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From the archives: Richard Schwartz, PhD · The Trauma Therapist

0:00
Speaker 1: Are today we even another episode from the archives with
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Speaker 1: one of my incredible guests. Enjoy Welcome to the Trauma
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Speaker 1: Thepists podcast, a show about the incredible people dedicated to
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Speaker 1: helping those of experienced trauma. My name is Gy McPherson,
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Speaker 1: and my mission is to raise awareness of trauma and
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Speaker 1: to inspire each of us to help those around us,
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Speaker 1: all our folks. Welcome back to the Trauma Therapists podcast.
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Speaker 1: My name is Guy McPherson and just very excited and
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Speaker 1: honored actually this morning to introduce my guest, doctor Richard Schwartz.
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Speaker 2: Richard, are you ready to go?
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Speaker 3: Hi? I'm ready to Guy, all right.
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Speaker 2: Doctor Schwartz began his career as a systemic family therapist
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Speaker 2: and an academic at the University of Illinois and at
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Speaker 2: Northwestern University. Grounded in systems thinking, doctor Schwartz developed the
0:49
Speaker 2: internal family Systems model otherwise known as IFS, in response
0:54
Speaker 2: to clients' descriptions of various parts within themselves. In two thousand,
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Speaker 2: he found the same for self leadership, which offers three
1:02
Speaker 2: levels of trainings and workshops and IFS for professionals and
1:05
Speaker 2: the general public, both in this country and abroad. A
1:08
Speaker 2: featured speaker for national professional organizations. Doctor Schwartz has published
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Speaker 2: five books and over fifty articles about IFS. All right, Richard,
1:17
Speaker 2: obviously that's just you in a nutshell, But step back
1:21
Speaker 2: a moment. Tell our listeners where you're calling from, and
1:25
Speaker 2: let's let's dive in.
1:27
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm at home in Brookline, Massachusetts, which is really
1:32
Speaker 3: adjacent to Boston. So I'm in the Boston area. And
1:37
Speaker 3: what was what was your other question?
1:39
Speaker 2: Well, just that that was pretty much it. Are you
1:41
Speaker 2: originally from there?
1:42
Speaker 1: No?
1:42
Speaker 3: I lit sure about three years ago. I was most
1:46
Speaker 3: of my life spent in the Chicago area.
1:48
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, all right, nice, So let's start out here.
1:52
Speaker 2: We talked a little bit, you know, before we started
1:54
Speaker 2: recording about quote or mantra, something that kind of sets
1:59
Speaker 2: the stage. Gets so our listeners a context and an
2:03
Speaker 2: idea about yourself. What would you like to share with
2:06
Speaker 2: us today?
2:08
Speaker 3: I like the phrase all parts are welcome. That encapsulate
2:13
Speaker 3: some of my approach, so that would be it.
2:17
Speaker 2: Okay, and give us an idea of why that quote
2:21
Speaker 2: I mean? And I guess it might be an opportunity
2:24
Speaker 2: to give a little background about, you know, quote unquote
2:28
Speaker 2: your approach. But when did that quote all parts of
2:31
Speaker 2: welcome become resonant for you? Yeah?
2:34
Speaker 3: Well, I I'm trained as a family therapist, so I
2:37
Speaker 3: was steeped in systems thinking. And then I began working
2:42
Speaker 3: with a population from bleemic kids in the early nineteen eighties,
2:48
Speaker 3: actually quite a long time ago. I'm an old man,
2:51
Speaker 3: and I started to get curious about why family therapy
2:57
Speaker 3: wasn't working for these kids. And they started to talk
3:00
Speaker 3: talk about these different parts of them, that's the word
3:04
Speaker 3: they used, and would talk about how one part would
3:08
Speaker 3: tear into them and call them names, and another that
3:10
Speaker 3: would bring up another part that would feel bereft and
3:13
Speaker 3: empty and lone and scared, and that was so dreadful
3:19
Speaker 3: that to the rescue almost would come a binging part
3:23
Speaker 3: that would take them out and make them feel better temporarily,
3:26
Speaker 3: but the critic would come back and attack them for
3:29
Speaker 3: the binge. And so as I listened to that, it
3:32
Speaker 3: sounded almost like a family therapy session where you had
3:35
Speaker 3: these escalating sequences of people interacting with each other that
3:41
Speaker 3: would make for symptoms. And so I became curious, could
3:46
Speaker 3: I apply some systems thinking to this inner world of
3:50
Speaker 3: what they were calling parts? And I was assuming at
3:55
Speaker 3: the time what most of the fielders assumed that they were.
