How to Transform Trauma with IFS Therapy | Dr. Richard Schwartz & Dr. Andrew Huberman

00:00:00.000 | - How do you define a trauma and why do you think it is

00:00:05.000 | that traumas tend to lock us into a state

00:00:13.740 | that was representative of an earlier time?

00:00:17.260 | Why is it that it's so linked

00:00:18.500 | to this thing of time perception?

00:00:21.680 | - Yeah, the why question I can't totally answer,

00:00:24.540 | but it definitely is.

00:00:26.060 | And for me, traumas aren't necessarily traumatizing.

00:00:28.980 | So something bad happens to you.

00:00:32.440 | And if you can access what you and Martha Beck

00:00:36.620 | were calling the self, capitalize,

00:00:40.060 | and you go to the part of you that got hurt

00:00:42.100 | by what happened, instead of pushing it away

00:00:45.140 | and locking it up, and you embrace it,

00:00:47.180 | and you bring it closer to you,

00:00:50.340 | which means going to your suffering,

00:00:52.660 | which is counter to what most of us try to do.

00:00:56.540 | But if you were to do that and you could help it

00:01:00.020 | unload the feelings it got from the trauma,

00:01:03.080 | then you're not traumatized.

00:01:04.900 | What's traumatizing is something bad happens,

00:01:09.820 | these more vulnerable parts of us,

00:01:12.020 | the most sensitive parts of us get hurt

00:01:14.700 | or feel worthless because of what happened

00:01:16.980 | or get terrified, and then we lock them away

00:01:20.380 | because we don't want to feel that feeling anymore.

00:01:24.500 | And everybody around us tells us to just let it go,

00:01:27.780 | just move on, don't look back.

00:01:30.380 | And so we wind up exiling our most sensitive parts

00:01:34.760 | simply because they got hurt.

00:01:36.460 | And then when you have a lot of exiles,

00:01:40.260 | you feel more delicate, the world seems more dangerous,

00:01:44.740 | 'cause anything could trigger that.

00:01:46.220 | And when they get triggered, they'll blow up,

00:01:48.780 | they'll take over.

00:01:50.340 | So it's like these flames of raw emotion come popping out.

00:01:54.780 | So other parts are forced into these manager roles

00:01:59.140 | or these protective roles.

00:02:02.060 | And some of them are trying to manage your life

00:02:04.180 | so that you don't get triggered anymore,

00:02:05.840 | so that, for example, nobody gets close enough to you

00:02:09.860 | to trigger any of that.

00:02:12.100 | Or so you look really good so you don't get rejected

00:02:16.500 | or perform at a really high level

00:02:18.700 | to counter the worthlessness.

00:02:21.020 | Many of those become the critics

00:02:22.820 | because in their effort to try to get you to look good,

00:02:26.020 | they're yelling at you to try and behave

00:02:27.780 | and do what they want so you look better.

00:02:30.440 | And then there are other what we call manager protectors

00:02:35.580 | that are, for some people, particularly women,

00:02:39.580 | have these massive caretaking parts

00:02:41.920 | that don't let them take care of themselves

00:02:43.660 | and take care of everybody else.

00:02:45.100 | And so I could go on and on.

00:02:46.580 | There's a lot of common manager roles.

00:02:50.420 | And I want to make clear as I'm talking about this

00:02:52.740 | that these are not the essence of the parts,

00:02:54.620 | and that's a big mistake that most of the field has made

00:02:57.820 | is to assume the critic

00:02:59.900 | is just an internalized, critical, parental voice

00:03:03.460 | instead of listening to it

00:03:06.300 | and hearing that it's desperately trying to protect you.

00:03:08.900 | So none of these are what they seem.

00:03:10.720 | That's the role they've been forced into.

00:03:12.700 | And the analogy, again, is to an external family

00:03:16.420 | like kids in dysfunctional families

00:03:20.300 | are forced into these extreme roles

00:03:23.060 | that aren't who they are.

00:03:24.220 | It's the role they got forced into

00:03:25.600 | by the dynamics of the family.

00:03:27.860 | So the same is true with this internal family.

00:03:30.160 | So most of us have a lot of what we call managers.

00:03:35.900 | They got us here.

00:03:37.220 | They help us in our careers,

00:03:40.180 | and they, other systems would call them the defenses

00:03:43.060 | or the ego.

00:03:44.740 | And, you know, in spirituality, they get vilified, too.

00:03:47.740 | But their whole MO is keep everything under control,

00:03:53.660 | please everybody, and you'll survive.

00:03:58.340 | The world has a way of breaking through those defenses,

00:04:00.740 | triggering an exile.

00:04:02.700 | When that happens, it's a big emergency

00:04:04.940 | 'cause, again, these flames of raw emotion

00:04:07.420 | are gonna overwhelm you

00:04:08.900 | and make you have trouble functioning

00:04:11.420 | or even getting out of bed.

00:04:14.020 | So there are other parts that immediately go into action

00:04:16.740 | to deal with that emergency.

00:04:18.260 | And in contrast to these managers,

00:04:22.380 | they're impulsive, reactive, damn the torpedoes.

00:04:26.500 | I don't care about the collateral damage to your body,

00:04:29.860 | to your relationships.

00:04:31.580 | I just got to get you higher than those flames

00:04:33.700 | or douse them with some substance

00:04:35.860 | or distract you till they burn themselves out.

00:04:39.180 | So we call those firefighters.

00:04:41.740 | And again, these are just the roles.

00:04:44.060 | When released from these roles,

00:04:45.340 | they'll transform into being something very valuable.

00:04:48.860 | [upbeat music]

00:04:52.260 | [dramatic music]

00:04:55.020 | (upbeat music)

How to Transform Trauma with IFS Therapy | Dr. Richard Schwartz & Dr. Andrew Huberman

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