I'm super happy you are doing these IFS episodes. I've been wishing you'd do these since Awakening from the meaning crisis. Also, Marc's changed the way I think about addiction. Thank you both PS: IFS is
Lovely conversation, common introspection and exploration John and Marc! Love Marc's gentle humility :) and John's endless inquiry and childlike curiosity.
Thank you John. Your critical voice is needed to help IFS develop and become more robust. Looking forward to more of these discussions and Marc Lewis is wonderful. Have you ever gone through a full unburdening of an exile in your IFS work? I don't remember if you've mentioned this in your previous IFS videos. Sue McConnell would be an interesting guest to bring an expert perspective on the embodiment of the practice.
I'm training to be a psychodynamic therapist but I have found this very useful. I can see the problem of getting lost in the narrative from the psychoanalytic approach whereas this focuses on the most raw and alive aspect of therapy. Please talk again about the developmental issues! Thank you for this lovely conversation. Karolina.
@@johnvervaeke The Stoa (with Peter Limberg) recently did a short series on ‘entities’ where Robert Falconer was one of their speakers. On the topic of evil, another one of their speakers, Dr. Richard Gallagher (speaking on demons and possessions) might also be of interest, though I understand (for several reasons) if you’re hesitant to venture into this territory. A dialogue between Gallagher and Falconer could be fascinating; Falconer asked Gallagher a question in Gallaghers talk, however, I felt it wasn’t properly adressed. Thank you for your incredible work, John! Peace
Yesterday, I have met person who exactly looks like Dr.Lewis, he greeted me with graceful voice and it was good experience. If not real him, it would be good thing for me^^
I was texting with someone about Mark 9: 43-47 this morning; he (a "none") was struck by the "cut it off" command. First I responded that it's good that people generally don't actually do what the Bible tells them to do, but then it occured to me that often people do 'cut off' parts of themselves due to religious conviction. I was thinking more in line with a figurative cutting off of body parts - denying themselves natural pleasures - but your question as to "what about people who don't want to recognise any voice other than Jesus'" made me think of this verse too.
To help clients integrate the inner critic, you can ask them, "what is the inner critic trying to protect you from in the outer world? What is the good intent or intention of the inner critic?" Because ultimately that is what its mission is and where it comes from, a self-protective reflex.
First of all thank you very much for this dialogue. I personally feel like one of the implicite goals of IFS is to become able to relate to your parts from an agapic way of relating. From that point of view you would be interested in the parts themselves and not in the part because you can ameliorate them and therefore ameliorate yourself. That would be a Eros way of relating to your parts. Once you accomplish this I feel you can actually teach these parts how to accept their own particuliar suffering. Because to be able to embrase the agapic way you need to fuly accept your own suffering. That lead me to the conclusion that to tend towards inner peace one must relate to himself and is parts in an agapic manner. Any thoughts on that would be very much appreciated
Outside of the therapuetic setting, there is movement towards a non-monadic conception of the self. Phillip Bromberg's self-states model of personality seems to be gaining purchase. Thank you for sharing 🙏
I'd like to see more effort at theorizing IFS. This was a good start, with many good questions. Dr. Lewis acknowledged the questions, but I didn't feel a path forward to understanding how this fits into the broader pictures coming out of cognitive science that Dr. Vervaeke has explicated elsewhere.
25:50 “it feels like human beings used to always do this, and then we moderns we have the buffered self” This reminded me of the hypothesis I once came across about the gods who appear to the heros in the Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey being part of what we now recognize as inner dialogue stemming from ourselves but that humans at the time experienced as “external” to them.
We can think of these different parts as demons or daimons and their through-line as the daimonic, that which can possess us and usurp the control of the mind. For example, eros is a daimon as well as anger is a daimon. In his book Love and Will, the existential psychologist Rollo May has a chapter titled "The Daimonic in Dialogue" in which he emphasizes the necessity of dialogue with the daimonic to integrate it with the whole personality. He identifies three stages of the daimonic, the third of which is the trans-rational stage. In this stage the daimonic moves us toward the logos; in other words, in the trans-rational stage, the daimonic expresses itself optimally through the logos.
Very interesting talk and collaboration! I loved the book Biology of desire after your recommendation, John. About the theory vs therapy aspect: James Fadiman and Jordan Gruber have integrated many ‘multiple selves / parts’ theories in their book ‘Your symphony of selves’. Maybe talk to (one of) them next to further the theory building process?
Seat of consciousness, the Pattern of fiery lines embedded by much ritual over new territory for the same opportunity in the trigger for at least two brilliant bits of info, probably three to match the three leaps. How are you being objectified, what is your response, and the partitioning of mind space from 18 objects of 300 milliseconds each to three objects every second and a half then a quarter turn and continue, as a 3 second object. The quarter turn allows for switch bounce and avoids distortion later on. a leap to allow from understanding, then realizing the brilliant info in the trigger and loving that upon reflection. Amazing guest, so clear and practical. Thanks.
I think Self can be seen as something similar to Buddha Nature or tathagatagarbha. As we find pure awareness we find that it is compassion. I think maybe you called it Busho which is a Zen formulation of this concept. I like how you brought in the metta practices because there is a way we can use this to open ourself to the awareness of these "parts" or constellations of the mind without resistance.