3:58
Speaker 3: What they seemed the critic was a parentified was an
4:04
Speaker 3: introject of printal criticism of critical energy, and the binge
4:09
Speaker 3: was out of control impulse. And so I was having
4:11
Speaker 3: my clients fight with them and try to control them,
4:16
Speaker 3: which only made it worse. But with that conception of
4:19
Speaker 3: what they were, I didn't have an alternative. And then
4:22
Speaker 3: I had a client who cut herself and I hated
4:28
Speaker 3: that was happening on my watch, and so I decided
4:33
Speaker 3: I wasn't going to let that cutting part keep doing
4:36
Speaker 3: that to her, And after battling with it for a
4:40
Speaker 3: couple hours, it agreed not to cut her and I
4:44
Speaker 3: opened the door of the next session, and then she
4:46
Speaker 3: had a big gash on the side of her face,
4:48
Speaker 3: and I just collapsed at that point, and I just said,
4:52
Speaker 3: I can't beat you at this. And that was a
4:54
Speaker 3: turning point in the history of this work, because she
4:59
Speaker 3: says taneously, I don't want to beat you, and I
5:04
Speaker 3: shifted out of that coercive place to just being curious,
5:08
Speaker 3: then why do you cut her? And the part talked
5:11
Speaker 3: a lot about how when she was being abused as
5:15
Speaker 3: a child. It needed to get her out of her body,
5:18
Speaker 3: and it needed to contain the rage that would get
5:20
Speaker 3: her more abuse. And so I shifted again and was
5:26
Speaker 3: able to give it a lot of appreciation for trying
5:29
Speaker 3: to save her life back then, and the part burst
5:32
Speaker 3: into tears and talked about how everybody hated it and
5:35
Speaker 3: tried to get rid of it, and that it was
5:37
Speaker 3: really just trying to protect these other very vulnerable parts
5:41
Speaker 3: of her still and it still had to deal with
5:43
Speaker 3: the rage, and so there were reasons it still was
5:46
Speaker 3: doing this to her. And by a turning point, I
5:50
Speaker 3: mean from that point on, I never got into a
5:54
Speaker 3: power struggle with a part because I learned that they're
5:57
Speaker 3: all trying their best, and they're stuck in the path
6:00
Speaker 3: in these in trauma scenes often and are forced into
6:05
Speaker 3: these roles that they don't even like and think that
6:07
Speaker 3: they desperately need to keep doing, and are also carrying
6:15
Speaker 3: what we call burdens, so extreme beliefs and emotions that
6:19
Speaker 3: came into the person's system from the trauma, and it
6:23
Speaker 3: almost attached to these parts like a virus and drive
6:28
Speaker 3: how they operate inside. And so as I got all that,
6:34
Speaker 3: it was a total shift in the way I approached
6:37
Speaker 3: these parts and then helped other people approach them. So
6:41
Speaker 3: that's what I mean by all parts are welcome. We
6:43
Speaker 3: work with parts of people that have perpetrated and done
6:49
Speaker 3: really bad things to kids. And I've worked with inmates
6:54
Speaker 3: with this work, and even those parts that you think
6:57
Speaker 3: are just evil when approach from a curious place and
7:03
Speaker 3: ultimately leads to having compassion for them and how they
7:06
Speaker 3: had to protect when the person was being abused.
7:11
Speaker 2: This is really fascinating. I mean, the story of how
7:14
Speaker 2: this came about is almost as fascinating as the work itself.
7:21
Speaker 2: When you, Richard, when you talked about, you know, how
7:23
Speaker 2: this work began. What stage were you at in your career,
7:29
Speaker 2: so to speak as a therapist.
7:32
Speaker 3: I was a punk, you know. I was maybe thirty
7:38
Speaker 3: two when I ran into the phenomena, and I was
7:42
Speaker 3: I had just been hired at an Institute for juven research.
7:45
Speaker 3: It was called part of a family therapy training program,
7:51
Speaker 3: and I had maybe three years of clinical experience with
7:58
Speaker 3: pretty severe populations. We were working with gang bangers from
8:02
Speaker 3: the West Side of Chicago at that time, and then
8:06
Speaker 3: I also got interested in eating disorders. So this was
8:09
Speaker 3: very early in my career, which I think was lucky
8:13
Speaker 3: because I wasn't totally attached to the frameworks that I've
8:19
Speaker 3: been using.
8:20
Speaker 2: I think one of the things that struck me, and
8:22
Speaker 2: I'm wondering, I think it may have structed our listeners
8:25
Speaker 2: as well, is that the way you described the evolution
8:30
Speaker 2: of this process, you seem to be doing these kind
8:35
Speaker 2: of marvelous things. I mean this, you know, the way
8:38
Speaker 2: you approached things with curiosity. You said you were working
8:42
Speaker 2: with kids who were having or who had bolima. Was
8:47
Speaker 2: there the association Were you thinking, Okay, this can be
8:52
Speaker 2: used or with trauma quote unquote as well?
