Schwartz, R. (2021) | References | Narcissus and the Child

What This Research Found

Richard Schwartz's No Bad Parts brings forty years of clinical innovation to general audiences with a message that has transformed how survivors understand their internal experiences: there are no bad parts of you, only parts forced into extreme roles by trauma and life circumstances. This is not mere positive thinking but a clinically grounded framework that explains why trauma survivors feel at war with themselves—and shows how that war can end through understanding rather than force.

The mind is naturally multiple, and this is not pathology. Schwartz proposes that every person's psyche contains distinct subpersonalities or 'parts'—internal voices with their own beliefs, emotions, memories, and survival strategies. This isn't a disorder; it's normal human architecture. The inner critic that attacks you for mistakes is a part. The perfectionist that drives you to exhaustion is a part. The numb one that dissociates when feelings become overwhelming is a part. The wounded child that still craves approval is a part. What differs in trauma survivors isn't the presence of parts but their polarisation and extreme protective strategies. The parts that developed to survive narcissistic abuse are working overtime, still trying to protect you from dangers that may have passed.

Trauma creates a specific internal architecture. Schwartz describes three categories of parts. 'Managers' are proactive protectors: the perfectionist scanning for flaws before others find them, the people-pleaser anticipating others' needs, the hypervigilant part monitoring for danger, the intellectual part keeping emotions safely distant. Managers work constantly to prevent vulnerability, to anticipate criticism, to earn the conditional love that was the only love available in the narcissistic household. 'Firefighters' are reactive protectors that emerge when pain breaks through despite managers' efforts. They use extreme strategies—numbing through substances or food, dissociating, self-harm, explosive rage—to extinguish emotional fires immediately, regardless of consequences. Their motto is "anything to make this stop." 'Exiles' are the young, wounded parts that carry the unbearable experiences: the toxic shame, the terror, the desperate loneliness of never being truly seen. Managers and firefighters work together to exile these parts, locking away their pain so the system can function. But exiles don't disappear—they remain frozen in time, still carrying what happened to them, still waiting to be witnessed.

The Self remains undamaged beneath protective parts. Perhaps Schwartz's most radical and hopeful claim is that beneath all protective parts exists a Self—a core that was never damaged, only obscured. This Self is characterised by what Schwartz calls the '8 Cs': curiosity, compassion, calm, clarity, confidence, courage, creativity, and connectedness. When you feel genuinely curious about your reactions rather than ashamed of them, when you can observe internal conflict without being swept into it, when you can extend compassion even to the parts you hate—that's the Self. For survivors of narcissistic abuse who were shown they were fundamentally defective, this claim is revolutionary: your core self was never damaged. The authentic self that the narcissist never saw, that was never allowed to exist in the household organised around their needs—it's still there, waiting to emerge and lead your internal system toward healing.

Healing happens through internal relationship, not internal warfare. IFS therapy works by helping clients access Self and from that Self-led position, develop healing relationships with their parts. This is not about eliminating parts or forcing them to change—approaches that inevitably fail because parts resist being attacked. It's about the Self becoming the leader of the internal system: a compassionate, curious leader who can listen to what parts have been carrying, appreciate their protective efforts, and help them release burdens they took on in childhood. When a manager part learns it doesn't have to work so hard because the Self is now in charge, it can relax its perfectionism. When an exile's pain is finally witnessed by the Self—truly seen and validated—it can begin to heal. When a firefighter learns there are other ways to manage distress, it can find a new role. Schwartz calls this process 'unburdening': helping parts release the pain, shame, and beliefs they've been carrying, often for decades.

Parts don't need to be fixed; they need to be understood and updated. The therapeutic posture of IFS is radically non-pathologising. There are no 'bad parts'—only parts in extreme roles, carrying burdens from the past, trying to protect in the only ways they know. The part that numbs you isn't weakness; it developed because feeling the full weight of your experience would have been unbearable. The part that criticises you relentlessly isn't your enemy; it internalised the narcissist's voice, trying to criticise you first so they wouldn't have to. The part that clings to harmful relationships isn't self-destructive; it learned that attachment was necessary for survival, regardless of how the attachment figure treated you. This reframe doesn't excuse harmful behaviour but transforms the relationship with it: from self-attack to self-understanding, from internal civil war to internal diplomacy.