Linking this to Zen: you might enjoy Genpo Roshi's Big Mind process, which is based in Voice Dialogue, by Hal and Sidra Stone. He speaks directly to the voices we have in ourselves, their opposites, and the apex of the two. Genpo teaches and uses this technique to help students connect with all parts of themselves, give them a voice, and be at ease with them. It also helps people get insights much quicker than with other Zen teaching tools (zazen and koans).
❤ P.S. I suspect the very detailed and specific, gentle, intra and inter-personal practices developed by Thich Nhat Hanh and the Plum Village community take us a long way into the territory of applying IFS to 'being a decent person', even tho they aren't,t nominally IFS...
Have you ever thought of switching to more of an interview format on your channel. The questions you asked were incredible, especially towards the end, and he seemed to appreciate that. Would love to see you interview other specialists in these fields with your poignant questions.
I think it may be helpful to go into the concept and practice of Jung's Active Imagination and the IFS talkin to parts - I was hoping for that to occur near the beginning of their conversation when Marc started talking about Jung's idea of complex.
As someone who went through 27 IFS sessions, I disagree with Marc about the "6 to 10 sessions" of IFS helping people. When you're dealing with chronic toxic shame, you're out to please the therapist, because you believe you're not good enough and fundamentally broken and insufficient. That's why you try very hard to hit every note and you feel every prompt from the therapist as a personal criticism. You have a "Self-like protector" who tries his damndest to go through and do the IFS correctly as described in the book. After those 27 sessions, when I finally had a glimpse of the authentic Self for the first time in a long time, the therapist told me "I'm sorry for not seeing the self-like protector." I mean: "Come ON! Are you kidding me! If you know how serious a problem this is, shouldn't this be the VERY FIRST thing you check out! Especially, when you are 'level 3 IFS' therapist?!" Utterly bizarre!!! I ended the IFS and switched therapists to someone who is informed in attachment, polyvagal theory, AEDP, DBR (deep brain relaxation), somatic work (as well as IFS among other things). Since the first session with the new therapist I started to feel noticeably more relaxed and better to access my body (noticeable especially during meditation) by not trying to change them or interfere or measure up to some meditative standard. My old therapist definitely was NOT in the Self - ironically enough! Another issue to touch on is the exceptional potential of IFS to start various online cults and tribes, where one believes this about the Self while the other believes otherwise. This comes from the explicit fast-food nature of how IFS is presented. I'm also dismayed at how very little personal difference is there between individual IFS therapists. The two I've tried, before settling down with the current one, were remarkably similar down to a T. I thought this is profoundly idolatrous way of training and certifying people. They are so obsessed with every minutiae of the IFS process that they loose sight of the forest for the trees. Classical left-hemi perceptual phenomenology. Granted, the two therapist had IFS as their only modality, while the current therapist has decades of experience and several modalities to draw upon.
I am watching this video more than one time, addiction therapy's empowerment is great thing to grasp. Dr.Lewis is great pro who can help people and his endeavor to research through the topics are what I think great part in humanity not only science. Sometimes, the label of addiction becomes metaphor in both ways healing or normative, it would be way of not becoming this thing when we close look at it by addiction is not disease. The most safest drug such as Risperidone, I am curious about addiction could be possible by this drug too, although known as safest drug in its mechanism. If not, it is not effective in my life ^^
I can totally relate to feeling compassion for the parts of myself that feel lonely, as described at 24:30 However, might there also be situations where a member of the internal family needs to be told to grow up? Take, for example, an obsessive hatred of someone who has insulted you. The pain of the insult stems in large part from feeling inferior to that person. So, I don't think this situation necessarily calls for a sensitive response. It might be better to say to the hurt part: “Get over yourself, you pathetic excuse for a man.”
Often the problem isnt that you need to grow up but that the parts that try to shield you and protect you see you as a child or a teenager and they are stuck at that age. In IFS we update the protectors amd then they often can accept we are more capable than they thought and let go of making us do things which are not good for us.
The part that feels hatred is possibly a protector which is defending the hurt part. Telling a hurt part to grow up rarely works, but being with it and offering compassion amd comfort helps the exile feel better. Then it can release the feelings of inferiority and the hatefilled protector doesnt need to send all that hatred anymore.
Thank you for this (as always) thought-provoking dialogue. It made me think about ‘what makes a part a part?’ That it seems parts only exist in relation to other parts. For a part to exist it has to be in conflict with one or more other parts. It may stand out (have relevance) due to its needs, desired, outcomes being less aligned with the majority of other parts, which in-turn appear more adaptive to a present-day context. It is an outcast that isn’t fitting in with the current times and context, often resulting in self-prejudice and hate towards it. However, I don’t think prejudice and hate are a given under that scenario. Then I ask, where does the hate and prejudice part come from? And, what is its role in maintaining part non-integration? Then I thought, Marc has a point, you need to bring development (and therefore internal working models) into the discussion.
I also thank for both pros and it would be helpful to extend my knowing about therapy and it would be helpful to other people too ^^ The therapists are great mentality role model!!^^
Documents sent forth throughout the Clouds! Resting upon the NEW Permanent Foundation. Freely give and truly received. Without asking for return! But all my Father God will draws near! Will the SON received with delight!
A thought occurred to me when watching this that I suspect might be possible, but I’m unsure: could IFS be used to engage with parts of yourself that you like and want to cultivate?