8:56
Speaker 3: At that point, No, no, and I as a family therapists,
9:00
Speaker 3: we were trained. I was called what's called a structural
9:02
Speaker 3: family therapist, So we were taught that you don't really
9:06
Speaker 3: have to worry about the past. You can just reorganize
9:09
Speaker 3: these family relationships in the present and that will take
9:12
Speaker 3: care of the symptoms. But as I was getting to
9:16
Speaker 3: know these parts, they were constantly wanting to talk about
9:20
Speaker 3: what happened to them in the past that forced them
9:22
Speaker 3: into these roles. So I was kind of pulled kicking
9:26
Speaker 3: and screaming into the past and into trauma. Scenes by
9:31
Speaker 3: and large and so, and then I came to recognize
9:36
Speaker 3: that most of the time, these parts really wanted to
9:39
Speaker 3: be witnessed for what they went through, and that people
9:44
Speaker 3: in general tend to try to forget all that. You know,
9:48
Speaker 3: when you get hurt badly, you don't want to spend
9:52
Speaker 3: time with the memories, sensations, emotions, beliefs that you got
9:56
Speaker 3: from that time. You want to kind of wall them
9:59
Speaker 3: off inside and what I call exile them. But in
10:03
Speaker 3: doing that, you're not just exiling the memory, sensations of
10:06
Speaker 3: oceans and beliefs. You're locking away the parts of you
10:10
Speaker 3: that were most hurt by those experiences that are still
10:13
Speaker 3: frozen back there. And so most of us, especially people
10:17
Speaker 3: with a lot of trauma, are cut off from vast resources.
10:22
Speaker 3: Because my belief is all these parts are valuable, but
10:26
Speaker 3: they get these burdens and then we don't want to
10:29
Speaker 3: be around them, and then then we're cut off from
10:32
Speaker 3: all those resources.
10:34
Speaker 2: So go ahead, yeah, I'm just gonna say that, and
10:37
Speaker 2: it brings up that image of you kind of warring
10:41
Speaker 2: or fighting with that that one part of the woman
10:44
Speaker 2: who was cutting herself, and then that kind of reconciliation
10:49
Speaker 2: later on the next session, whatever when she comes in
10:51
Speaker 2: and the gash on her face and it's like, you know,
10:53
Speaker 2: I don't want to fight with you anymore. That's just
10:57
Speaker 2: as you described it. That just seems such a turning
10:58
Speaker 2: point in such a a revelation therapeutically, How how did
11:04
Speaker 2: you get there as a therapist? What did that? How
11:07
Speaker 2: did you develop that kind of curiosity?
11:10
Speaker 3: I think if there's one thing I'm proudest of, it
11:13
Speaker 3: is that I went outside the paradigm and I really
11:17
Speaker 3: just followed the data. William James had a phrase you
11:20
Speaker 3: called radical empiricism, So I consider myself a radical empiricist.
11:25
Speaker 3: Most of this journey has been taking me to places
11:29
Speaker 3: that I didn't believe in at all when I started out,
11:34
Speaker 3: But because clients were teaching me this, I really said, okay,
11:39
Speaker 3: to all my skeptical parts, let's just let's just wait
11:42
Speaker 3: and see. And so now I'm miles and miles away
11:47
Speaker 3: from the set of beliefs that I had when I
11:50
Speaker 3: started out, and and it's you know, it's it's a
11:55
Speaker 3: tough sell in our culture too, because even the idea
11:59
Speaker 3: of having what I called parts, which are real sub personalities,
12:04
Speaker 3: has been so pathologized that everybody's afraid. You know, what,
12:07
Speaker 3: do you think I'm Sybil or something like that.
12:11
Speaker 2: Let's kind of shift gears here and talk about how
12:14
Speaker 2: you got here in the first place. How what got
12:16
Speaker 2: you into this field.
12:19
Speaker 3: Oh, that's a lot, that's a bit of a long story.
12:21
Speaker 3: I my father was head of medicine and a big
12:25
Speaker 3: medical center in Chicago and got me a job on
12:28
Speaker 3: the psych unit on the medical center during the summers
12:32
Speaker 3: when I was in college, and I would watch. It
12:36
Speaker 3: was an adolescent unit, so I'd get these kids weren't
12:38
Speaker 3: that different in age from me. So I would get
12:40
Speaker 3: close to some of the kids, and I really liked them,
12:43
Speaker 3: and they would tell me about their therapy sessions. It
12:46
Speaker 3: was a very analytic place, psychoanalytic, and they would talk
12:52
Speaker 3: about how if they didn't say anything, the therapist wouldn't
12:55
Speaker 3: say anything the whole session. It sounded absurd to me.