How This Research Is Used in the Book

Schwartz's work appears in Narcissus and the Child to explain both the internal fragmentation created by narcissistic abuse and the path toward integration through befriending rather than battling protective parts. In Chapter 21: Breaking the Spell, the book draws on IFS research to illuminate the healing process:

"Research on IFS shows strong effectiveness, with 92% of participants reporting significant improvement in trauma symptoms. For narcissistic abuse survivors, IFS explains the internal confusion they experience—why part of them still loves the abuser while another part knows the truth, why they can be strong in some situations but collapse in others, why healing feels like internal warfare."

The chapter presents IFS as a therapeutic approach particularly suited to narcissistic abuse recovery because it directly addresses the bewildering internal conflicts survivors experience. The book describes the specific parts that develop in response to narcissistic abuse: "harsh inner critics (internalised narcissistic voice), hypervigilant protectors (scanning for danger), exiled children (holding pain from different ages), and firefighter parts (using various strategies to numb overwhelming feelings)." This mapping helps survivors recognise their own internal architecture without pathologising it.

The chapter continues with the healing process IFS offers:

"The process involves befriending rather than battling these parts. The survivor recognises the harsh inner critic, that voice that sounds exactly like the narcissist, as a protector that learned to anticipate and internalise criticism to avoid worse external abuse. They honour the part that still loves the narcissist as holding the capacity for attachment, even if it attached to someone harmful. They thank the hypervigilant part for its service in keeping them alive through genuine danger."

This passage captures the paradigm shift IFS offers: from viewing symptoms as enemies to recognising them as protectors. The book also includes a case study illustrating the 'unburdening' process—how an exiled part, "frozen in time" and "still cowering in a closet" for forty years, can finally be witnessed by the adult Self and release the pain it has been carrying. Schwartz describes this as the moment when "the exiled part, finally witnessed and protected by the client's Self, can release the pain it has been carrying, often for decades."

The integration of IFS with other therapeutic approaches—EMDR, somatic therapies, Complex PTSD frameworks—reflects current clinical practice. The book notes that "combining modalities—somatic work to discharge trapped energy, EMDR to reprocess traumatic memories, IFS to harmonise internal conflicts—creates synergistic healing."

Why This Matters for Survivors

If you survived narcissistic abuse, No Bad Parts explains the internal chaos that abuse created—and offers a path out of the exhausting war you may be fighting with yourself.

Your internal conflicts make sense. The part of you that still seeks your abuser's approval despite knowing better isn't betraying you—it's an attachment part that learned survival depended on connection to caregivers, regardless of how those caregivers treated you. The part that criticises you relentlessly isn't your enemy—it internalised the narcissist's voice, hoping to criticise you first so they wouldn't have to. The part that numbs you isn't weakness—it protects you from pain that once felt unsurvivable. The part that sabotages relationships isn't self-destructive—it remembers that intimacy meant exploitation and is trying to prevent that from happening again. Understanding that these are parts with protective intent—not evidence of brokenness—transforms your relationship with yourself. You can stop fighting and start understanding.

Your core self was never damaged. This may be the hardest claim for survivors to accept—and the most important. The narcissistic parent treated you as if you had no inherent worth, as if your value depended entirely on meeting their needs. You may have absorbed this message so deeply it feels like truth: something is fundamentally wrong with me. Schwartz says otherwise. Your Self—the curious, compassionate, capable core of who you are—was never destroyed. It went into hiding because it wasn't safe to be authentic in the narcissistic household. But it's still there, beneath the protective parts that obscure it. Recovery isn't about fixing what's broken; it's about uncovering what was buried. "The person behind the mirror, finally allowed to emerge"—this is what No Bad Parts offers. The authentic self you never got to develop because the narcissist needed you to be their mirror still exists within you.

The self-sabotage that frustrates you is protection in disguise. Why do you push away people who treat you well? Why do you struggle to maintain progress in therapy? Why do you return to situations you know are harmful? Why does healing feel like internal warfare? Schwartz's framework answers: protective parts, developed during trauma, don't trust that safety is real. Progress feels dangerous because it means dropping defences that once kept you alive. Connection feels dangerous because connection was the context of your deepest wounds. Parts that protected you through the worst resist changes that might leave you vulnerable again. They don't know the war is over. Fighting these parts intensifies the conflict; understanding them gradually convinces them that you have new resources, that the danger has passed, that they can finally rest.

The 'No Bad Parts' principle offers an alternative to the narcissist's paradigm. Narcissistic abuse teaches a particular worldview: you are fundamentally flawed, your worth depends on your usefulness, your feelings don't matter, your needs are burdens. The narcissist's internal landscape is organised around harsh judgment—of themselves and everyone else—and they projected that judgment onto you. IFS offers the opposite: every part of you has positive intent, your worth is inherent, your feelings deserve curiosity not dismissal, your needs matter. Learning to meet your own parts with self-compassion rather than self-attack is learning a fundamentally different way of being human than what you were taught in the narcissistic household. It's developing internally what you never received externally.

