Is there no Self in some systems?

Welcome back to Therapy Chat! This week we have a conversation with two guests that I hope you'll find interesting whether you identify as a therapist, a human with complex PTSD/developmental trauma, part of a system of multiples or someone with a dissociative disorder; or if you are anyone who's curious about parts work and your inner world. I was honored to record this interview earlier this month with two amazing therapists who are thought leaders in the trauma world: Dr. Jamie+ Marich, author of Dissociation Made Simple and many other books; and Dr. Dick Schwartz, who developed Internal Family Systems (IFS). 

Dr. Jamie Marich (she/they/we) began her career as a humanitarian aid worker in Bosnia-Hercegovina from 2000-2003, primarily teaching English and music. Jamie travels internationally teaching on topics related to trauma, EMDR therapy, expressive arts, mindfulness, and yoga, while maintaining a private practice and online education operations in her home base of Akron, OH. Marich is the founder of the Institute for Creative Mindfulness and the developer of the Dancing Mindfulness approach to expressive arts therapy. Her personal memoir about surviving spiritual abuse called You Lied to Me About God came out in October 2024.

Dr. Dick Schwartz began his career as a family therapist and an academic at the University of Illinois at Chicago. There his 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 he calls Self. From these explorations the Internal Family Systems (IFS) model was born in the early 1980s. IFS is now evidence-based and has become a widely-used form of psychotherapy, particularly with trauma. It provides a non-pathologizing, optimistic, and empowering perspective and a practical and effective set of techniques for working with individuals, couples, families, and more recently, corporations and classrooms.

Learn more about Dr. Jamie Marich here.

Learn more about Dr. Dick Schwartz and IFS here.

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