Keith I love your question. I’m a practicing Psychotherapist with advanced training and I offer Parts Work as one of many modalities in my private practice. I seem to attract artists, writers and creative people who are experiencing blocks to creativity. I use Parts Work to quiet or tend to aspects of internal experience that interfere with creativity or productivity, so that the person can locate and expand on a part of themselves that they love and long to access (ex: the creative part, the spiritually oriented part, etc). Most of my clients come to me for help with unresolved trauma and in this case one does have to locate and expand on resources within internal experience or elsewhere before we move toward the unresolved trauma. So to answer your question, YES, you can and locate something inside yourself that is good, or loving, or loveable, and get to know that part, and expand on it, and assist it so that it will take up more space and grow.
Sure you can and I would even say should. The truth is that as you get more integrated you get to like most of your parts and appreciate their quirks and good qualities.
Stab at a theory: The subjective aspects of the transjective relationship between the agent and arena, when reflected upon, manifest as a contextual pure fabrication of an instance of self. Recurring contextual patterns allow those fabrications to become opaque, characterized and named. When the object is the self itself, precision weighting is removed from the arena or specific context and focused on the fabrication of self, as the object of its own recurring transjective relationship.
Awesome. A slight objectification that seems best unfolded again as care, but isn't this because the precision weighting is removed from objects, for non-object self? Sort of an enhanced ground effect that could be the transjective, where two objects provide impetus when they meet and self as the connection that pulls the two objects together. Reminds me of this toy when I was a kid that we called clackers, two very bouncy hard balls with rope between and you could clack the balls together, very dangerous and soon banned.
@@projectmalus we had those too! I think they called them Kabonkerd in the US. I see kids with them in latin america sometimes. I think it depends how we define self. My working definition above is the transjective agent arena relationship and largely a function of the arena. When absorbed in flow and mars lander, self awareness goes down along with available precision. But from an outside context one could engage the imaginal to channel or invoke the Mars Lander “me” to communicate with that perspective out of context. And the internal family is a collection of abstract selves which are commonly invoked across related situations - like craving, or bargaining. So perhaps what we regard as “true self” in context of IFS could be a gestault of present selves or even an image thats been constructed over years of occasional self reflection and definition. This would allow some consistent theoretical basis for the practice, because we can retain the idea that self is pure fabrication - but a context dependent and RELATIVE fabrication - self “as such” (tathagata) being just an epitome of that, and thus not interfering with the validity of the practice. I would be curious to find out if anyone finds it to be a useful perspective.
I think that's an excellent grounding for looking at things like enhanced negativity, if self is between objects in right relations then what is understanding but the right action with the right knowledge that unfolds intelligence, so if self positions between organs of their body and that body positioned in a world system, what is enhanced negativity? Also the two world myth seems like a teeter totter with one self up in the air with all that potential energy, then down low as anchor for the "other". This self as bubble moves up from their inner floating to that powerful place, then sinks down with the weight of their importance, as the collective and the knowledge of enhanced negativity which isn't connected to the right action so is without understanding, is powerful but squirmy. Just as bad is the carousel, all segments and flat ontology portioned out, the center a trap like a vortex. This is when the "object" of the teeter totter decides to reside at the fulcrum/lever position and "visit" higher and lower, without understanding which again I see as right action with right knowledge. I think this is correct as a Maypole dance, you can see self as that curved sine wave between higher and lower.
To go further and actually explain the enhanced negativity, if this cone of the maypole dance is a basic ontological unit, where does separation come from and how does it manifest? I think it manifests as two cones that join since they both can't exist in the same place. This is the hourglass shape which is the teeter totter, and the spinning top of the carousel. Where did they come from? The right action and the right knowledge allowed understanding, so back in the day the "cone" of the circle around the fire allowed humans to consume grass as emergency food that saved the day, the understanding. This accumulates in one's body and this separation created the knowledge pool, as a collective endeavor which is powerful but not necessarily connected to the right action for the person. This is the problem, the ramping up of production because it's easy, and the stress from that producing knowledge that tries to tie back to understanding, knowledge with the right action, so becomes propositional in fixing problems. This idea might sound reductionist but is identifying the most efficacious start point in awakening collectively.
One more thing I think is to replace an outdated ontology with a better one is to be responsible, so John is doing that, and the point is that we don't need that physical separation anymore, it is now counterproductive, we have the mind separation and the knowledge pool. We can go back to being children dancing as the cone, with understanding. This fixes the existential feeling of powerlessness from understanding this idea. There is no blame attached to it either, it all happened for good reasons in the moment. The hard part is understanding the two natures of compromise in the different time frames for the individual, compromise to begin with and not overall in my opinion works, and maybe this is good for the collective human too. People don't get cleansing since they don't know of the extent of the accumulation. Like with PFOS, it starts before they're born. To accept, forgive and understand is divine as the string in the maypole dance. De-vine, get it? :)
Hey John. Did you read my message about the Flower Power Project? You understand the relevance of what I did, right? What's your opinion on the whole thing?
A step 4 inventory proccess, where's the fear coming from? What's threatening my security, social or sexual instincts. Look at the characters in the theater of my mind. Mark Houston and Joe Hawk.