12:58
Speaker 3: And then on weekends I would be there with the
13:02
Speaker 3: kids that's when I worked, and I would see how
13:05
Speaker 3: their families were tearing into them. How could you do
13:08
Speaker 3: this to us? And so on, and you know, and
13:12
Speaker 3: then in the therapy sessions that none of that would
13:14
Speaker 3: was being addressed. So from all of that, I said,
13:18
Speaker 3: there's got to be a better way to do this,
13:21
Speaker 3: And so when I graduated, I heard about community psychology.
13:26
Speaker 3: So I tried that for a while, but I'm sort
13:28
Speaker 3: of too much of an introvert to really do that
13:30
Speaker 3: in a big way. But then I through that, I
13:35
Speaker 3: heard about systems thinking and Gregory pateson, and then followed
13:40
Speaker 3: that down to family therapy, and that's where I found
13:43
Speaker 3: a home initially for a long time. And all I've
13:46
Speaker 3: done is taken a lot of those family therapy systems
13:50
Speaker 3: principles and applied them to these inner systems that people
13:53
Speaker 3: have and found that they work very well that way.
13:57
Speaker 3: The other I wanted to mention one other aspect of
13:59
Speaker 3: this work that really shocked me. You know, if you
14:02
Speaker 3: think that all parts are valuable is shocking. As I
14:07
Speaker 3: was doing that in her family therapy, and I'm trying
14:11
Speaker 3: to get parts to talk to each other and get
14:14
Speaker 3: along better, and I'm having my client talk to different parts,
14:18
Speaker 3: and I was using open share stuff back then, and
14:23
Speaker 3: I would find though that I'm trying. Maybe I'm having
14:25
Speaker 3: one of my believe it kids try to talk to
14:27
Speaker 3: her critic and get along better with it. But she's
14:31
Speaker 3: getting angry constantly at the critic, and it's getting in
14:33
Speaker 3: the way. So I would see, is there a part
14:36
Speaker 3: in there that hates the critic, who's influencing you to
14:40
Speaker 3: be mean to it? And could you find that part
14:44
Speaker 3: and could you ask it to step back inside, which
14:47
Speaker 3: was basically what I'd been doing with families. If there's
14:50
Speaker 3: two people talking to each other and one gets angry,
14:53
Speaker 3: it's often true that a third person is influencing that
14:56
Speaker 3: one to be angry, and if you got that person
14:58
Speaker 3: to step back in the office, the things would go better.
15:03
Speaker 3: So I did that, and people would say, yeah, okay,
15:06
Speaker 3: it's step back. I'd say that, now, how do you
15:09
Speaker 3: feel toward the critic, And it would be something along
15:11
Speaker 3: the lines of I'm just kind of curious about why
15:13
Speaker 3: it's calling me names, or even I feel sorry for
15:17
Speaker 3: it that it has to do this all the time,
15:19
Speaker 3: even compassion suddenly. And so then if I got them there,
15:26
Speaker 3: the conversation with the critic would go very well, and
15:29
Speaker 3: it would reveal what it was protecting, and we could
15:31
Speaker 3: actually heal what it protected, and then everybody could transform.
15:36
Speaker 3: This is a model of transformation. We actually help all
15:38
Speaker 3: these parts out of the roles they're in into their
15:41
Speaker 3: naturally valuable states. And so I would ask, now, who
15:47
Speaker 3: is that that's got the curiosity? What part of you
15:50
Speaker 3: is that that's got the compassion? And everybody would say,
15:53
Speaker 3: that's just me, that's myself. So we call that the
15:57
Speaker 3: self of the capital S. And I think the biggest
16:00
Speaker 3: discovery of IFS is that that self can't be damaged
16:05
Speaker 3: and is in everybody. It's kind of our essence, and
16:08
Speaker 3: it can be accessed much more quickly than even meditative
16:12
Speaker 3: traditions have thought, just by asking these protective parts to
16:16
Speaker 3: open space for it.
16:19
Speaker 2: As you're talking, I'm feeling a wave of kind of
16:24
Speaker 2: healing in this. There's some there's something so allowing about
16:29
Speaker 2: this process. There's something so healing about knowing that we
16:34
Speaker 2: all have these different parts that are that are kind
16:38
Speaker 2: of you know, operating, uh, kind of behind the scenes,
16:43
Speaker 2: and maybe some not behind the scenes. But and I
16:46
Speaker 2: love that feeling. I was also intrigued Richard when you
16:50
Speaker 2: said to yourself, when you when you first started, there
16:52
Speaker 2: was you had parts, you know, there was a part
16:54
Speaker 2: of yourself that had to kind of you know, watch
16:56
Speaker 2: the skeptic in you. That was also interesting to me.
17:00
Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean, as I was working with the Bolima kids.
