Richard Schwartz, PhD began his career as a family therapist and an academic at the University of Illinois at Chicago. There he discovered that family therapy alone did not achieve full symptom relief and in asking patients why, he learned that they were plagued by what they called “parts.” These patients became his teachers as they described how their parts formed networks of inner relationship that resembled the families he had been working with. He also found that as they focused on and, thereby, separated from their parts, they would shift into a state characterized by qualities like curiosity, calm, confidence and compassion. He called that inner essence the Self and was amazed to find it even in severely diagnosed and traumatized patients. From these explorations the Internal Family Systems (IFS) model was born in the early 1980s. 

IFS has become a widely-used form of psychotherapy, particularly with trauma. While more research is urgently needed, an evidence base for IFS as a mental health intervention has been emerging for patients with depression or trauma, and IFS has been found to improve pain and function in people living with rheumatoid arthritis. IFS provides a non-pathologizing, optimistic, and empowering perspective and a practical and effective set of techniques for working with individuals, couples, and families.

Dr. Schwartz is a teaching associate in the Department of Psychiatry at Cambridge Health Alliance, which is affiliated with the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.