1 hr 9 min it's not lying when those agents are squirrels in their place interacting with you as gardener, also birds in the mix, with silence between the communications. The trust and honesty are profound, perhaps this environment shaped the perception and now it's missing for many. Although pets can provide this, sometimes freedoms are lost with some finery of expression. What the grass family does to people, people do to their pets as control thru food in a master and slave relation, but not always. The estrangement from their outer environment as pack animals and people's estrangement with their inner environment or family. If those are organs with self between those and brain, those and organs in the world system, the nature of the viscous and sticky is to go where it can and have different effects - and names - as different places. While this reductionism is great for understanding effects it says nothing about exponential growth in rates of production of this stuff. Except for noting the Sea Peoples as perhaps having a role in civilizational decline, where first they bring grain and rice, then drugs and finally weapons as these become needed.
IFS is horrible. It defines addiction in terms of addiction rather than in terms of substance use disorder or excess (gambling, eating, etc) it then isolates the individual to promote a disassociated approach towards handling psychological and use considerations. We all have archetypes that we relate to and can apply to our points of view. However IFS not only separates personal identity dynamic into segmented parts but it also makes the assumption that each part communicates with or alters the other - as if you and your alt (disassociative identity disorder) are in communication in order to handle those issues. "Oh don't worry my firefighter will handle that when he talks to my manager" "who's that?" "Me myself and I"
8:48 conveys my point. You're trying to look at the consideration of self from the outside and get your "parts" to communicate. It convolutes the issue for those facing substance use disorder. They're already IN THE THICK OF IT and to separate their perception from their self to create a conversation between parts makes their struggle that much more difficult. It doesn't even consider issues of harm associated with the act.
Actually IFS sees the addiction as a process not just one part, its a system of parts. The parts are often not aware of each other and dont know why the other parts behave a certain way. When you interview one part and the other part actually hears what is motivating it, it usually softens and there is less of a tug of war in the system. IFS relies on the healing power of the true self which helps the parts and brings integration. It is the kind of thing you can only understand when you experience it. I have found it very effective and powerful.
@@intuitiveifstherapy sounds like disassociation to me. I don;t have numerous parts within my internal system talking to each other to face and solve addiction. This system doesn't hit the root of the issue which is found in necessity being met - meeting the needs of the social determinants of health and the driving factors of addiction itself. I don't need to go MPD to face my addiction.
@@intuitiveifstherapy any person truly facing issues of addiction isn't separating their true self from parts of an addicted whole. They're already IN the state of need for the substance or social abuse.
you need to bring up co-dependency and the fact that "parts" lie because they simply want to be taken care of and they become parasites. think of an infant that wants to stay in the womb forever. of course, this will kill the mother-- however, the mother image is shat on and the "part" simply doesn't care, as long as it gets completely taken care of while doing the least amount of personal work. is this a "family?" nope.
Uhh, John. IFS teaches people that there are LITERAL entities inside them. Not metaphors of parts. LITERAL parts. This is an absolutely BONKERS framework. Did you know that they tell people they can have negative entities reside inside them, which they call "unattached burdens"? Dick Schwartz says they are LITERAL. This is BONKERS. Especially with mentally disturbed folks. I was neutral on this therapy until I learned this. Now I'm dead set against it.
@@LeahBensonTherapyTampa I have consistently argued that such dialogical parts are transjective in nature. If literal means objectively existing then I agree with you. Many of the people I talk to about IFS agree with me on this.
@@johnvervaeke Literal in the words of Dick Schwartz means objectively existing as far as I understand it. He's very clear about this in repeated interviews. These are ENTITIES according to him. Not "a psychological concept," not a metaphor, not "something that transcends the distinction between subjective and objective, or referring to a property not of the subject or the environment but a relatedness co-created between them." LITERAL. He means literal entities that exist within a person that have their own thoughts ideas, etc. It's not okay. It's a recipe for psychosis in the right mind.
@@LeahBensonTherapyTampa Yes I disagree with that ontology completely. It also misses the fact that these entities afford us challenging the presumed exhaustive completeness id the Cartesian framework.
@@johnvervaeke - It is a system of therapy that will inevitably install or solidify "bad beliefs" at the top of the heirarchy for already tenuously stable minds. It needs to be called to the carpet and its ontology investigated by the likes of you and others who lead cogntive philosophy and science. IFS is a danger clinically for those most vulnerable. Full stop.
@@johnvervaeke You should chat to Justin Riddle a cognitive scientist / psychology researcher at Florida State, he and Jonathon Schooler recently published a paper on their nested observer windows model of consciousness which I think could be utilised to provide a more solid theoretical underpinning to IFS. I think it's very neat.... pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38504828/
Holy anagogy I’ve been having transformative embodied wet dreams about this collab for ages. Let’s get perspectival on this dia ducking logos!
I'm super happy you are doing these IFS episodes. I've been wishing you'd do these since Awakening from the meaning crisis. Also, Marc's changed the way I think about addiction.
Thank you both
PS: IFS is
Lovely conversation, common introspection and exploration John and Marc! Love Marc's gentle humility :) and John's endless inquiry and childlike curiosity.
Very good discussion that brought up a lot of important questions and scrutiny that doesn't get talked about much - if at all.
So excited! Dr Lewis’s books on addiction were massively influential for me. Thank you both!
thank you very much this was amazing ❤
Thank you John. Your critical voice is needed to help IFS develop and become more robust. Looking forward to more of these discussions and Marc Lewis is wonderful. Have you ever gone through a full unburdening of an exile in your IFS work? I don't remember if you've mentioned this in your previous IFS videos. Sue McConnell would be an interesting guest to bring an expert perspective on the embodiment of the practice.