17:03
Speaker 3: First I thought, oh my god, these kids are a
17:05
Speaker 3: lot sicker than I thought, because they're talking about these
17:09
Speaker 3: alters inside of them. But then I started listening to myself,
17:13
Speaker 3: Oh my god, I've got them too, and some of
17:16
Speaker 3: mine are equally extreme around food. And so then I
17:20
Speaker 3: calmed down and just started thinking, maybe this is the
17:23
Speaker 3: way the mind is, and that people who are diagnosed
17:27
Speaker 3: with for example, did their parts just got blown apart more?
17:32
Speaker 3: But the fact that they have these full personalities, isn't
17:35
Speaker 3: it any different from all of us? And that's the
17:37
Speaker 3: position I take.
17:38
Speaker 2: Now. All right, let's kind of continue on here. I
17:42
Speaker 2: want to ask you about on an early clinical error
17:46
Speaker 2: what you learned from it. But first let's just take
17:48
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Speaker 2: guy and use a coupon code guy. All Right, Richard,
18:19
Speaker 2: you kind of alluded to maybe some errors quote unquote
18:24
Speaker 2: you made early on when you were developing this theory.
18:29
Speaker 2: But share with our listeners if I can put you
18:32
Speaker 2: on the spot here an early clinical error and how
18:36
Speaker 2: that kind of evolved what you learned from it.
18:40
Speaker 3: Yeah. So I was mucking around with people's inner systems
18:44
Speaker 3: in this way that I've been describing, and it seemed
18:48
Speaker 3: to me that I should try to get to the
18:51
Speaker 3: pain inside of them as quickly as I could. And
18:55
Speaker 3: in some sessions I would succeed in doing that, and
18:58
Speaker 3: they would spend the session crying and feel some relief
19:04
Speaker 3: at that. But then I began to notice they were
19:08
Speaker 3: having sort of large bad experiences immediately following the session.
19:14
Speaker 3: I had a client leave my office and get into
19:17
Speaker 3: a car wreck, for example, or another client spiked one
19:20
Speaker 3: hundred and three fever right after a session. I began
19:23
Speaker 3: putting two and two together, and maybe there's something about
19:27
Speaker 3: what I was doing in the session that was related
19:30
Speaker 3: to these backlash experiences. And so I got real curious
19:34
Speaker 3: about that and learned that I was violating the rules
19:38
Speaker 3: of these inner systems by going so quickly to what
19:42
Speaker 3: I'm calling the exiled parts, the parts that carry the
19:44
Speaker 3: pain or the shame or the terror of the traumas,
19:49
Speaker 3: and that in fact there are parts that protect them
19:53
Speaker 3: or protect the client from going there that I needed
19:56
Speaker 3: to get to know and honor and get permission from
20:00
Speaker 3: before going to those exiles. So that led to a
20:04
Speaker 3: kind of map of this inner world that included protective
20:09
Speaker 3: parts and then exiles. And so we've learned the hard way,
20:15
Speaker 3: as as I mentioned, to go to exiles first. So
20:19
Speaker 3: even if a client comes in and says, you know,
20:21
Speaker 3: I've got this intense pain or shame inside that I
20:25
Speaker 3: want to work with, I'll say, we'll get to that,
20:27
Speaker 3: but before we do, I want to go to the
20:29
Speaker 3: parts of you that don't want us anywhere near that,
20:32
Speaker 3: and I want to hear all of their reasons for that,
20:35
Speaker 3: and I want to address their fears before we go
20:38
Speaker 3: to these places.
20:41
Speaker 2: Can you think of a time an example of a
20:45
Speaker 2: client you worked with where this might be a good example, Well.
20:53
Speaker 3: Sure, I do it every day. So say a client
20:59
Speaker 3: has a lot of pain that's locked in from a
21:03
Speaker 3: trauma that they're wanting to get to and I'll say,
21:06
Speaker 3: let me talk to the parts that don't want us
21:08
Speaker 3: to go there, And so the client will focus on
21:12
Speaker 3: a part that, for example, never wants to be vulnerable
21:17
Speaker 3: again because vulnerability got them hurt in the past, and
21:22
Speaker 3: so I'm asking to do something that this part swore
21:27
Speaker 3: many years ago they would never let them do again.
21:31
Speaker 3: Does that makes sense? And in fact, they hate those
21:35
Speaker 3: vulnerable parts, they want them out of their life. And
21:39
Speaker 3: so I would say, okay, I would say to the
21:43
Speaker 3: part or I would have the client say to the
21:45
Speaker 3: part that totally makes sense. I totally understand why you
21:49
Speaker 3: wouldn't want us to go there, and I'm sure bad
21:52
Speaker 3: things have happened in the past when those parts did
21:55
Speaker 3: get out. So you're the boss. We're not going to
21:59
Speaker 3: go anywhere without your permission, which is disarming just by
22:04
Speaker 3: itself to say that, But if you would be willing
22:08
Speaker 3: to let us open that door, we could heal those parts.
