that, notice...

where it seems to be located in your body or around your body. Just take a second with that. Some people don't find a location. Some people, they still sense it, but it's not. clear where it seems to be located, but if you do find it in or around your body, just focus on it there. And as you focus on it, notice how you feel toward it. And by that I mean, do you dislike it and want to get rid of it? Are you afraid of it? Do you resent how it dominates? Do you depend on it?

So you have a relationship with this part of you. And if you feel... anything except a kind of openness or curiosity or willingness to get to know it, then that's coming from other parts that have been trying to deal with that. And we're just going to ask those other parts of you to relax back for just a few minutes so you can get to know it. We're not going to have it take over more.

We're just going to get to know it better. So see if they're willing to let you open your mind to it. And if they're not, then we're not going to pursue this. And you can just get to know their fear about letting you get to know this target part. But if you do get to that point of just being curious about it, without an agenda, then ask it what it wants you to know about itself.

Just that kind of nice open-ended question. And don't think of the answer. Just wait and see what comes from that place in your body. And don't judge what comes. Just whatever comes. We'll go with it. What does it want you to know about itself? And what's it afraid would happen if it didn't do this inside of you? And if you got an answer to that question about the fear, then it was telling you something about how it's been trying to protect you. And if that's true...

Then extend some appreciation to it for at least trying to keep you safe, even if it backfires or doesn't work. Let it know you appreciate that it's trying to protect you. And see how it reacts to your appreciation. And then ask... If you could go to what it protects and heal or change that so it didn't need to protect you so much, what might it like to do instead inside of you?

if it was released from this role. And I'll repeat that. If you could go to what it protects and heal or change that so it was liberated from this protected role. What might it like to do instead inside of you? And then ask it this kind of odd question, how old does this part think you are? Not how old is it, but how old does it think you are? And again, don't think. Just wait and see what comes. And if it got your age wrong, then go ahead and update it and see how it reacts.

And the last question for this part is, what does it need from you going forward? What does it need from you? And again, just wait for the answer. And when the time feels right, thank your parts for whatever they let you do in this. And then begin to shift your focus back outside and maybe take some deep breaths as you do that.

thank you for that that was awesome i also was able to get some i think good work done in the is that true yeah yeah totally different totally different location totally different set of dynamics Even though what you just took us through is very experiential, what, if any, value do you think there is to writing down key takeaways? Yeah, so it's great to do the work.

session or, you know, this exercise. But ideally, it's the beginning of a new relationship with this part. So, and that takes work on your own. What I advise people is as you get that ball rolling in that good direction, it'll reverse if you don't stay with it for a while. So every day, like you were saying, you wake up.

rather than what am I going to do today or what problems do I have in my life, how's that part of me doing that I've been starting to work with? What does it need for me today? What does it want me to know? Is it still feeling better? Do I still have compassion for it or appreciation for it? So this, like I said earlier, this kind of becomes a life practice. So I do that every morning.

Every morning? Well, you're very familiar with these parts. And to clarify for people, when Dr. Schwartz is saying parts, he's saying these parts. personalities within us, not necessarily the body part where it manifests, but maybe that provides a physical anchor to look to. Exactly right. So, yeah, I'll check in.

Not with all my parts, because I've met many, many, but the ones I've been working with just to see how they're doing. And as I go through the day, I'll notice, am I in those C-word qualities? Is my heart open? Is my mind curious? Do I have a big agenda? Anything, any departures from that is a protector usually. And I'll just have a little internal board meeting and say, I get...

You feel like in preparing to come and be on this podcast. I had to work with the parts that were nervous. My father was a big scientist. endocrinology researcher. Oh, cool. Great feel. Great feel. My brother is a big shot endocrinology researcher. So I have some issues. Put it that way. I hope I didn't reinforce the negative ones. Well, that was my part's worries coming in. And so I worked on it.

And said, okay, just, but just, I get it. I get you're scared. I could feel them in my hands when I was taking a drink earlier. Interesting. But I just kept, okay, I get that. I get you're scared, but just trust me. Just step back. Just relax. And then I feel this shift, a literal shift. And then I feel those C words flooding. And then we have a much different kind of conversation. So it's a life practice in that sense.

Thanks for sharing that. I didn't detect any anxiety whatsoever, neither pre-recording nor during this discussion. If you don't mind, could you... describe or maybe even just list off some of the other labels of parts that people might encounter if they do this kind of work. So you describe them as protectors that manage.