I'm training to be a psychodynamic therapist but I have found this very useful. I can see the problem of getting lost in the narrative from the psychoanalytic approach whereas this focuses on the most raw and alive aspect of therapy. Please talk again about the developmental issues! Thank you for this lovely conversation. Karolina.
On the topic of possession, there is a book that covers this: The Others Within by Robert Falconer, an IFS practitioner who delved deeply into this.
@@jimfarnham8978 yes I trying to make arrangements to speak with Robert.
This has been coming up in at least 5 different corners of the internet I consume content from.
@@johnvervaekeI love you are brave enough to explore these "weird" areas
@@johnvervaeke The Stoa (with Peter Limberg) recently did a short series on ‘entities’ where Robert Falconer was one of their speakers.
On the topic of evil, another one of their speakers, Dr. Richard Gallagher (speaking on demons and possessions) might also be of interest, though I understand (for several reasons) if you’re hesitant to venture into this territory.
A dialogue between Gallagher and Falconer could be fascinating; Falconer asked Gallagher a question in Gallaghers talk, however, I felt it wasn’t properly adressed.
Thank you for your incredible work, John!
Peace
Wonderful! My entire body is humming with anticipation for this! You both have my most profound thanks for your respective works.
Pop Marc I thank you for thy visitation to comfort the COMFORTER! And having sincere conversations with my Pop John!
Yesterday, I have met person who exactly looks like Dr.Lewis, he greeted me with graceful voice and it was good experience. If not real him, it would be good thing for me^^
I love "The Biology of Desire!" great guest.
I was texting with someone about Mark 9: 43-47 this morning; he (a "none") was struck by the "cut it off" command. First I responded that it's good that people generally don't actually do what the Bible tells them to do, but then it occured to me that often people do 'cut off' parts of themselves due to religious conviction. I was thinking more in line with a figurative cutting off of body parts - denying themselves natural pleasures - but your question as to "what about people who don't want to recognise any voice other than Jesus'" made me think of this verse too.
To help clients integrate the inner critic, you can ask them, "what is the inner critic trying to protect you from in the outer world? What is the good intent or intention of the inner critic?" Because ultimately that is what its mission is and where it comes from, a self-protective reflex.
First of all thank you very much for this dialogue.
I personally feel like one of the implicite goals of IFS is to become able to relate to your parts from an agapic way of relating. From that point of view you would be interested in the parts themselves and not in the part because you can ameliorate them and therefore ameliorate yourself. That would be a Eros way of relating to your parts. Once you accomplish this I feel you can actually teach these parts how to accept their own particuliar suffering. Because to be able to embrase the agapic way you need to fuly accept your own suffering. That lead me to the conclusion that to tend towards inner peace one must relate to himself and is parts in an agapic manner.
Any thoughts on that would be very much appreciated
@@elodybourgouin7786 I agree and I have explored that in my conversations with Seth and Kasra
Outside of the therapuetic setting, there is movement towards a non-monadic conception of the self. Phillip Bromberg's self-states model of personality seems to be gaining purchase. Thank you for sharing 🙏
I'd like to see more effort at theorizing IFS. This was a good start, with many good questions. Dr. Lewis acknowledged the questions, but I didn't feel a path forward to understanding how this fits into the broader pictures coming out of cognitive science that Dr. Vervaeke has explicated elsewhere.
25:50 “it feels like human beings used to always do this, and then we moderns we have the buffered self”
This reminded me of the hypothesis I once came across about the gods who appear to the heros in the Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey being part of what we now recognize as inner dialogue stemming from ourselves but that humans at the time experienced as “external” to them.
Pop it will be great. To be able to support! Thank you for understanding!
Pops the SON freely give and truly received!
We can think of these different parts as demons or daimons and their through-line as the daimonic, that which can possess us and usurp the control of the mind. For example, eros is a daimon as well as anger is a daimon. In his book Love and Will, the existential psychologist Rollo May has a chapter titled "The Daimonic in Dialogue" in which he emphasizes the necessity of dialogue with the daimonic to integrate it with the whole personality. He identifies three stages of the daimonic, the third of which is the trans-rational stage. In this stage the daimonic moves us toward the logos; in other words, in the trans-rational stage, the daimonic expresses itself optimally through the logos.
Very interesting talk and collaboration! I loved the book Biology of desire after your recommendation, John.
About the theory vs therapy aspect: James Fadiman and Jordan Gruber have integrated many ‘multiple selves / parts’ theories in their book ‘Your symphony of selves’. Maybe talk to (one of) them next to further the theory building process?
We have to be able to accept that there are many parts of us that are lonely. We live in a lonely culture.
Seat of consciousness, the Pattern of fiery lines embedded by much ritual over new territory for the same opportunity in the trigger for at least two brilliant bits of info, probably three to match the three leaps. How are you being objectified, what is your response, and the partitioning of mind space from 18 objects of 300 milliseconds each to three objects every second and a half then a quarter turn and continue, as a 3 second object. The quarter turn allows for switch bounce and avoids distortion later on. a leap to allow from understanding, then realizing the brilliant info in the trigger and loving that upon reflection. Amazing guest, so clear and practical. Thanks.
This makes me happy!
I think Self can be seen as something similar to Buddha Nature or tathagatagarbha. As we find pure awareness we find that it is compassion. I think maybe you called it Busho which is a Zen formulation of this concept. I like how you brought in the metta practices because there is a way we can use this to open ourself to the awareness of these "parts" or constellations of the mind without resistance.