22:12
Speaker 3: We're not going there to wallow in the pain. You
22:15
Speaker 3: might feel some of the pain, but you won't be overwhelmed.
22:18
Speaker 3: I'll make sure you're not overwhelmed, and we can actually
22:22
Speaker 3: get them out of where they're stuck in the past,
22:24
Speaker 3: take them to a safe place and unload all the
22:27
Speaker 3: pain that they carry, and that will free you up
22:31
Speaker 3: as this protective part, because no longer will you have
22:34
Speaker 3: to try and keep all that locked up, spend all
22:37
Speaker 3: your energy keeping this person from being vulnerable. You'll be
22:42
Speaker 3: freed up to do something entirely different that you would
22:44
Speaker 3: much prefer. So that's my pitch to protective parts, and
22:50
Speaker 3: it's a very seductive pitch. Very few of them will
22:52
Speaker 3: say I still don't want to do it if they
22:55
Speaker 3: trust I can pull this off. So there's an element
22:58
Speaker 3: of coming across in a very confident way. It's necessary
23:01
Speaker 3: and many therapists have been schooled away from having any confidence.
23:06
Speaker 3: So but I'm you know, I'm saying I can guarantee
23:08
Speaker 3: we can do all these things if you want. But
23:10
Speaker 3: you're the boss, so and I mean it. If they
23:14
Speaker 3: choose not to do it, we're not going to do it.
23:17
Speaker 2: Richard, what drives you day to day? You know you
23:21
Speaker 2: just said you do this every day. You've been doing
23:23
Speaker 2: this for a while. What keeps you going in this field?
23:27
Speaker 2: And then the work you're doing day to day.
23:30
Speaker 3: Oh, there's a number of things. I mean, I when
23:32
Speaker 3: I'm doing the work with clients. I feel so privileged
23:35
Speaker 3: because it's like you're in this sacred territory with them
23:39
Speaker 3: and they've allowed you in and you feel so so connected,
23:45
Speaker 3: and it's just a joy to watch how they can
23:48
Speaker 3: heal themselves. So some of it is just the actual work,
23:53
Speaker 3: and then I sort of have got a mission now
23:57
Speaker 3: to actually pump out out of therapists what's been pumped
24:01
Speaker 3: into them, all the fear they have, because one of
24:05
Speaker 3: the things that you find with this work is it's
24:08
Speaker 3: a totally different paradigm for understanding things like dissociation or
24:14
Speaker 3: flashbacks or panic attacks. All the things associated with trauma
24:18
Speaker 3: resistance are the activities of protective parts. And when you
24:22
Speaker 3: get that, you don't fear those things. You don't fear
24:25
Speaker 3: even more severe symptoms. As I say, we work a
24:28
Speaker 3: lot with anorexia, with people on the brink of death
24:33
Speaker 3: suicide all the time, and so we go to the
24:36
Speaker 3: parts that are the suicidal part and listen to its
24:40
Speaker 3: story of why it wants to kill the client and
24:45
Speaker 3: negotiate with it. So, if we could get her out
24:48
Speaker 3: of her misery in a different way, would you have
24:50
Speaker 3: to kill her?
24:51
Speaker 2: No?
24:51
Speaker 3: But I don't think you can do that. Would you
24:53
Speaker 3: give us a chance to show you that we can
24:55
Speaker 3: get her out of her misery in a different way. Okay,
24:59
Speaker 3: So it's like that. So it's a very different way
25:01
Speaker 3: of understanding all these things that people have been scared of.
25:06
Speaker 3: And for example, if a client in a normal therapist's
25:11
Speaker 3: office has a panic attack, therapists will stop and try
25:16
Speaker 3: to ground that client and help them breathe and look
25:19
Speaker 3: into my eyes and feel your feet on the floor
25:22
Speaker 3: and trying to get them back to a more normal state.
25:25
Speaker 3: But the message to the panic part is you have
25:28
Speaker 3: to leave, you don't belong, which is the opposite of
25:31
Speaker 3: all parts are welcome. So if a client has a
25:34
Speaker 3: panic attack in my office, I'm saying, it's so great
25:36
Speaker 3: you're here. I see you're really scared, but I'm really
25:40
Speaker 3: glad you finally got the courage to come into the office.
25:43
Speaker 3: And it'd be easier to help you if you'd separate
25:46
Speaker 3: from the client a little bit so she can help
25:49
Speaker 3: you too, and the two of us are going to
25:51
Speaker 3: really help you, and the client will suddenly seem grounded
25:56
Speaker 3: because the part's willing to separate. But the message to
25:59
Speaker 3: the part is you're so welcome, not you need to leave.