You can begin healing without waiting for a therapist. While Schwartz recommends professional support for working with deeply wounded exiles, he deliberately wrote No Bad Parts for self-practice. Basic IFS skills—noticing when a part is activated, getting curious about its function rather than fighting it, appreciating its protective effort, asking what it's afraid would happen if it relaxed—can be developed independently and provide substantial benefit. Many survivors find that simply naming their parts ('my critic is active,' 'that's my hypervigilant part') creates enough distance to respond differently. You don't have to be trapped in the internal warfare until you find the right therapist. You can begin befriending your parts today.

Clinical Implications

For psychiatrists, psychologists, and trauma-informed healthcare providers, Schwartz's work offers practical guidance for treating survivors of narcissistic abuse whose presentations involve internal fragmentation, self-conflict, and complex protective systems.

Recognise that treatment resistance reflects protective parts, not patient pathology. The patient who cancels sessions, withholds information, or seems to undermine their own progress isn't "resistant" or "difficult"—they have parts that fear what will happen if defences are dropped. A manager part may believe that trusting the therapist will lead to exploitation (as trust in the parent did). A firefighter part may activate dissociation when therapeutic conversations approach exiled material. An exile may fear that revealing vulnerability will lead to attack. Rather than interpreting these responses as poor motivation or personality disorder, get curious: "I notice something in you seems hesitant about going further. I wonder if there's a part that has concerns?" This invites collaboration with protective parts rather than a power struggle with the patient. Parts that feel respected develop trust; parts that feel overridden become more extreme.

Develop Self-detection skills—in yourself and in patients. Effective IFS-informed work requires the clinician to notice when their own parts get activated by the patient's material. The clinician's critical part might respond to the patient's avoidant part; the clinician's rescuing part might rush to help exiles before they're ready. Remaining Self-led—genuinely curious, non-reactive, compassionate—even when patient parts are activated models the kind of internal leadership the patient is developing. For patients, building 'dual awareness'—the ability to notice a part's activation while remaining aware "I am not this part; I have this part"—is often prerequisite work before approaching highly activated material. This capacity prevents both flooding (being overwhelmed by part activation) and dissociative disconnection (being too far from material to process it).

Move at the pace of the most vulnerable parts. A common clinical error is moving at the pace of the patient's healthy, motivated parts while overwhelming their vulnerable or protective parts. The manager part that made the appointment wants to process trauma, but the exile carrying that trauma may not be ready to be approached, and the firefighter protecting the exile may activate if pushed too fast. Schwartz advises asking permission before working with parts, checking with protectors before approaching exiles, and honouring "no" when parts aren't ready. This pace may feel slow but prevents retraumatisation. When a patient becomes dissociative, dysregulated, or avoidant, the clinician can wonder aloud which part has been activated and what it needs—turning potential rupture into therapeutic opportunity.

Understand the inner critic as an internalised protector. Many narcissistic abuse survivors present with brutal inner critics that attack relentlessly. The instinct may be to help the patient fight this critic—to challenge its distortions, to develop counter-arguments. IFS suggests a different approach: understanding the critic as a manager part that developed to protect the patient from worse external criticism. In the narcissistic household, self-criticism served survival: if you attacked yourself first, perhaps you could prevent or soften the narcissist's attack. The critic internalised the abuser's voice because it had to. Approaching the critic with curiosity—"What are you trying to protect this person from? What do you fear would happen if you stopped criticising?"—often reveals the protective intent beneath the cruelty. When the Self can genuinely appreciate the critic's effort while also showing it that circumstances have changed, the critic can gradually soften.

Consider how pharmacological support interfaces with parts work. While IFS is primarily psychotherapeutic, psychiatric support can facilitate or complicate parts work. Medications that reduce hyperarousal may help hypervigilant manager parts relax enough for therapeutic progress. Medications that stabilise mood can widen the window of tolerance within which deep work can proceed. However, medications that suppress or numb may prevent the internal dialogue necessary for integration—firefighter parts may rely on medication the way they once relied on substances or dissociation. Clinicians should consider how pharmacotherapy affects not just symptoms but the internal system's capacity for the relational healing IFS offers.