Linking this to Zen: you might enjoy Genpo Roshi's Big Mind process, which is based in Voice Dialogue, by Hal and Sidra Stone. He speaks directly to the voices we have in ourselves, their opposites, and the apex of the two. Genpo teaches and uses this technique to help students connect with all parts of themselves, give them a voice, and be at ease with them. It also helps people get insights much quicker than with other Zen teaching tools (zazen and koans).
@@SoZen08 thanks
I will check it out
❤
P.S.
I suspect the very detailed and specific, gentle, intra and inter-personal practices developed by Thich Nhat Hanh and the Plum Village community take us a long way into the territory of applying IFS to 'being a decent person', even tho they aren't,t nominally IFS...
Have you ever thought of switching to more of an interview format on your channel. The questions you asked were incredible, especially towards the end, and he seemed to appreciate that. Would love to see you interview other specialists in these fields with your poignant questions.
I think it may be helpful to go into the concept and practice of Jung's Active Imagination and the IFS talkin to parts - I was hoping for that to occur near the beginning of their conversation when Marc started talking about Jung's idea of complex.
Yes that would be interesting. Maybe in the next one.
As someone who went through 27 IFS sessions, I disagree with Marc about the "6 to 10 sessions" of IFS helping people. When you're dealing with chronic toxic shame, you're out to please the therapist, because you believe you're not good enough and fundamentally broken and insufficient. That's why you try very hard to hit every note and you feel every prompt from the therapist as a personal criticism. You have a "Self-like protector" who tries his damndest to go through and do the IFS correctly as described in the book. After those 27 sessions, when I finally had a glimpse of the authentic Self for the first time in a long time, the therapist told me "I'm sorry for not seeing the self-like protector." I mean: "Come ON! Are you kidding me! If you know how serious a problem this is, shouldn't this be the VERY FIRST thing you check out! Especially, when you are 'level 3 IFS' therapist?!" Utterly bizarre!!!
I ended the IFS and switched therapists to someone who is informed in attachment, polyvagal theory, AEDP, DBR (deep brain relaxation), somatic work (as well as IFS among other things). Since the first session with the new therapist I started to feel noticeably more relaxed and better to access my body (noticeable especially during meditation) by not trying to change them or interfere or measure up to some meditative standard. My old therapist definitely was NOT in the Self - ironically enough!
Another issue to touch on is the exceptional potential of IFS to start various online cults and tribes, where one believes this about the Self while the other believes otherwise. This comes from the explicit fast-food nature of how IFS is presented.
I'm also dismayed at how very little personal difference is there between individual IFS therapists. The two I've tried, before settling down with the current one, were remarkably similar down to a T. I thought this is profoundly idolatrous way of training and certifying people. They are so obsessed with every minutiae of the IFS process that they loose sight of the forest for the trees. Classical left-hemi perceptual phenomenology. Granted, the two therapist had IFS as their only modality, while the current therapist has decades of experience and several modalities to draw upon.
I am watching this video more than one time, addiction therapy's empowerment is great thing to grasp. Dr.Lewis is great pro who can help people and his endeavor to research through the topics are what I think great part in humanity not only science. Sometimes, the label of addiction becomes metaphor in both ways healing or normative, it would be way of not becoming this thing when we close look at it by addiction is not disease. The most safest drug such as Risperidone, I am curious about addiction could be possible by this drug too, although known as safest drug in its mechanism. If not, it is not effective in my life ^^
I can totally relate to feeling compassion for the parts of myself that feel lonely, as described at 24:30 However, might there also be situations where a member of the internal family needs to be told to grow up? Take, for example, an obsessive hatred of someone who has insulted you. The pain of the insult stems in large part from feeling inferior to that person. So, I don't think this situation necessarily calls for a sensitive response. It might be better to say to the hurt part: “Get over yourself, you pathetic excuse for a man.”
Often the problem isnt that you need to grow up but that the parts that try to shield you and protect you see you as a child or a teenager and they are stuck at that age. In IFS we update the protectors amd then they often can accept we are more capable than they thought and let go of making us do things which are not good for us.
The part that feels hatred is possibly a protector which is defending the hurt part. Telling a hurt part to grow up rarely works, but being with it and offering compassion amd comfort helps the exile feel better. Then it can release the feelings of inferiority and the hatefilled protector doesnt need to send all that hatred anymore.
Thank you for this (as always) thought-provoking dialogue. It made me think about ‘what makes a part a part?’ That it seems parts only exist in relation to other parts. For a part to exist it has to be in conflict with one or more other parts. It may stand out (have relevance) due to its needs, desired, outcomes being less aligned with the majority of other parts, which in-turn appear more adaptive to a present-day context. It is an outcast that isn’t fitting in with the current times and context, often resulting in self-prejudice and hate towards it. However, I don’t think prejudice and hate are a given under that scenario. Then I ask, where does the hate and prejudice part come from? And, what is its role in maintaining part non-integration? Then I thought, Marc has a point, you need to bring development (and therefore internal working models) into the discussion.
I also thank for both pros and it would be helpful to extend my knowing about therapy and it would be helpful to other people too ^^ The therapists are great mentality role model!!^^
Documents sent forth throughout the Clouds! Resting upon the NEW Permanent Foundation. Freely give and truly received. Without asking for return! But all my Father God will draws near! Will the SON received with delight!
feels like CBT is for people yearning for external authority and certainty.