26:03
Speaker 2: Wow, this is awesome, This is this is awesome. I mean,
26:09
Speaker 2: I'm just you know, when I first started this, this podcast, Richard,
26:13
Speaker 2: I was doing a lot of commuting. I was doing
26:16
Speaker 2: my my post doc, my pre my pre doc, and
26:18
Speaker 2: I was always I would always be stuck in traffic,
26:21
Speaker 2: thinking about my clients, worrying, you know, what the hell
26:24
Speaker 2: I was doing. And I wished that I had the
26:28
Speaker 2: opportunity to just listen to you, listen to this what
26:32
Speaker 2: you're saying. It's so inspiring because I love what you're
26:36
Speaker 2: talking about. The fear that therapists have that's been baked
26:40
Speaker 2: into them in a sense. And you know, in my experience,
26:45
Speaker 2: a lot of a lot of therapists are scared of
26:48
Speaker 2: doing this work. Trauma is like you know, uh uh
26:51
Speaker 2: you do that say more about about the fear that
26:56
Speaker 2: a lot of therapists have about this process.
27:01
Speaker 3: Well, in addition to the fear of these scary symptoms
27:04
Speaker 3: that come up with trauma, there's a real fear of
27:08
Speaker 3: this what I call the overwhelm. So what I call
27:11
Speaker 3: the exiles carry all this intense pain, shame, terror, and loneliness,
27:20
Speaker 3: and as clients get close to them, they'll start to
27:24
Speaker 3: start to show a lot of that, and that will
27:27
Speaker 3: scare therapists too, because they've been taught to fear the overwhelm,
27:32
Speaker 3: even by some trauma therapies that say you have this
27:34
Speaker 3: window of tolerance that you constantly have to monitor and
27:39
Speaker 3: then teach people grounding skills if they get close to
27:42
Speaker 3: the threshold. I discovered very early into this work with
27:47
Speaker 3: trauma that parts can totally control how much they overwhelm.
27:52
Speaker 3: So if in advance of going to an exile, I
27:56
Speaker 3: have the client ask if it's willing to not overwhelm
27:59
Speaker 3: them as they get close to it, and it agrees
28:01
Speaker 3: to not overwhelm, they never do and that's never been
28:05
Speaker 3: violated in my thirty years of doing this, So I
28:09
Speaker 3: can very reassuredly say to clients, we can do this
28:13
Speaker 3: and you won't be overwhelmed by all the emotion that's
28:16
Speaker 3: in there. You'll be with it, but you won't be
28:19
Speaker 3: drowning in it, and you'll that and just being with
28:23
Speaker 3: it is very healing to this part. And it's the self,
28:28
Speaker 3: not me, who's with it in this inner world, and
28:33
Speaker 3: most of these parts really just want you to witness
28:35
Speaker 3: how bad it was and kind of get how much
28:38
Speaker 3: emotion they had to go through, and also some of
28:40
Speaker 3: the maybe some of the details of the story maybe.
28:43
Speaker 2: Not Again, I'm reminded of that image of that girl
28:48
Speaker 2: coming into your office with the slash on her face.
28:51
Speaker 2: This time it almost feels to me like, okay, now
28:54
Speaker 2: do you see me? You know? Now do you recognize me?
28:57
Speaker 3: Exactly right? And that's very insightful because so often if
29:02
Speaker 3: you do what most of us do with symptoms, which
29:05
Speaker 3: is to try to kill the messenger, the messenger is
29:08
Speaker 3: going to try harder to kill you or to at
29:11
Speaker 3: least get your attention. So we do this a lot
29:14
Speaker 3: with medical symptoms. For example, our big outcome study was
29:18
Speaker 3: with rheumatoid arthritis published in the journal Rheumatology, where we
29:23
Speaker 3: would have people focus on the pain in their hands
29:27
Speaker 3: and ask it questions as if it were a part,
29:30
Speaker 3: and the answers will come.
29:32
Speaker 2: You know.
29:32
Speaker 3: The typical profile was this part was going to cripple
29:36
Speaker 3: them because it couldn't stand how much their caretaking part.
29:40
Speaker 3: These were Italian Southside here in Boston, women who've never
29:49
Speaker 3: been in therapy before but had these huge caretaking parts
29:52
Speaker 3: and that wouldn't let them take care of themselves. And
29:55
Speaker 3: the arthritis was a way to get, you know, to
29:58
Speaker 3: not let them keep doing that because they wouldn't listen
30:02
Speaker 3: to the parts that didn't like this predicament.
30:06
Speaker 2: Richard, you know, people who are listening to this podcast
30:10
Speaker 2: have varying levels of experience. I really like honing in
30:15
Speaker 2: on the people who are just getting into this field,
30:17
Speaker 2: maybe the people who are kind of burdened with a
30:21
Speaker 2: lot of fear. If you will, what advice would you
30:24
Speaker 2: have for those people, for people who are just beginning
30:27
Speaker 2: their their kind of trauma informed journey, if you will.
