HISTORY

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In order to understand how forty years of clinical work in the mental health field can have anything to do with your day-to-day business affiliations, we need to take a brief look at a transformative experience in the therapy room.

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Dr. Schwartz relates that a study with thirty bulimic adolescents almost 40 years ago fostered his introduction to “parts.”  The participants were highly articulate about what was going on inside of them, he states, and one young woman explained how a part of her was critical every time something bad happened in her life.  This brought up another part that felt ashamed, young, empty and alone.  To the rescue, another part would cause her to binge to take her out of these painful feelings, and that activated the return of the blaming part that added “pig” to its condemnations of her.  Dick shares that he was afraid of parts initially because they were described by the young women as having a lot of autonomy and power... until he realized that he had parts of his own.  

 

The seminal experience that altered Dick’s understanding of parts came with a young girl in the study who had experienced sexual abuse and was a cutter.  Showing him the new slits on her wrists each session compelled Dick to “badger” the cutting part until it promised not to cut her for the next week.  The following session, the girl walked into the room with a big gash down the side of her face.  Dick relates, “I collapsed and spontaneously said, ‘I give up.  I can’t beat you at this.’ And the part said, ‘I don’t really want to beat you.’”  At that moment, Dick recalls that he shifted from being coercive to curious.  When he asked the part, “Why do you do this to her,” it responded that cutting helped to get her out of her body and contain the rage that would get her more abuse. 

 

Dick relates that his understanding of the part changed again, and he developed an appreciation for its good intentions.  Extending his gratitude evoked tears in the part as it revealed that everyone had previously demonized and tried to get rid of it.  Dick also learned that the part continued to have his client cut because it was essentially stuck in the early trauma.  Many subsequent years of learning how to understand and heal parts allowed Dr. Schwartz to develop the comprehensive Internal Family Systems (IFS) model that is currently taught to psychiatrists, psychologists, and other mental health practitioners as well as to educators and business and political leaders around the world.  The fact is, realizing that we all have parts that are trying to help us in some way is the beginning of bringing compassion to ourselves with a curiosity to better understand who we and others are and can be.  This awareness translates into all aspects of our lives, most relevant here, the workplace.