And then the exiles, which are the parts of us that the protectors and managers are protecting. Yeah. Correct? Okay. Those are two different things, right? Yes. So, yeah, the big distinction is between parts that... by dint of simply being hurt or terrified or made to feel shamed and worthless. And usually those are our most sensitive parts. They're the young inner children. They get...

stuck with those burdens of worthlessness, terror, and emotional pain, and then we don't want anything to do with them because they can overwhelm us, and so we lock them away, and everybody tells us to do that. So those are the exiles. And when you have a lot of exiles, these other parts are forced to become protectors. So there are two classes of protectors. One are the managers we've been talking about, and the other...

are the firefighters. So, you know, we mentioned a number of manager common roles, but there's just lots and lots of them. Firefighter common roles. include, you know, addictions, excuse me, dissociating the kind of judgmental, rageful parts. I could go on, but anything that is reactive, impulsive, and is designed to protect... those vulnerable parts, but in an impulsive way, as opposed to the managers who are all about control and pleasing. These firefighters are all about...

If I don't get you away from these feelings right now, you're going to die. A lot of them believe that. And some of them, it's true. So... There's often a kind of hierarchy of firefighter activities. If the first one doesn't work, you go to the next one. If that doesn't work, the top of the hierarchy for most people is suicide. If things get...

Painful enough, there's this exit strategy. It's actually very comforting to lots of people. And here we come along and get really scared of these suicidal parts. So this is, again, it's one of the hallmarks of the difference with IFS. If you were to say you've got a suicidal part, say, let's go get to know it. I would have you find it and, you know, all those steps.

What are you afraid would happen if you didn't kill Andrew? What do you think the answer to that is most of the time? That it would just feel like too much to bear. Yeah. Like you just couldn't... take it anymore exactly which of course is a crazy statement because it's not like my brain would explode so these parts believe it yeah they're not they're not grounded in logic so my well my response to that part is

If we could unload the pain that you're so afraid would overwhelm, would you have to kill him? No. And would you let us do that? Well, fortunately, I don't feel suicidal. But the answer would be yes. Okay. So because we can prove to you that we can unload that pain. And if we could do that.

What would you like to do instead of being the suicidal part? I mean, I have to imagine that if somebody, forgive me for going into my head about this, but if I have to imagine, it's just hard for me to imagine being suicidal. That's okay. Yeah, but I have to imagine that if somebody is feeling suicidal in order to protect themselves against the enormity of the feelings they would otherwise feel, and then they are offered the opportunity.

to work through to be released from those feelings i think the scary part would be um like the first it's like wading into really cold water you know i always feel that way about negative feelings once you get past your your kind of waste or so You get your shoulders under. That's a good analogy. It's a heck of a lot easier. It's a really nice analogy. Because you realize there's an upper limit to this stuff and you passed it a little while ago. Yeah. Yeah, so...

That suicidal part often transforms into part that wants to help you live, actually. They're often in the role that's opposite of who they really are. So as you can hear, this is a totally different approach to suicide, for example. And we do the same with addictive firefighters. Find that part that makes you so high. How do you feel to it? I hate it. I want to...

You know, I want to be in recovery. I want to lock it up. Let's get all that to step out and just get curious about and ask it what it's afraid would happen if it didn't get you high all the time. Same answer. If we could heal all that pain or that shame, would you have to get a mile all the time? No, but I don't think you can do that. Would you give us a chance to prove we can? Totally different approach to all these problems.

Something comes to mind for a number of years, not now, fortunately. I mean, I still work a lot, but I work like, you know, I don't want to. Well, I'll share the numbers, but it's not a goal that no one should try and exceed this. I mean, there were times in graduate school where I, no joke, worked 80, 85 hours a week, slept under my desk. I lived in my office as a junior professor. My students can attest to that.

my teeth and we're not every night but i you know if i had deadlines it was just all in with mind body heart everything it's it's not healthy right right and at some point i had to take a look at it because it's not conducive to a lot of things uh it brings a lot you can get a lot done i won't lie you can get a lot done you can get a lot of um degrees you can get a lot of knowledge and and you can accomplish a lot um but i decided to take a look at it you know like like what would happen if i

I don't know, published five awesome papers in a year instead of 10 or something like crazy. I just started looking at it and it just, it seems crazy now. But I remember the genuine fear of backing off. That's right. And I started to realize that. I loved what I did, but that some of the work came from a desire to compete out. uh other other feelings it's a form of dissociation totally um and then what happened was i was able to adjust my hours really pick the projects that

held the most meaning for me and then really savor them and enjoy them. And that's how I approached the podcast and other things I'm doing. So it was a tremendously useful exploration, but it was... I didn't have to go to 12-step for work addiction or anything. I mean, it wasn't at that level. But you're giving an example of exactly what we do. We go to that workaholic part. What are you afraid would happen if you didn't?

