My guest is Dr. Richard Schwartz, Ph.D., therapist, author, and founder of Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy. We discuss how IFS views the mind as a collection of parts, each shaped by different life experiences—both good and bad, including trauma. To demonstrate how IFS works, Dr. Schwartz guides Dr. Huberman and you, the listener, through an example IFS session. We also explore how IFS and body awareness can help break harmful thought and behavior patterns, promote emotional healing, and build healthier relationships. Read the full episode show notes at hubermanlab.com. Thank you to our sponsors AG1: https://drinkag1.com/huberman BetterHelp: https://betterhelp.com/huberman David Protein: https://davidprotein.com/huberman Wealthfront**: https://wealthfront.com/huberman Function: https://functionhealth.com/huberman **This experience may not be representative of the experience of other clients of Wealthfront, and there is no guarantee that all clients will have similar experiences. Cash Account is offered by Wealthfront Brokerage LLC, Member FINRA/SIPC. The Annual Percentage Yield (“APY”) on cash deposits as of December 27, 2024, is representative, subject to change, and requires no minimum. Funds in the Cash Account are swept to partner banks where they earn the variable APY. Promo terms and FDIC coverage conditions apply. Same-day withdrawal or instant payment transfers may be limited by destination institutions, daily transaction caps, and by participating entities such as Wells Fargo, the RTP® Network, and FedNow® Service. New Cash Account deposits are subject to a 2-4 day holding period before becoming available for transfer. Timestamps 00:00:00 Dr. Richard Schwartz 00:02:11 Internal Family Systems (IFS), Self & Parts 00:07:23 Sponsors: BetterHelp & David Protein 00:09:44 Trauma & Parts: Exiles, Roles, Critic, Managers, Firefighters 00:15:32 Frustration & Anger, Surrender & Perspective 00:19:35 Feelings, Curiosity & Self-Exploration, Protecting Other Parts 00:29:35 Exploration of Inner Frustration, Judgement, Firefighters, Protectors 00:40:04 Titanium Teddy Bear, The Self & Curiosity, Tool: The 8 C’s & Self 00:46:41 Sponsors: AG1 & Wealthfront 00:49:24 IFS Therapy, Self-Exploration 00:53:47 Role Confusion, Conflict, Self & Clarity; Legacy Burdens 01:00:26 Cognitive vs Somatic Feelings; Tools: Localize Body Feeling, Curiosity 01:04:11 IFS & Psychedelics, Ketamine, Big Self, Journal Retractions 01:11:18 Early Morning, Breathwork, Exiles & Healing 01:13:53 Sponsor: Function 01:15:41 Shame, Racism, Protectors & Carrying Burden, Compassion 01:21:29 Unhealthy Romantic Relationships, Child-Parent Relationship 01:27:06 Therapist, Self-Exploration, Protectors & Introduction to Self 01:31:08 Tool: Questions for a Self-Exploration of Internal Protectors 01:39:30 Writing, Forming New Relationships with Parts, Leading with Self 01:42:51 Protectors, Managers, Firefighters, Suicidal & Addiction Behaviors 01:48:37 Overworking, Fear, Mortality 01:54:35 Technology & Distraction, Exiles, Worthlessness 01:58:58 Psychiatry, Medicine, New Ideas 02:02:58 Culture & Expanding Problems, Activism & Self 02:10:39 Zero-Cost Support, YouTube, Spotify & Apple Follow & Reviews, Sponsors, YouTube Feedback, Protocols Book, Social Media, Neural Network Newsletter Disclaimer & Disclosures
Chapter 1: What is Internal Family Systems (IFS) Therapy?
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, this 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.
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Chapter 2: How does trauma affect our internal parts?
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.
Yeah.
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. 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 subpersonalities, ego states, things like that, and that it's the natural state of the mind to be that way, that
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 and 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 40, now I think it's 41 years ago. Mm-hmm. And it's been, you know, amazing ride.
So at the time, were you already practicing as a clinical psychologist?
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Chapter 3: What roles do 'Managers' and 'Firefighters' play in IFS?
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. BetterHelp offers professional therapy with a licensed therapist carried out entirely online. Now, I personally have been doing therapy weekly for well over 30 years. In fact, I consider doing regular therapy just as important as getting regular exercise, which of course I also do every week.
There are essentially three things that great therapy provides. First of all, It provides a good rapport with somebody that you can trust and talk to about pretty much any issue with. Second of all, it can provide support in the form of emotional support and directed guidance. And third, expert therapy can provide useful insights.
Insights that allow you to better not just your emotional life and your relationship life, but of course also the relationship to yourself and your professional life and to all sorts of goals. BetterHelp makes it very easy to find an expert therapist with whom you resonate with and that can provide you those three benefits that come from effective therapy.
Also, because BetterHelp allows for therapy to be done entirely online, it's super time efficient and easy to fit into a busy schedule. If you'd like to try BetterHelp, you can go to betterhelp.com slash Huberman to get 10% off your first month. Again, that's betterhelp.com slash Huberman. Today's episode is also brought to us by David. David makes a protein bar unlike any other.
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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.
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Chapter 4: How can I apply IFS to personal conflict resolution?
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 great joy and appreciation these days.
However, I'm, I'm not going to give the details of this for sake of privacy, but you know, the other day I was in a discussion with a family member and they had a grievance with me that I felt we had already addressed and it,
Um, and it became a 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, like, uh, and, um, uh, fortunately the conversation ended well with a path forward and 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.
And so I sat in my chair and I just told myself, okay, I'm gonna not say anything for five minutes because I know myself. It's not that I thought I would say something really barbed wire, but I just thought this is not gonna work. Like I'm slamming my head against a wall. They're not hearing me. I'm clearly not hearing them.
And 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. And it felt really scary because when you say surrender, it's almost like saying one context is 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, 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.
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Chapter 5: How does IFS help transform internal conflicts?
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?
Between the middle of my midsection and like right behind my forehead, like there's pressure.
It's great. Both places. It's great you have such clarity about it. So as you focus there, how do you feel toward this part of you?
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 and 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 toward it now?
A little bit of relaxation in the head part of it. Yeah, it's funny how when you asked me to localize it, it's so clear. It's like this thing inside me. It's about the size of 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 a little, maybe softens a little bit.
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Chapter 6: Can you practice IFS without a therapist?
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?
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 yeah when that happens my answer is not going to be very satisfying for the listeners but or for me um but it 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 nothing making sense that it's really scared of. Is that right?
Yeah. I mean, I decided to become a biologist 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 can reveal some fundamental facts or truths. 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. Right. What did or didn't happen, you usually can parse with somebody.
Yeah.
Yeah. 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 I know it's my nature to try and imagine as much goodness in the intent of the other person as possible.
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Chapter 7: How does IFS relate to legacy burdens and cultural conflict?
It's actually taken me a couple 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. So it's not a real protector in the sense like it's preventing me from a 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, It kind of takes over. 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 – and very reactive. There's maybe some other very vulnerable part that is involved here we haven't heard about.
But if we continued 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. 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 we want to judge and want to hate and so on. 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. So this is a model of transformation in that sense. And 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.
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, you know, my mind flits when I hear that flits to, 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
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