Greater Than the Sum of Our Parts: Discovering Your True Self Through Internal Family Systems Therapy

Explore Your Multifaceted Mind--an Invitation to Personal Healing and Spiritual Awakening

Inside each of us, there are many distinct selves. Though we've been raised to believe that healthy people have a single 'self, ' explains Dr. Richard C. Schwartz, acknowledging our multiplicity gives a far deeper awareness of how our minds actually work. Dr. Schwartz's pioneering Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy has become renowned in psychotherapy for its power to help us connect with and heal the many distinct facets--or parts--of our psyche. With Greater Than the Sum of Our Parts, he brings you a practical training course for using this method for your growth, well-being, and especially your spiritual journey.

Embracing Your Inner Diversity as a Path to Wholeness

One of the key lessons of IFS therapy is that there are no bad parts. Trauma or life experience can cause our parts to take on burdens, says Dr. Schwartz. Yet when we bring the spiritual values of curiosity, gratitude, and kindness to these burdened parts, we discover incredible opportunities for healing and awakening. Through instruction and guided meditations, Dr. Schwartz shows us how to engage even the most disturbing or unwanted parts of our psyche with openness and love--so we may unlock the hidden gifts and wisdom each part contains.

Many forms of therapy and even spiritual practice inadvertently put us in conflict with ourselves as we try to transcend or reject our parts. With Greater Than the Sum of Our Parts, Dr. Schwartz invites you to embrace each of your many parts with self-compassion--and discover the inclusive greater Self that is your true, divine nature.

HIGHLIGHTS
- Guided meditations to help you meet, dialogue with, and heal your parts
- Parts as sacred beings--self-love, wholeness, and the spiritual dimension of IFS
- How parts are formed and why they can become distorted by trauma and burdens
- Why denigrating the ego, false self, and monkey mind undermines inner harmony
- Becoming a wise and trusted leader of your many parts
- How working with your exiled parts awakens your capacity for compassion, presence, and unconditional love

Author: Richard Schwartz
Publisher: Sounds True
Published: 07/03/2018
Binding Type: CD
Weight: 0.60lbs
Size: 6.50h x 6.70w x 1.00d
ISBN: 9781683640615

About the Author

Richard C. Schwartz
RICHARD C. SCHWARTZ, PHD, earned his PhD in Marriage and Family Therapy from Purdue University, and coauthored with Michael Nichols Family Therapy: Concepts and Methods, the most widely used family therapy text in the United States. Dr. Schwartz developed Internal Family Systems in response to clients' descriptions of experiencing various parts--many extreme--within themselves. He noticed that when these parts felt safe and had their concerns addressed, they were less disruptive and would accede to the wise leadership of what Dr. Schwartz came to call the Self.

Because IFS locates the source of healing within the client, the therapist is freed to focus on guiding the client's access to their true Self. This approach makes IFS a non-pathologizing, hopeful framework within which to practice psychotherapy. It provides an alternative understanding of psychic functioning and healing that allows for innovative techniques in relieving clients' symptoms and suffering.

In 2000, Dr. Schwartz founded The Center for Self Leadership in Oak Park, Illinois, offering IFS training for professionals and the general public. He is a featured speaker for many national psychotherapy organizations and a fellow of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy, and he serves on the editorial boards of four professional journals. He has published four books and over fifty articles about IFS, including Internal Family Systems Therapy, The Mosaic Mind (with Regina Goulding), and You Are The One You've Been Waiting For. For more, visit selfleadership.org.