You're listening to Insights at the Edge.

Today, my guest is Dr. Richard Schwartz, friends and associates call him Dick.

Dick Schwartz earned his PhD in marriage and family therapy from Purdue University,

and he co-authored the book Family Therapy, Concepts and Methods,

the most widely used family therapy text in the United States. Dick is the developer of

internal family systems, which is a model that he developed in response to clients' descriptions of

experiencing various parts, many of them quite extreme within themselves.

Which sounds true.

Dick has written a new book.

It's called No Bad Parts, Healing Trauma and Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family

Systems Model. What so impresses me about Dick is that he developed the family systems model

based on actual client experience, empirical feedback from working directly with people

really suffering, people suffering from bulimia and forms of self-injury.

You'll hear about it, how he developed the model, getting client feedback,

seeing what was alive and real in clients in the moment. What a pioneer he is, and this is

powerful work, looking at ourselves and welcoming every part of who we are.

Here's my conversation with Dick Schwartz.

This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp.

We're joining with our friends at BetterHelp to celebrate and thank all of the therapists in our lives.

When I was in my 40s, I started regularly seeing a therapist who was a true mentor for me in many aspects of my life.

When it came to my relationship with myself, of course, but also in my marriage and in my

work. At one point, she said to me, you know, you're a real DIY type. You always like plowing through

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