Do this to them. Yeah. So what I came to, it's interesting, was the, it was. literally a fear of annihilation of disappearing and then i thought well then you you parsed it a little bit further disappearing to who like it's not like there was an absence of of positive feedback so it wasn't actually to avoid disappearing from the outside world. Because I'll tell you, when you're working 80, 85 hours a week, you're already gone. You know, you just don't realize it. It was actually...

some way of avoiding this thing that I've now come to really love. I learned it from my bulldog. I used to have this assumption that slow is low. Like to slow down is depressive. I mean, now I love slowing down. And I did learn that from my bulldog. And a few people came into my life and their dogs as well. And I learned like to really savor slow.

And not just so that I can bounce back into work. That too, admittedly. But also to just, and it came through, I just would like your thoughts on this. I realized right as I would. go into or come out of a meditation or what I call non-sleep deep rest, this kind of yoga nidra-like deep relaxation thing that listeners of this podcast will be familiar with hearing about, that there's this really terrifying moment.

where I realize someday, assuming I'm awake when it happens or it's not an accident or I don't get involved in an accident, I'm going to take my last breath.

And it's absolutely terrifying, that concept. And I realized that the fear of disappearing is actually a fear of death. And what I was really afraid of- was death and i was using work so you know it's a long way from like working you know 60 hours or 40 hours a week instead or 30 whatever but people choose as opposed to 85 but what i realized what i was running from was the fear of my own mortality that's right

And I didn't have to use any substances to realize this. I just had to keep peeling back the layers of like, what are you really afraid of? And now I've come to the conclusion that most addiction, having talked to a lot of addicts with process addictions and substance addictions, et cetera.

that deep down everyone, addict or no, is terrified of death. It's just that some people are in touch with that terror and have worked through it. Yeah. Well, you remember what I was saying earlier when we talked to these... attic parts, what are you afraid would happen if you didn't make them high? He would die. So that's a really common answer. And basically what you just described is you were doing IFS without knowing it.

asking those questions, what are you really afraid of? What are you really afraid of? Do you get to the key answer? And then I don't know how you help that part that feared death. But somehow you helped to relax more. Yeah, I think if I, for better or worse, if I see or experience something that scares me a lot, I have to... explore the contours of it. That's been a dangerous part of my life. And it's been a helpful part of my life too. You know, the ability to suppress...

one's reflex to avoid fear. It's such a complicated thing because on the one hand, it's necessary to navigate life. On the other hand, if people always say, what would you tell your younger self if you could tell your younger self anything? And it would, I would. I've said, hey, dude, listen, you know, something makes you anxious.

get out of there because my my reflex has always been that if something gives me anxiety it's like okay here's a test of myself i see i need to overcome it okay you know that that's another part yeah so in any case um some people are the opposite you know um Yeah, I've tended to touch the hot stove three times when it should have been one trial learning and it hurt, excuse me, the first time. But that's just me. I mean, everyone's got these things.

What I'm discovering, certainly through what you're telling us today, but also the exploration of these things is that so much of life is structured, especially nowadays, with the phone. Love the phone, love social media, but so much of life is structured to fill all the space between activities. And I do want your thoughts on what you see in terms of...

things that are active impediments to doing good work of the sorts of work that you're describing today, self-work. I would never ask, I guess, to be disparaging of the world just for its own sake, but... I think people are now starting to develop an awareness of how certain technologies and lifestyle habits that are unique to the last five or 10 years are really exacerbating our problems.

as they relate to ourselves, not just interpersonal dynamics. You seem to be thinking about the big picture a lot. So I'm curious what your thoughts are. Yeah. So, you know, all these little machines we have and all the ways we have of never... spending any time by ourselves or alone or thinking, just feed these protective parts, these distractors, and leave in the dust more and more these exiled parts.

So a lot of people's fear of not having something to do is because when they don't, or if they're not working in your case, then these exiled parts start to come forward. They're not being distracted from. In my case, I mentioned my father. I'm the oldest of six boys. Oh, wow. I was supposed to be a physician like him and a researcher. I was spared that fate because I had undiagnosed ADD and wasn't a good student. And three of my brothers were physician research types.

