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Richard Schwartz | The Hidden Reason You Can’t Heal (IFS Explained)

Author
Richard Schwartz, Josh Trent
Published
Tue 02 Sep 2025
Episode Link
https://joshtrent.com/767

Is your drive to achieve, please, or protect coming from a wounded part of you, rather than your true Self?

Josh Trent welcomes Richard Schwartz, Creator of Internal Family Systems, to the Wellness + Wisdom Podcast, episode 767, to reveal why there are no “bad parts” within us, how trauma freezes pieces of our psyche in the past, and how to free yourself from legacy burdens passed down through generations.

In This Episode, Richard C. Schwartz Uncovers: [01:10] What Is Parts Work?
  • The definition of parts work.
  • Why all parts of ourselves are valuable.
  • How trauma freezes us in the past.
  • Why we try to escape our parts to avoid feeling their pain.
  • The role of exile and protector parts.
  • How the firefighter parts try to get us away from our feelings to protect us.

Resources:

[07:45] The Difference Between Your Part and Your Self
  • How each of us has an essence that is the Self.
  • Why children take on different roles within their families to protect themselves.
  • How we can heal the critic part.
[13:40] Parts Work Isn't Inner Child Work
  • Why thinking and feeling create different results.
  • Why inner child work is not the same as parts work.
  • How becoming the primary caretaker of our younger parts frees our partner from doing that for us.

Resources:

[17:20] Passive Vs. Active Parts Work
  • How spiritual traditions teach how to observe our parts from a passive place.
  • Why we're naturally inclined to listen to our parts as if they were our children.
  • How 80% people who participate in plant medicine ceremonies tend to do the parts work after.
  • The 8 C's of leadership.

Resources:

[22:10] There Are No Bad Parts
  • How Carl Jung impacted Richard's work.
  • Why Carl Jung wasn't an active leader.
  • How Richard used to believe some parts were bad.
  • Why working with murderers and sex offenders showed him that there were no bad parts.
  • How he had to work on a part of himself to turn judgment into compassion.

Resources:

[29:35] You Can't Save Your Parents
  • How Josh healed a part of himself that needed to control others.
  • Why some children feel the urge to save their parents.
  • How we can show our younger self when they're stuck with our parents.

Resources:

[32:30] Healing a Legacy Burden (Practical Exercise)
  • Practical demonstration of how we can talk to our younger parts.
  • Why Josh's younger part believed sex was bad and shameful.
  • How legacy burdens are passed down from generation to generation.
  • Why Josh learned from his dad what sex was.

 

[50:45] Are You a High Achiever? It Could Be Your Wound...
  • Why we need to continue to have conversations with the parts we're healing.
  • How Richard worked on his achiever part.
  • Why we can turn our protector parts into parts that serve us.
  • How 90% of all businesses and buildings built come from men trying to prove themselves to their fathers.
  • Why healthy growth comes from the self.
  • The importance of self-leadership in the evolution of the world.

Resources:

[59:55] The Rise of IFS Therapy
  • Why Richard is asking for guidance from God.
  • How he developed IFS while working in psychiatry.
  • Why we can have entities attach to us that are not our parts.
  • How he's trying to bring IFS to the culture.

Resources:

[01:04:50] Evil Entities Don't Lie
  • The difference between an entity and a part.
  • Why evil entities don't lie.
  • How psychedelics open the door for entities to attach to us.

Resources:

[01:08:10] Parts vs. Self
  • How Richard's guides keep him humble about the work he's brought to the world.
  • Why practitioners who don't have humility have the need for approval and praise.
  • How some parts can imitate the true self.
  • Why the self has a desire to bring healing without any agenda.
  • How psychedelics, combined with IFS, bring back the self.
[01:13:15] The Future of IFS
  • Why it takes up to 7 years to become an IFS trainer.
  • How many people nowadays teach an incomplete version of IFS.
  • Why IFS brings light to the world.

Resources:

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All Resources From This Episode Power Quotes From Richard Schwartz

"Protectors are little inner people who are stuck in the protector roles. They don't care about the impact to your body or your relationships. They just think they've got to get you away from your feelings right now or you're going to die." — Richard Schwartz

"We all are born with sub-personalities called parts. They all have different roles to help us in our lives. But for most of us, they get frozen in time during the trauma. They're forced out of their naturally valuable states into roles that can even destroy your life." — Richard Schwartz

"We're locking away our most precious qualities simply because they got hurt or scared. In a dysfunctional family, a kid has to take on a role that isn't who he is to protect himself or the family. He's in this role all the time. So other parts are forced out of their naturally valuable states to become protectors. Once they carry the burden of emotional pain, terror, or worthlessness, they have the power to overwhelm us with those feelings, so make it hard to function." — Richard Schwartz

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Richard C. Schwartz, PhD, is the creator of Internal Family Systems, a highly effective, evidence-based therapeutic model that de-pathologizes the multi-part personality.

His IFS Institute offers training for professionals and the general public. He is currently on the faculty of Harvard Medical School and has published five books, including No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma and Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model.

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