Dr. Richard Schwartz, Ph. D. was at the forefront of the creation of the internal family systems model for treating individuals, couples, and families over thirty years ago. The IFS model combines systems thinking and multiplicity of the mind. Systems thinking focuses on the whole system rather than its parts and within families, behaviors are strongly influenced by a person’s family of origin. Multiplicity of the mind refers to the presence of multiple personality styles or parts within one individual. For example, part of me wanted to write this paper and part of me wanted to take a nap. Actually, no part of me wanted to write this paper, but for the sake of an example let’s pretend it did.
IFS “bring concepts and methods from the structural, strategic, narrative, and Bowenian schools of family therapy to the world of subpersonalities” (Schwartz https://www.selfleadership.org/about-internal-family-systems.html). During Schwartz’s career at the Institute for Juvenile Research at the University of Illinois at Chicago, he listened to countless clients speak of “inner parts-- the conflicted subpersonalities that resided within them” (Schwartz). Schwartz did not create a new concept. Freud’s psychoanalysis and object-relations also dealt in the concept of inner parts. The term subpersonalities was first referenced in psychosynthesis by Roberto Assagioli'. However, IFS was the first model to focus on how the relationship between the inner parts. Each internal part is important based on its function. Parts either have healthy, adaptive roles or unhealthy, maladaptive roles. IFS focuses on changing the relationship between the parts because focusing on each individual part may not result in change. Also, IFS believes each person has polarized parts, which sometimes get in conflict. For example, a part of you wanted to eat an entire cake and you did, another part of you says, “what a fat slob you are!” and yet another part...