I was the oldest, so he was really hard on me in terms of lazy and worthless and so on. So I came out of my family with a lot of worthlessness. And actually the model wouldn't exist if I didn't have that because I had this part that had to prove him wrong and drive me, not to the extent you're talking about, or sleeping in the office or anything, but it would drive me to...

find this model and then take it in the face of a lot of attack to where it is now. And if I wasn't working on it, if I wasn't getting the accolades... then that worthlessness would crop up. And then I'd have other firefighters to try and deal with that. And, you know, I had not only the workaholic part, but I had a part. that could close my heart and make me not care what people think because I was attacked by traditional psychiatry and so on. For developing internal family systems? Yeah.

I was humiliated at Grand Rounds a couple of times. I was in a department of psychiatry. What is with the field of psychiatry? That's a good question. So point being that... I was dominated, as I developed this, by these protectors. And it got me through all that, but it didn't serve me as a leader of a community. And I was lucky to have some students who would...

confront my parts and would just say, you can't keep going on like this if you're going to be any use to us. And I listened. I went and worked with that worthlessness. And now... i don't have it i don't have to work i don't you know it's just i feel free because i'm not so afraid of that bubbling up if i'm not distracted and and now we have more distractions than ever as we're saying

Right. The pain point can potentially become the source of tremendous growth and value to the world based on what you've developed. Keep in mind, I learned about your work. not just through Martha Beck, although Martha as well, but several incredibly talented psychologists. scholars in the field of research psychology and actually a psychiatrist as well. Yeah, there are some good psychiatrists. Maybe I'll just share the, so a psychiatrist that I think the world of.

said to me, I won't reveal who it is, but they said, do you know why there's so many lousy psychiatrists? This isn't a joke, actually. Even though it sounds like the setup for a joke. I said, no, why? And they said, well, because...

You know, if you're a cardiothoracic surgeon and like 30% of your patients die, you're considered a pretty terrible cardiothoracic surgeon. If you're a psychiatrist, unless your patients... kill themselves on a frequent basis you can have a pretty quote-unquote successful career that's interesting and no one ever questions whether or not you're good at your job or not yeah

Because the field, A, has a dearth of tools. B, the kind of assumption is that a lot of things don't get better. And on and on. And they listed off all these reasons why the field of psychiatry is so replete with. what they described as lousy psychiatrists. So I do believe there are some excellent psychiatrists out there, research and clinical and both.

I don't know if that does anything. It sounds like you worked through your relationship to psychiatrists on your own. You don't need my statements. I agree with you entirely. And I'm, you know, I tried to stay in psychiatry and just... It kept hitting the brick wall, and so I went grassroots.

For 30 years and now it's started to come around into psychiatry. So it feels good that way. It's interesting how timing in a field is so important and not just an academic field, but a clinical field and the ethos. If anyone is interested in understanding where we are in the arc of medicine and culture, I highly recommend reading Oliver Sacks' book, On the Move.

He was obviously a neurologist and writer, but he describes coming up through medicine and being in these various fields. He worked on headache for a while. It's pretty interesting. He wrote a book about migraine. He worked on... with kids on the autism spectrum and a bunch of different fields. And in every single one of those fields was vehemently attacked by some individual.

for whatever reason, usually a superior. Kicked out of universities, moved to another one. Now, he did have his own issues. He was, you know, at the time he was a methamphetamine addict and things like that. But he got over that and became the great Oliver Sacks that he was.

He describes these fields as having a culture at the time of really trying to suppress new ideas and holding people down. And then toward the end of his career, several of the universities that... essentially had fired him earlier hospitals and universities were trying to recruit him back

with multiple appointments because now he was this famous guy who had written a movie or worked on the movie Awakenings and like, you know, and of course it revealed the hypocrisy of these big institutions. And so it made me chuckle and also. realize that for those of us who are doing public health education at any level, and certainly on these more non-traditional things, approaches, that the time is right for sharing them.

Well, and the good news is nobody lives forever. So, you know, the old guard dies or retires, you know. That's true. And I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for that department of psychiatry to invite me back. I won't ask which one it was. We can have an offline discussion about that. They just might. A couple of more questions. First of all, going back to this thing about the larger...

context of culture. I love the optimism that's threaded through your view that we could get, God willing, Democrats and Republicans to come to some sort of common... ground around the most important issues that we potentially could eradicate destructive racism, racism of all kinds. But given the way you described it, certainly...