Integrate IFS concepts with existing trauma frameworks. IFS complements rather than replaces other evidence-based approaches. Clinicians trained in EMDR can use parts language to understand the material that emerges during processing. Clinicians using DBT can recognise that skill deficits often reflect protective parts that learned different strategies for survival. Somatic experiencing addresses the body-based aspects of trauma that parts hold. The Complex PTSD framework (Herman, Cloitre) maps onto IFS architecture: the altered systems of meaning, identity, and relationships reflect exiled material and protective adaptations. Understanding the patient's internal system enhances whatever modality the clinician practices.

Broader Implications

Schwartz's framework extends beyond individual therapy to illuminate patterns across families, relationships, organisations, and culture.

Understanding Narcissistic Family Systems

IFS provides a framework for understanding the narcissistic family as an interacting system of parts. The narcissistic parent's own internal system is organised around protecting their vulnerable exiles—the shame, inadequacy, and worthlessness they cannot face—through grandiose manager parts that demand admiration and supply. When their protective system is threatened (narcissistic injury), firefighter parts may activate in rage or withdrawal. The narcissist's parts interact with the child's developing parts in predictable ways: the parent's critical part activates the child's ashamed part; the parent's needy part elicits the child's caretaking part; the parent's rageful part creates the child's hypervigilant part. The child's protective system develops in response to the parent's protective system, each generation's parts shaping the next. Understanding this helps survivors recognise that they didn't develop their parts in isolation—their internal system was shaped by interaction with the narcissist's internal system. Intergenerational trauma transmits through parts.

Relationship Patterns and Partner Selection

Adults with fragmented internal systems often unconsciously select partners whose parts complement their own protective system in familiar ways. The hypervigilant manager part may find a partner whose unpredictability keeps it activated—because being activated feels normal. The caretaking part may find someone whose needy parts require endless attention—because that's the role it knows. The exile carrying "I'm unlovable" may find partners who confirm this belief—because confirmation feels like truth. Trauma bonding and intermittent reinforcement can be understood through IFS: the partner's cruel parts activate the survivor's exile's pain, while moments of kindness activate attachment parts desperate for the love that was denied in childhood. IFS helps survivors recognise when they're choosing from protective parts rather than Self, making different choices possible.

Workplace Dynamics

The manager parts developed in narcissistic families often drive professional success—the perfectionism, the people-reading, the tireless performance that anticipates others' needs. But these same parts create vulnerability to workplace triggers. The critical supervisor activates the part that expects parental criticism. The competitive colleague activates the part that learned relationships are zero-sum. The performance review activates the part that believes mistakes lead to abandonment. Understanding workplace struggles through an IFS lens helps survivors distinguish between current reality and part-based reactions. It also suggests organisational interventions: workplaces that provide predictable feedback, psychological safety, and Self-led management are less likely to activate employees' protective systems.

Collective and Cultural Trauma

In No Bad Parts, Schwartz extends IFS beyond individual psychology to address collective trauma and cultural healing. Just as individuals develop protective parts in response to trauma, groups and societies develop collective protective patterns in response to historical wounds. Racism, for example, involves collective parts carrying fear, shame, superiority, and victimhood that interact destructively across groups. Schwartz suggests that healing collective trauma requires the same basic process as individual healing: accessing collective Self (whatever wisdom, compassion, and clarity exists in the group), understanding rather than attacking protective parts, and helping exiled material (historical wounds) be witnessed and processed. While this application of IFS is more speculative than the clinical model, it offers an intriguing framework for understanding how trauma operates at social scales.

The Democratisation of Healing

No Bad Parts reflects and advances a broader cultural shift: the democratisation of therapeutic concepts. Social media has brought terms like 'inner child,' 'trauma response,' and 'parts work' into mainstream vocabulary, though often without the depth these concepts deserve. Schwartz's accessible book provides survivors with substantive understanding rather than surface-level trending terms. The emphasis on self-led healing—the conviction that everyone has an undamaged Self capable of healing their own parts—challenges the traditional authority structure of psychotherapy. While professional support remains valuable, especially for severe trauma, IFS principles can be practised by anyone willing to turn toward their internal experience with curiosity rather than judgment. This democratisation has particular significance for survivors who may distrust authority figures or lack access to quality mental health care.

Limitations and Considerations

While No Bad Parts offers valuable insights, several limitations warrant acknowledgment for responsible application.

The evidence base, while growing, continues to develop. The 2021 RCT demonstrating IFS effectiveness for PTSD strengthened the research foundation significantly, but more studies across diverse populations and conditions are needed. The 92% improvement rate cited in No Bad Parts comes from this single study; replication and extension will build confidence. Clinicians should be transparent about the state of evidence while remaining open to approaches that clearly help individual patients. Survivors should understand that IFS's growing evidence base is strong but not yet as extensive as longer-established treatments like CBT or EMDR.

The metaphysical claims about Self vary in acceptability. Schwartz's description of the Self carries spiritual overtones—he explicitly connects IFS to contemplative traditions and speaks of the Self in terms approaching soul or essential nature. For clinicians and survivors with more secular orientations, this language may require adaptation. The therapeutic utility of the parts framework doesn't depend on accepting any particular philosophy of mind. One can treat 'Self' as a useful clinical metaphor—a mode of relating to internal experience characterised by curiosity and compassion—without committing to metaphysical claims about its ultimate nature.

Not all patients relate to parts language. While many survivors find the parts framework immediately illuminating, others don't experience their inner lives this way and may find parts language artificial, confusing, or uncomfortable. The internal multiplicity that feels obviously true to some people isn't universal experience. Clinicians should offer IFS as one lens rather than imposing it on patients who don't find it useful. Other evidence-based trauma treatments may be more appropriate for some individuals.

Cultural adaptations are needed. IFS emerged from Western, predominantly white clinical contexts where individual selfhood is emphasised. Concepts of self, multiplicity, and healing vary significantly across cultures. The individualistic focus on the personal Self may resonate differently in collectivist cultures where identity is more relationally constructed. Clinicians working with diverse populations should adapt the framework to cultural context rather than assuming universal applicability. Some cultural traditions have their own sophisticated understandings of internal multiplicity that may complement or conflict with IFS concepts.

Self-practice has limits. While Schwartz deliberately wrote No Bad Parts for self-application, working with parts that carry significant trauma, suicidal material, or intense self-destructive urges requires professional support. Parts that have never felt safe need consistent, boundaried therapeutic presence to develop trust. Accessing exiles without adequate preparation can flood the system with pain the person isn't ready to handle, potentially retraumatising rather than healing. Self-practice is valuable for developing awareness and working with less burdened parts; it's not a substitute for therapy when deeper work is needed.

Historical Context

No Bad Parts appeared in 2021, bringing four decades of clinical development to general audiences at a moment of unprecedented cultural interest in trauma and mental health.

Schwartz developed IFS in the early 1980s while working with eating disorder patients. Standard family therapy approaches weren't working, but patients spontaneously described their experiences in terms of 'parts'—different internal voices with conflicting agendas. Rather than dismissing this language, Schwartz became curious, asking patients to describe their parts in detail. What emerged was a model that would transform his understanding of the psyche: the mind as naturally multiple, containing distinct subpersonalities that develop protective roles in response to life experiences. His 1995 book Internal Family Systems Therapy formalised this model for clinical audiences.

Through the 2000s and 2010s, IFS gained significant traction in professional circles. Trauma specialists integrated IFS concepts with structural dissociation theory (van der Hart, Nijenhuis, Steele), recognising complementary frameworks for understanding internal fragmentation. Janina Fisher's 2017 book Healing the Fragmented Selves of Trauma Survivors made this integration explicit and practical. Bessel van der Kolk featured IFS prominently in The Body Keeps the Score (2014), introducing the model to millions of readers. The IFS Institute trained tens of thousands of clinicians worldwide.

Research accumulated: studies demonstrated effectiveness for rheumatoid arthritis, depression, anxiety, and trauma. The 2021 RCT published in the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology—appearing the same year as No Bad Parts—provided randomised controlled evidence that IFS significantly outperformed an active control condition for PTSD, with large effect sizes and high participant satisfaction.

No Bad Parts arrived into this prepared ground. The COVID-19 pandemic had created a cultural moment of introspection, as people isolated at home faced their internal worlds without usual distractions. Social media had begun democratising therapeutic concepts, though often superficially. Schwartz's book provided depth and substance to meet this moment of cultural readiness. Written explicitly for survivors and general readers rather than clinicians, it reflected Schwartz's conviction that understanding one's internal system is itself therapeutic—that the Self's healing capacity is inherent to all humans, not dependent on professional credentialing.

The book's title captures the model's revolutionary reframe in three words. Where psychology has often pathologised symptoms—viewing them as disorders to eliminate—IFS insists on understanding them as protective adaptations to appreciate. Where narcissistic abuse taught survivors they were fundamentally flawed, No Bad Parts insists that every aspect of them developed with good reason and can be transformed through compassion rather than combat. This message, delivered at this cultural moment, has made the book a touchstone for a generation of survivors seeking frameworks for self-understanding and paths toward healing.

No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma and Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model

APA Citation