Richard Schwartz explains applying Internal Family Systems (IFS) to psychedelic experiences: how 'exiles' can emerge during sessions, cause terror or 'bad trips', and be managed by acknowledging parts, asking them to relinquish control, and fostering separation so clients can witness rather than be blended with them. He describes post-session integration practices (three group follow-ups, peer support), gives examples of self-leadership in managing nervous parts, and lists four IFS goals: transform extreme roles, establish Self as leader, integrate parts into cooperative relationships, and extend Self-leadership to external life and social engagement.
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A lot of what people consider to be bad trips are because when you open the door of these exiles, often because they've been locked away for, for decades, they feel like they, they have to overwhelm, they have to totally take over because they're afraid you're going to pry them loose and lock them up again. And so some people on the medicine, or not necessarily during the trip, but when they come back, have these like terror experiences because the terrified exile has popped out and is, is blended in our language. And if you don't know ifs and you think oh my God, my client's just having a panic attack, then you're not going to know how to get them out of that state. So well, without doing a lot of grounding skills and things like that, which are really rejecting of that part. When that happens, I'll just say, oh, I see this terrified part is here and it really wants attention. So ask it if it'll pull its energy out of you a little bit so we can help it better. And bingo, the person's separate from it and mindful of mindfully witnessing it rather than being it. So we don't have bad trips in other words, is what I'm saying, because anything like that we know is just a part that's come in and feels like it has to take over, but it has agency. If you can convince it it's in its best interest to not overwhelm, it'll separate. And the same is true, you know, in subsequent down the road times. If people have the kind of experiences you were describing, we help them know that's just a part and don't panic, just kind of start to help it and go to it rather than try to get away from it. And so we do follow ups. We generally have three group meetings after the initial medicine one and just hear how people are doing and encourage them to keep going. We find a lot spontaneously the people in the experience are meeting on their own and discussing their parts with each other and supporting each other as we, as they go. And we hope to build that in more sort of self led groups that, that keep the ball rolling after the experience becomes a kind of life practice. So as you're, you know, as I'm facing an interview like this, any parts that are nervous about it, I'm just letting them know, okay, I hear that, but just trust me to handle this. It always goes better if you let me do it. I'll feel this kind of separation and relaxing. When that doesn't happen, then I'll bookmark that, okay, there's a part of me that I need to follow up with that needs work. But yeah, the ideal is there are four goals of ifs. The first we've talked about which is the helping these parts transform out of their extreme roles to be more of who they're designed to be, which is always valuable. And then the second is to help them all trust self as the leader so that they, they don't feel like a lot of these parts in family therapy we'd call them parentified children because they're young but they feel like they have to run everything. So helping them be relieved of that responsibility and see there is this other person in there that can handle things they didn't even know was there, it's a huge relief. And then the third goal along the lines of integration is to help them all come together because they, many of them were very polarized and you know, out on limbs relative to each other and, and as you get more self leadership, they trust it's safer to come together and begin to get to know each other. And self becomes a kind of family therapist internally and has them talk to each other and find out how they can work together and harmonize. So for me that's integration. It isn't that they disappear into the unitary one one person, but now they're in harmony so you don't even notice them a lot of the time. And then the fourth goal is to bring more of your self leadership to the external world. So you relate to people from these 8C qualities too. And, and you get more clarity about what you're supposed to be, what you're doing here, what you, your, your role is in this world. And often that involves, you know, issues of social justice and trying to sort of issues of helping people rather than being so self centered.