It's implementation in the world is the first thing that needs to be dealt with, right? Certainly, if people can see those parts of themselves and work with them, that we stand a chance to do that.

And given that trauma is near ubiquitous, right, that people could start to address their own traumas so that they can induce fewer in other people. I guess that's basically the... the ultimate goal of humanity totally um and i like so many people um lately not just by the way, not just in the last year or so, but like the last 10 years have just.

been developing the sense like goodness like it just seems like the number of problems has just seems to be expanding exponentially right how do we get our our heads around this and you know there's so much blame game going on of well it's because of this and it's because of that and like that's not a solution at all. So I love your sense of optimism that it's possible. And then my question is, how do we...

How do we get that going to be direct? Yeah, well, that's what I've been working on the last several years. And what I can say is, for example, I spent 20 years. You know, I worked with bulimia, like I said, and I thought, okay, this really works with that population. You got people who were bulimic to essentially not be bulimic any longer? Yeah. Wow. And then...

And I thought, okay, well, let's see if no bad parts is really true. And so I went to the toughest populations I could find. And so for 20 years, I worked with DID and I worked with... D-I-D, sorry. Dissociative identity disorder, like multiple personality disorder. And I worked with what's called borderline personality clients. Yeah, very common, right?

Before, when you talked about bulimia, bulimia is notoriously difficult to treat, let alone cure. It's because people fight with the symptoms. They try to get rid of the symptoms instead of listening. to the part that's making a binge about what that's about. Moving from the one-on-one therapy model to a model where people can do this work on their own as well as in groups. But if I'm correct...

In thinking this, it seems like getting the work done with oneself is the first like real step. Yeah. There's no replacement for that. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, there's in the activist world, there's always been a kind of. You're wasting your time, but there's been a polarization between being in the activist... mindset of really trying to change things in the outside world versus sitting around and just focusing inside and not being an activist. But I'm working with a lot of the...

people you would recognize in terms of activists. And when they came to me, they were doing their activism from this sort of righteous, judgmental part. And... If we can get that one to step back and have them do their activism from self, they have a totally different impact. People are willing to listen to them. Whereas when they're in that righteous place, nobody wants to listen to the shaming that does. It needs to be both. People need to do their work, access self.

and then start to try to change the outside world, or not one before the other, but at least simultaneously. Fantastic. No, really fantastic. I don't think we've ever done a podcast like this where the audience had a chance to do self-work in real time. Really appreciate you giving me the opportunity. Yeah, I don't know that I've ever heard a discussion like it, to be honest, which is just a testament to you.

Your bravery. It's very clear that your decision not to go into endocrinology was one that we all are grateful for. It wasn't a decision. Well, my endocrinologist friends will. We'll have to just accept that, you know, we've got a lot of good endocrinologists. We needed you, Dr. Dick Schwartz, to find yourself in this business of... discovering and creating a truly novel approach to therapy and self-work that goes all the way up to the potential to change culture.

change the world so that's the goal yeah those those aren't just words that's uh those are um real aspirational possible uh things that could be accomplished if people do this work and in coming here today and sharing with us the structure of internal family systems and a demonstration of how it can work and offering people the opportunity to do it themselves in real time.

and giving us your perspective about the things that are around it as well as in it with incredible clarity and just a real... Beautiful sense of care for people that comes through. But also, I like the concreteness of it so very much. It's very concrete. Right? It's not abstract. Right.

And I really appreciate that. And I'm certain that everyone else does as well. So I want to thank you for coming here today, for sharing this. We will provide links to places where people can learn more through books and courses. um, other resources, um, that you've created and, and also just for the work that you've done and for being you, it's, it's been a real pleasure. And, um, um, so very glad we did it.

Me too. Oh, my God. My little nervous parts were giving me a lot of trouble. But once we got going, I just felt connected, and I felt your appreciation and interest. So we could have this kind of self-to-self exchange, which I love. I just love spending time in that energy. Yeah, likewise. And, you know, you're... A great interviewer, too. Thank you. Well, this whole thing is a labor of love and a free fall through just curiosity. Yeah. Yeah, it's clear. Yeah.

I hope to continue the conversation. Would love to. Wonderful. Thanks so much. Thank you so much. Thank you for joining me for today's discussion with Dr. Richard Schwartz. To learn more about his work and to find links to his many excellent books, please see the show note captions.

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