Richard Schwartz took an unexpected left turn fifteen years into his career as a family therapy clinician, historian, and educator. At a time in the early 1980’s when the importance of the family system was making waves in the field of psychology, Dr. Schwartz rediscovered the rich and overlooked aspects of the psyche and gave it a grounding in systems thinking that had long been missing.

This was radical thinking, even for the trailblazers of family therapy. They had fought long and hard for the field to recognize the importance of external relationships and were against returning to any kind of intrapsychic focus. Despite his training in and allegiance to family systems, Dr. Schwartz trusted that there was no need to ignore any level of human experience and that systems thinking could apply to all levels. In the course of applying some family therapy concepts and techniques to clients’ inner process, he found a way to illuminate and transform the psyche as had never been done before.

Since its discovery and refinement, the Internal Family Systems^SM model of psychotherapy has helped clinicians from all areas of mental and social health, and their clients, understand and unburden the blocks to our most precious human resource: the Self. This intuitive method helps people separate their extreme beliefs and emotions so as to release a healing state called the Self that we all contain. In that compassionate and wise Self-state, people are able to transform their inner relationships with extreme parts of them and their outer relationships with people around them. They find that they know how to heal themselves and to relate harmoniously. In addition, the Internal Family Systems Model offers an approach to harmonizing larger human systems like polarized communities, corporations, and countries.

After earning his PhD in Marriage and Family Therapy from Purdue University, Dr. Schwartz began a long association with the Institute for Juvenile Research at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and more recently at The Family Institute at Northwestern University, attaining the status of Associate Professor in both institutions. He is Fellow of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy, author of the books, Internal Family Systems Therapy and Introduction to the Internal Family Systems Model, and co-author of Family Therapy: Concepts and Methods, the most widely-read family therapy textbook. He has co-authored the books, The Mosaic Mind: Empowering the Tormented Selves of Child Abuse Survivors and Metaframeworks: Transcending the Models of Family Therapy. He has written more than forty articles on various psychotherapy-related topics (click here for a library of books, book chapters, and journal articles) and is on the editorial board of four professional journals. As a teacher, Dr. Schwartz is known for his warmth, sensitivity, and clarity, and has sought to embody the principles of the IFS Model and the spirit of Self leadership.

The IFS movement continues to grow at a rapid pace, well beyond its Midwestern origins. Dr. Schwartz has presented IFS material at more than 100 workshops and conducts year-long training programs in every region of the United States, as well as in Canada and Europe. He has dedicated more than 25 years of service to troubled families and individuals and remains interested in working with eating disorders, trauma, and abuse victims, as well as perpetrators of violence.

As developer of Internal Family Systems Therapy^SM, Dr. Schwartz incorporated The Center for Self Leadership in Oak Park, Illinois in August 2000,