A review by scarroll178
No Bad Parts: How the Internal Family Systems Model Changes Everything by Richard Schwartz

Did not finish book. Stopped at 63%.

This… seems like pseudoscience. The way Schwartz describes it, you can use IFS to label any “undesirable” parts of yourself as “other.” Your violent streak isn’t the “real you,” it’s one of your protectors. Donald Trump’s rampant xenophobia isn’t the “real him,” it’s a protector or a manager. I find Schwartz’s ideas naive at best and purposefully ignorant at worst. True, sometimes people act in violent or self-destructive ways because they’re trying to cope with trauma or protect themselves. However, this is not always the case, and pretending that it is ignores hundreds of years of evidence to the contrary. 

I feel for a lot of the people Schwartz had sessions with, and I don’t have anything against them. If Schwartz was able to help them, great. But it’s a hard pass for me. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse