#482: Meet the Parts of You That Are Waiting to Be Heard: Dr. Richard Schwartz

The Mark Groves Podcast

Mark Groves

Relationships, Society & Culture

4.9 • 5K Ratings

🗓️ 27 October 2025

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this episode Mark sits down with Dr. Richard Schwartz, founder of Internal Family Systems (IFS), for a profound conversation about healing the parts of ourselves that carry pain, trauma, and protection. They dive into the power of “unburdening” — the process of releasing individual, ancestral, and collective wounds — and how doing so reconnects us to the self, the calm, compassionate center within us all. Dr. Schwartz breaks down the roles of our inner protectors, exiles, and firefighters, explaining how true healing happens when we stop exiling our pain and start listening to it with curiosity and love. Together, Mark and Richard explore how parts work bridges psychology and spirituality, why even our most destructive parts are rooted in protection, and how accessing the Self transforms not only our internal world but the collective one around us. Richard C. Schwartz, PhD, is the creator of Internal Family Systems, a highly effective, evidence-based therapeutic model that de-pathologizes the multi-part personality. His IFS Institute offers training for professionals and the general public. He is currently on the faculty of Harvard Medical School, and has published five books, including No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma and Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model. Links: website: https://ifs-institute.com/ books: https://ifs-institute.com/store Pre-order the new book now Sponsors: Institute for Integrative Nutrition: Certified Health Coach Training: Use code MARKGROVES20 for 20% off ALL courses from IIN & Chopra at http://bit.ly/MARKIIN Avocado Green Mattress: www.avocadogreenmattress.com Have a question For Mark to answer on the podcast?https://www.speakpipe.com/TheMarkGrovesPodcast Have a question for Mark and want an immediate answer? Mark's Dexa page: https://ask.markgroves.com Navigating a breakup? Grab my 5 day Breakup Audio Series www.createthelove.com/breakupaudio Subscribe to Mark’s Substack to receive his weekly reflections and insights straight from his heart to your inbox. https://markgroves.substack.com/ Contact us at podcast@markgroves.com for sponsor product support, questions, comments, or just to say hello! Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to another episode of the Mark Groves podcast. You know, I've shared with you,
0:05.6	the listener, that I wasn't really having many guests on again. But when you get the opportunity
0:11.6	to have this guest, you say yes. So, so excited to have you on, Dr. Richard Schwartz.
0:18.6	Thank you, Mark. I'm excited to be on, and it's good to talk with you again.
0:24.7	Well, you know, when I saw the opportunity, I was just like, damn, this is a dream guest,
0:30.8	and the spectrum of your work and where it is leading to and what you're talking about,
0:37.4	so more specifically
0:38.5	today, talking about releasing our burdens, a guide to healing individual, ancestral, and collective
0:44.6	trauma. I think we're in a time where we can all desire to aspire to something so great as that.
0:51.0	I agree, you know, as I got more acquainted with what we call burdens
0:56.0	and the parts that carry them and the power of those burdens to organize people's thinking,
1:02.7	but also their behavior, it dawned on me that it's the unburdening that can actually change
1:10.1	a lot of things in the world.
1:11.2	So that's been my focus for the last probably 25 years.
1:16.6	Yeah, for people listening or watching,
1:19.3	maybe we could start with the framework through which you see this.
1:23.5	And what led you to that framework?
1:26.0	Did you start with more of a traditional psychotherapy background and then merge and move through?
1:31.9	Yeah, I was one of these people who back in the 70s got turned on to systems thinking,
1:41.5	and Gregory Bateson and all of that.
1:43.4	And the place where that took root in psychotherapy was in family therapy,
1:48.4	because you were thinking about kids' symptoms, not because the kid is disturbed,
	...

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