A thought occurred to me when watching this that I suspect might be possible, but I’m unsure: could IFS be used to engage with parts of yourself that you like and want to cultivate?
Keith I love your question. I’m a practicing Psychotherapist with advanced training and I offer Parts Work as one of many modalities in my private practice. I seem to attract artists, writers and creative people who are experiencing blocks to creativity. I use Parts Work to quiet or tend to aspects of internal experience that interfere with creativity or productivity, so that the person can locate and expand on a part of themselves that they love and long to access (ex: the creative part, the spiritually oriented part, etc). Most of my clients come to me for help with unresolved trauma and in this case one does have to locate and expand on resources within internal experience or elsewhere before we move toward the unresolved trauma. So to answer your question, YES, you can and locate something inside yourself that is good, or loving, or loveable, and get to know that part, and expand on it, and assist it so that it will take up more space and grow.
Sure you can and I would even say should. The truth is that as you get more integrated you get to like most of your parts and appreciate their quirks and good qualities.
Stab at a theory: The subjective aspects of the transjective relationship between the agent and arena, when reflected upon, manifest as a contextual pure fabrication of an instance of self. Recurring contextual patterns allow those fabrications to become opaque, characterized and named. When the object is the self itself, precision weighting is removed from the arena or specific context and focused on the fabrication of self, as the object of its own recurring transjective relationship.
Awesome. A slight objectification that seems best unfolded again as care, but isn't this because the precision weighting is removed from objects, for non-object self? Sort of an enhanced ground effect that could be the transjective, where two objects provide impetus when they meet and self as the connection that pulls the two objects together. Reminds me of this toy when I was a kid that we called clackers, two very bouncy hard balls with rope between and you could clack the balls together, very dangerous and soon banned.
@@projectmalus we had those too! I think they called them Kabonkerd in the US. I see kids with them in latin america sometimes.
I think it depends how we define self. My working definition above is the transjective agent arena relationship and largely a function of the arena. When absorbed in flow and mars lander, self awareness goes down along with available precision.
But from an outside context one could engage the imaginal to channel or invoke the Mars Lander “me” to communicate with that perspective out of context. And the internal family is a collection of abstract selves which are commonly invoked across related situations - like craving, or bargaining.
So perhaps what we regard as “true self” in context of IFS could be a gestault of present selves or even an image thats been constructed over years of occasional self reflection and definition.
This would allow some consistent theoretical basis for the practice, because we can retain the idea that self is pure fabrication - but a context dependent and RELATIVE fabrication - self “as such” (tathagata) being just an epitome of that, and thus not interfering with the validity of the practice.
I would be curious to find out if anyone finds it to be a useful perspective.
I think that's an excellent grounding for looking at things like enhanced negativity, if self is between objects in right relations then what is understanding but the right action with the right knowledge that unfolds intelligence, so if self positions between organs of their body and that body positioned in a world system, what is enhanced negativity?
Also the two world myth seems like a teeter totter with one self up in the air with all that potential energy, then down low as anchor for the "other". This self as bubble moves up from their inner floating to that powerful place, then sinks down with the weight of their importance, as the collective and the knowledge of enhanced negativity which isn't connected to the right action so is without understanding, is powerful but squirmy.
Just as bad is the carousel, all segments and flat ontology portioned out, the center a trap like a vortex. This is when the "object" of the teeter totter decides to reside at the fulcrum/lever position and "visit" higher and lower, without understanding which again I see as right action with right knowledge.
I think this is correct as a Maypole dance, you can see self as that curved sine wave between higher and lower.
To go further and actually explain the enhanced negativity, if this cone of the maypole dance is a basic ontological unit, where does separation come from and how does it manifest?
I think it manifests as two cones that join since they both can't exist in the same place. This is the hourglass shape which is the teeter totter, and the spinning top of the carousel. Where did they come from?
The right action and the right knowledge allowed understanding, so back in the day the "cone" of the circle around the fire allowed humans to consume grass as emergency food that saved the day, the understanding. This accumulates in one's body and this separation created the knowledge pool, as a collective endeavor which is powerful but not necessarily connected to the right action for the person.
This is the problem, the ramping up of production because it's easy, and the stress from that producing knowledge that tries to tie back to understanding, knowledge with the right action, so becomes propositional in fixing problems. This idea might sound reductionist but is identifying the most efficacious start point in awakening collectively.
One more thing I think is to replace an outdated ontology with a better one is to be responsible, so John is doing that, and the point is that we don't need that physical separation anymore, it is now counterproductive, we have the mind separation and the knowledge pool. We can go back to being children dancing as the cone, with understanding.
This fixes the existential feeling of powerlessness from understanding this idea. There is no blame attached to it either, it all happened for good reasons in the moment. The hard part is understanding the two natures of compromise in the different time frames for the individual, compromise to begin with and not overall in my opinion works, and maybe this is good for the collective human too.
People don't get cleansing since they don't know of the extent of the accumulation. Like with PFOS, it starts before they're born. To accept, forgive and understand is divine as the string in the maypole dance. De-vine, get it? :)
Pops should I write a book?
regarding dialogical development of Self see Michael Washburn 's newest work revisioning the self
Hey John. Did you read my message about the Flower Power Project? You understand the relevance of what I did, right? What's your opinion on the whole thing?
"The processes that makes us adaptive also makes us susceptible to self deception" Does this only apply to the self and not the parts?
