Richard Schwartz began his career as a family therapist and an academic at the University of Illinois at Chicago. There he discovered that family therapy alone did not achieve full symptom relief and in asking patients why, he learned that they were plagued by what they called “parts.” These patients became his teachers as they described how their parts formed networks of inner relationship that resembled the families he had been working with. He also found that as they focused on and, thereby, separated from their parts, they would shift into a state characterized by qualities like curiosity, calm, confidence and compassion. He called that inner essence the Self and was amazed to find it even in severely diagnosed and traumatized patients. From these explorations the Internal Family Systems (IFS) model was born in the early 1980s.
IFS is now evidence-based and has become a widely-used form of psychotherapy, particularly with trauma. It provides a non-pathologizing, optimistic, and empowering perspective and a practical and effective set of techniques for working with individuals, couples, families, and more recently, corporations and classrooms.
In 2013 Schwartz left the Chicago area and now lives in Brookline, MA where is on the faculty of the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.
Addictive Behaviors as Self-Preservation: Key Insights From the Internal Family Systems Model
How you treat addiction depends on how you view it. For most of history it was considered a character flaw until that view was replaced by the disease model which alleviated a lot of shame. The IFS model takes another step toward shame-free and empowering treatment by viewing addiction as an attempt by a protective part of a client to keep them away from the pain or shame they accrued from past traumas or attachment injuries. Thus, addicts are encouraged to interact with their addictive parts with appreciation and compassion, learn what they protect and get permission to go there, and then he...Read moreal the parts carrying the past pain and shame. After that, the addictive part can give up that role and do something it prefers in the inner system. In this way, the addiction is seen as a wake-up call that can lead to great transformation and self-love. Less...
Learning Objectives
- Review the history and development of the Internal Family Systems model of therapy.
- Review and have a general knowledge of the 3 categories of sub-personalities that most often present in therapy: Manager parts, Firefighter parts, Exiled parts.
- Identify how the Internal Family Systems Model understands the primary route to healing trauma and addiction.
Tuesday, January 19, 2021
Live Interactive Webinar
09:00 AM PST - 10:30 AM PST
Register for this Webinar
EARN 1.5 CE Credit Hours
About the speaker
Richard Schwartz, PhD
CE Information - Earn 1.5 CE Credit Hours
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