30:32
Speaker 3: Stay curious, don't uh, don't believe a lot of what
30:37
Speaker 3: you were taught. Trust that even very severe, severely diagnosed
30:44
Speaker 3: clients have this essence that I'm talking about called the
30:48
Speaker 3: self that's just beneath the surface of these these crazy parts,
30:54
Speaker 3: and find ways to access that, and then also don't
30:59
Speaker 3: fear the activities of the parts that they're just trying
31:03
Speaker 3: their best. They're trying desperately keep the client safe, and
31:07
Speaker 3: they're frozen in time, They're stuck. A lot of times
31:10
Speaker 3: I'll just have a client focus on a protector and
31:14
Speaker 3: ask it how old it thinks they are, And most
31:18
Speaker 3: of the time the answer is in single digits. This
31:21
Speaker 3: part thinks they're still nine years old and still living
31:25
Speaker 3: in that level of vulnerability, and so just updating these parts,
31:30
Speaker 3: just saying no, I'm not nine years old anymore. I'm
31:32
Speaker 3: actually speaking for myself. I'm sixty six. That's a big revelation.
31:39
Speaker 3: And some of the parts just won't believe it. They
31:41
Speaker 3: can't believe that they don't still need to protect you.
31:45
Speaker 3: So anyway, I went on and on more than you ask.
31:49
Speaker 2: No, that's great. I have it all down here again.
31:51
Speaker 2: Everything's going to be linked up here at the show
31:53
Speaker 2: notes page at West Coast Trump I'm sorry, trumpat Therapist
31:57
Speaker 2: podcast dot com. In terms of books, I mean, obviously
32:03
Speaker 2: again we're going to have your website linked up here
32:05
Speaker 2: with your books and so forth, and training and so forth.
32:09
Speaker 2: If you could recommend a book to our listeners, something
32:13
Speaker 2: that's maybe inspired you, what would you say.
32:17
Speaker 3: I think, by far the best book on trauma now
32:20
Speaker 3: is Besil vander Kolch's The Body Keeps the Score, which
32:25
Speaker 3: has been out a couple of years now and covers
32:29
Speaker 3: a landscape in a really great way. There's a chapter
32:32
Speaker 3: in it on ifs, but it captures virtually everything that's
32:37
Speaker 3: being done on the trauma field and a very engaging
32:41
Speaker 3: writing style.
32:43
Speaker 2: So that's the Body Keeps a Score, Brain, Mind and
32:45
Speaker 2: Body and the Healing of Trauma by Sylvandah Coock right,
32:47
Speaker 2: and I definitely remember that you were mentioned you're featured
32:50
Speaker 2: in that book. In terms of training, say a little
32:55
Speaker 2: bit about what you've got going on at your website.
33:00
Speaker 3: So we do three levels of training all over the
33:03
Speaker 3: country and in Europe and other countries. The Level one
33:08
Speaker 3: training is either six three day weekends spread two months apart,
33:13
Speaker 3: where they're all very experiential, so we have a three
33:18
Speaker 3: to one ratio of trainers to students so that we
33:23
Speaker 3: can keep it very safe and people can actually practice
33:26
Speaker 3: with each other and do a lot of personal healing
33:29
Speaker 3: during the training and get very close to each other.
33:33
Speaker 3: And so there's Level one. There's also a retreat style
33:37
Speaker 3: Level one, which is two six day blocks in nice
33:41
Speaker 3: retreat centers, and then there's a Level two that I
33:45
Speaker 3: do some of I don't do any Level ones anymore.
33:47
Speaker 3: And then there's a Level three trainings that I do.
33:51
Speaker 3: So you go to our website which is self Leadership
33:55
Speaker 3: dot org and you'll get all that information. There's a
33:58
Speaker 3: bookstore that has all my books and stuff. And then
34:03
Speaker 3: I also mentioned we have a conference in province in Providence,
34:08
Speaker 3: Rhode Island Annual Conference coming up in I believe it's
34:14
Speaker 3: November this year. Okay, so people can check on that too.
34:18
Speaker 2: Is there a link to that on your site.
34:21
Speaker 3: I don't know if it's up yet, but okay, it.
34:23
Speaker 2: Will be shortly and then I'll be certainly willing to
34:26
Speaker 2: post that up on the show page as well.
34:29
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's no, It's November tenth in Province, Providence, Rhode Island.
34:33
Speaker 2: Okay, Richard. I want to thank you so much. It's
34:35
Speaker 2: been really, really inspiring and I'm ready to go jump
34:40
Speaker 2: out and get some of your books.
34:43
Speaker 3: Fantastic.
34:44
Speaker 2: I appreciate, appreciate you taking the time to do.
34:46
Speaker 3: This my honor too, and I really appreciate your asking me.
34:49
Speaker 2: All right, take care, take care.
35:00
Speaker 1: In May
35:10
Speaker 2: Even common s