A step 4 inventory proccess, where's the fear coming from? What's threatening my security, social or sexual instincts. Look at the characters in the theater of my mind. Mark Houston and Joe Hawk.
A solitary self assessment is seldom sufficient. BBp72
Lift thy heads up!
1:07:00 Sounds like EMDR is needed to process that harsh inner critic
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1 hr 9 min it's not lying when those agents are squirrels in their place interacting with you as gardener, also birds in the mix, with silence between the communications. The trust and honesty are profound, perhaps this environment shaped the perception and now it's missing for many. Although pets can provide this, sometimes freedoms are lost with some finery of expression. What the grass family does to people, people do to their pets as control thru food in a master and slave relation, but not always. The estrangement from their outer environment as pack animals and people's estrangement with their inner environment or family. If those are organs with self between those and brain, those and organs in the world system, the nature of the viscous and sticky is to go where it can and have different effects - and names - as different places. While this reductionism is great for understanding effects it says nothing about exponential growth in rates of production of this stuff. Except for noting the Sea Peoples as perhaps having a role in civilizational decline, where first they bring grain and rice, then drugs and finally weapons as these become needed.
Pop John how's my documents?
Is Who "i" AM?
1:10:07 interesting
Selfish come here in front and remind! LORD ye feed! Without charging for thy food and thy water to QUENCH!
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Don't mind the poor RICH YOUNG RULER and nations resting upon HIS SHOULDER!
#LucasForstmeyer
IFS is horrible. It defines addiction in terms of addiction rather than in terms of substance use disorder or excess (gambling, eating, etc) it then isolates the individual to promote a disassociated approach towards handling psychological and use considerations. We all have archetypes that we relate to and can apply to our points of view. However IFS not only separates personal identity dynamic into segmented parts but it also makes the assumption that each part communicates with or alters the other - as if you and your alt (disassociative identity disorder) are in communication in order to handle those issues. "Oh don't worry my firefighter will handle that when he talks to my manager" "who's that?" "Me myself and I"
8:48 conveys my point. You're trying to look at the consideration of self from the outside and get your "parts" to communicate. It convolutes the issue for those facing substance use disorder. They're already IN THE THICK OF IT and to separate their perception from their self to create a conversation between parts makes their struggle that much more difficult. It doesn't even consider issues of harm associated with the act.
Actually IFS sees the addiction as a process not just one part, its a system of parts. The parts are often not aware of each other and dont know why the other parts behave a certain way. When you interview one part and the other part actually hears what is motivating it, it usually softens and there is less of a tug of war in the system. IFS relies on the healing power of the true self which helps the parts and brings integration. It is the kind of thing you can only understand when you experience it. I have found it very effective and powerful.
@@intuitiveifstherapy sounds like disassociation to me. I don;t have numerous parts within my internal system talking to each other to face and solve addiction. This system doesn't hit the root of the issue which is found in necessity being met - meeting the needs of the social determinants of health and the driving factors of addiction itself. I don't need to go MPD to face my addiction.
@@intuitiveifstherapy any person truly facing issues of addiction isn't separating their true self from parts of an addicted whole. They're already IN the state of need for the substance or social abuse.
Pop is thy SON Oliver selfish?
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you need to bring up co-dependency and the fact that "parts" lie because they simply want to be taken care of and they become parasites. think of an infant that wants to stay in the womb forever. of course, this will kill the mother-- however, the mother image is shat on and the "part" simply doesn't care, as long as it gets completely taken care of while doing the least amount of personal work. is this a "family?" nope.
Big part of this interview does not make any sense. Any logical sense
Uhh, John. IFS teaches people that there are LITERAL entities inside them. Not metaphors of parts. LITERAL parts. This is an absolutely BONKERS framework. Did you know that they tell people they can have negative entities reside inside them, which they call "unattached burdens"? Dick Schwartz says they are LITERAL. This is BONKERS. Especially with mentally disturbed folks. I was neutral on this therapy until I learned this. Now I'm dead set against it.
@@LeahBensonTherapyTampa I have consistently argued that such dialogical parts are transjective in nature. If literal means objectively existing then I agree with you. Many of the people I talk to about IFS agree with me on this.
@@johnvervaeke Literal in the words of Dick Schwartz means objectively existing as far as I understand it. He's very clear about this in repeated interviews. These are ENTITIES according to him. Not "a psychological concept," not a metaphor, not "something that transcends the distinction between subjective and objective, or referring to a property not of the subject or the environment but a relatedness co-created between them." LITERAL. He means literal entities that exist within a person that have their own thoughts ideas, etc. It's not okay. It's a recipe for psychosis in the right mind.
@@LeahBensonTherapyTampa Yes I disagree with that ontology completely. It also misses the fact that these entities afford us challenging the presumed exhaustive completeness id the Cartesian framework.
@@johnvervaeke - It is a system of therapy that will inevitably install or solidify "bad beliefs" at the top of the heirarchy for already tenuously stable minds. It needs to be called to the carpet and its ontology investigated by the likes of you and others who lead cogntive philosophy and science. IFS is a danger clinically for those most vulnerable. Full stop.
@@johnvervaeke You should chat to Justin Riddle a cognitive scientist / psychology researcher at Florida State, he and Jonathon Schooler recently published a paper on their nested observer windows model of consciousness which I think could be utilised to provide a more solid theoretical underpinning to IFS. I think it's very neat.... pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38504828/