Richard C. Schwartz, Ph.D.

Richard C. Schwartz, Ph.D., is the creator of Internal Family Systems (IFS), 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.

Dr. Schwartz began his career as a systemic family therapist and an academic. Grounded in systems thinking, he developed IFS in response to clients’ descriptions of various parts within themselves. He focused on the relationships among these parts and noticed that there were systemic patterns to the way they were organized across clients. He also found that when the clients’ parts felt safe and were allowed to relax, the clients would experience spontaneously the qualities of confidence, openness, and compassion that Dr. Schwartz came to call the Self. He found that when in that state of Self, clients would know how to heal their parts.

A featured speaker for national professional organizations, Dr. Schwartz has published over fifty articles about IFS and has published five books, including No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma and Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model.