book review: no bad parts by richard schwartz
28 Feb 2022
What are the main ideas?
- in constrast to mono-mind belief of most, we all have many-minds or parts that constitute how we think about and act in the world. this is not bad, shameful, nor should it be stigma inducing.
- people whose unhealthy parts dominate their lives are the reason many of us fear and resist the idea of having many parts of ourselves. but intuitively, most of us know that we do have many parts.
- these parts are pieces of us from earlier moments in time.
- parts are inherently good.
- when a part experiences something hard, it may take on a protector role with a behavior that was helpful in the moment of difficult. the protector takes on that behavior to defend the vulnerable part, known as an exile, that experienced overwhelming feelings in the difficult moment. however, over time, as an individual grows up, that protector may not update its behavior because it is stuck in the moment of difficulty, still protecting the exile.
- the then-helpful, now-problematic behaviors of protectors can explain most if not all of our unhealthy behaviors.
- there is a meta-part, known as self, that exists beneath or at the center of (my words) all of our parts. self cannot be damaged or harmed.
- when we are having a hard time in life, it is usually because one of our parts of “blended” with our self. we confuse our self with that part, but they are actually separate.
- over time, our protectors can come to interact with each other in ways that can create complex patterns of behavior. addiction and depression are good examples of this.
- if we can “unblend” or separate the part from self, we can tend to the part and whatever it needs. unblending parts from self is a skill that gives every person on earth the capacity for self-healing.
- internal family systems (IFS) is the name of this system of understanding our internal landscape.
- with knowledge of IFS, people can help each other tend to their parts. with knowledge and practice, people can learn to work with and heal their own parts. however, there are some moments that are just too hard solo. in those cases, it truly is just better to have someone hold us in parts work. for example, richard schwartz himself has someone who he trades parts work with and they call on each other as needed.
If I implemented one idea from this book right now, which one would it be?
doing a daily parts meditation to discover what parts of me are active each day.
How would I describe the book to a friend?
if you have heard anything about the magic of internal family systems, this is a great book to give you a first dive. it’s clear and has many great examples of what parts work looks like. it’s also got great exercises to lead yourself through if you’re up for that. as someone who got trained for several weeks in parts work, i would have felt intimidated by doing parts work solo first. but if you’ve done any amount of internal work, it could be great for first timers. i have recommended this book to many people and will likely continue to do so. this is epic for our era.
reminder: book review structure
words / writing / post-processing
578w / 19min / 3min