Is it Really True there are No Bad Parts of You?
Image by Melissa Walker Horn/Unsplash
If you are at all familiar with internal family systems therapy, you will have come across the idea that there are no bad parts of us. This notion was popularised by the founder of IFS, Dr Richard Schwartz. In his seminal self-help book, No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma & Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model, Dr Schwartz argues that every part of us means well, even if they are not always helpful. For example, your Worrier – a part that might drive you crazy if you’re prone to anxiety and chronic worry – is just trying to protect you by anticipating every bad thing that might happen, then coming up with solutions in advance.
In my work with clients, I tell them to distinguish between the intention of a part and the method it uses to achieve that intention. For the Worrier, the intention (protecting you from harm) is noble and good. But the method (waking you up at 3am to make you think obsessively about the boiler that needs fixing) can be crazy-making and downright unhelpful. But I love the idea of no bad parts and it’s foundational in my work with clients, because it helps us approach every part – even extreme parts, like drug-taking soothers or self-harming parts – with curiosity, compassion and respect.
I heard Dr Schwartz on a podcast recently talking about his book and the doubts he had before writing it about whether no parts could be considered bad. To test his theory, he consulted with a prison and did IFS sessions with those convicted of the most heinous crimes, such as murderers, to see whether even they had no bad parts. How about the part that made them murder another human being? Surely they were bad. In fact, what Dr Schwartz found when he spoke to the murderers was that they had experienced truly awful childhoods, rife with trauma, abuse and neglect. And a part of them developed that was fiercely determined to never let anyone hurt them like that again.
This part was willing to do anything, even murder another person, to stop the vulnerable young child inside them from being traumatised again. So Dr Schwartz’s theory was confirmed, as was the idea that we must separate laudable intention (warding off harm) from the horrendous method (killing someone). This might all seem a bit extreme, and like it has nothing to do with you, but we all have parts of us that are in what Carl Jung famously called our shadow. Those bits of you that you’re ashamed of, keep hidden from the world, or wish didn’t exist. The bitter, judgemental or hostile parts that you keep hidden from the world, in the shadow of your unconscious mind.
Every part of you is trying their best
If you have tried IFS therapy, or experience it in future, you will learn that every part of you – even these shadow parts – is trying their best. The little kids inside you who are so hurt, vulnerable and raw, these young ones are just hanging in there, praying that someone comes to help. They are full of so many hurtful feelings, memories and experiences from the past, they don’t have a bad bone in their body. They may cause trouble, when they come whooshing up in an important meeting, or at parents’ evening, filling you with anxiety, upset or feelings of abandonment. But these little guys can’t help it – they are just desperate for attention, validation and healing.
Then there are the parts trying to protect these hurt ones, by any means necessary. So worriers worry, critics criticise, soothers drink or drug or spend their way out of pain, perfectionists try to make you so perfect nobody ever judges or shames you like your relentlessly demanding parents did. And these are the parts that can get extreme, like the ones who make you take opioids, self-harm or even attempt suicide. These are the easiest parts to label bad, because they can cause so much chaos and confusion in your life. But once you get to know them, you will discover that they are far from bad – their method for protecting you may be terrible, but they don’t mean any harm. These protectors are just trying to help, to keep you safe, to stop the bad things happening again.
As Carl Jung taught us decades ago, the path to true health and happiness lies in integration. The more we can embrace every part of us – even the most extreme or dislikable ones – the calmer, happier and healthier we will be. And the more we can wrap our arms around those hard-to-love aspects of us, the more we can approach other people with kindness and compassion, even if we find them unpleasant in some way and want to avoid them like the plague.
Dr Schwartz, as so often, lives his values by meeting even the most shunned and rejected members of society with warmth, curiosity and compassion. That doesn’t mean he condones what they have done, or thinks they should not experience consequences for their crimes. It just means he sees the humanity in them – and especially the little boy or girl inside, desperate for love and forgiveness, whatever the more aggressive parts of them may have done.
If you would like to know more about IFS, here is a helpful guide to its core principles. You might also like to watch my webinar, Trauma Healing with Internal Family Systems, which you can watch now by clicking on the button below.
I hope you enjoy it – and sending warm thoughts to you and every part of you, even those hard-to-love ones.
Love,
Dan ❤️
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