Description
Discover an empowering new way of understanding your multifaceted mind―and healing the many parts that make you who you are.
Is there just one “you”? We’ve been taught to believe we have a single identity, and to feel fear or shame when we can’t control the inner voices that don’t match the ideal of who we think we should be. Yet Dr. Richard Schwartz’s research now challenges this “mono-mind” theory. “All of us are born with many sub-minds―or parts,” says Dr. Schwartz. “These parts are not imaginary or symbolic. They are individuals who exist as an internal family within us―and the key to health and happiness is to honor, understand, and love every part.”
Dr. Schwartz’s Internal Family Systems (IFS) model has been transforming psychology for decades. With No Bad Parts, you’ll learn why IFS has been so effective in areas such as trauma recovery, addiction therapy, and depression treatment―and how this new understanding of consciousness has the potential to radically change our lives. Here you’ll explore:
• The IFS revolution―how honoring and communicating with our parts changes our approach to mental wellness
• Overturning the cultural, scientific, and spiritual assumptions that reinforce an outdated mono-mind model
• The ego, the inner critic, the saboteur―making these often-maligned parts into powerful allies
• Burdens―why our parts become distorted and stuck in childhood traumas and cultural beliefs
• How IFS demonstrates human goodness by revealing that there are no bad parts
• The Self―discover your wise, compassionate essence of goodness that is the source of healing and harmony
• Exercises for mapping your parts, accessing the Self, working with a challenging protector, identifying each part’s triggers, and more
IFS is a paradigm-changing model because it gives us a powerful approach for healing ourselves, our culture, and our planet. As Dr. Schwartz teaches, “Our parts can sometimes be disruptive or harmful, but once they’re unburdened, they return to their essential goodness. When we learn to love all our parts, we can learn to love all people―and that will contribute to healing the world.”
Good little read. Priceless information
If you take a deep look into the wisdom Richard Schwartz shares your life will never be the same. His profound discovery of IFS has change the way I view life and in turn guided me to be a more compassionate person, mom, sister, partner, daughter, and human.I cannot say enough good things about this book.If you’ve been on your healing journey a while and are still overreacting and struggle to understand the core of it. This book will guide you to understand how the parts of you are protecting you and allow you to feel compassion for yourself and others.
Incredible healing
Since my teen and early twenties I have been off and on in therapy and learning different healing modalities, and spiritual practices and this book integrates what I have learned and practiced and is definitely the best integration of psychology and spirituality I have found. Spiritual practices can tend to contribute to ‘spiritual bypass’ this book is not that. IFS and this book truly are about learning to love and accept yourself as you are where you are!
I’ve been undertaking a “Year of Growth” since I hit age 42 and realized I still have a ways to go to really grow up. Out of many, many things I’ve tried, this book made the biggest difference in my life in the shortest time. It’s not just a “therapy modality.” It’s a way of viewing human nature that is fundamentally kind and hopeful. And it’s a way of actually healing trauma breathtakingly quickly, not talking about it endlessly for months and years, and not just trying to keep a lid on it with top-down approaches.
You can make friends with even the most challenging parts of yourself. It’s literally all good. Some old programs just need a little love and a little updating. IFS provides a genius “hack” for doing exactly that.
You don’t need willpower to change your life when you’re actually healed. Life naturally and easily gets better. I barely recognize myself from three months ago when I first read this book. (I just listened to it a second time, and got a lot more out of it after doing many IFS sessions on myself for several weeks.)
I could go on and on, but I’ll just say this: If you’re human, read this book. I understand so much more about everything since reading it, and life has gotten much better.
It’s not an immediate cure-all, and it requires tough inner work. There are other methods and modalities that have shed other kinds of light, and I’m grateful for all of it. But this helped me take a huge psychological and spiritual step forward. And it doesn’t require you to believe anything. When you access your Self, you know. And it feels like a homecoming to a strange new world.
With books like this showing new-old ways to find our best natures, it feels like a wonderful time to be alive. And I’ve seen some of the worst of what’s happening these days. I don’t come by my cautious and increasingly joyful optimism lightly or easily. Even if we destroy ourselves, it’s fascinating and wondrous having a chance to find ourselves and each other in whatever time we have.
P.S. This book works particularly well as an audiobook so you can do the exercises without having to refer to the text.