LST Interview With Dr Richard Schwartz

LST Counselling Exclusive Interview:

Dr Richard Schwartz on Internal Family Systems

Irene Davies (I)

Richard Schwartz (R)

I: Richard, we have had a wonderful two days with you at LST and I’m sure that you must be exhausted, but just one more question for the sake of our website…

R: I’m actually not exhausted as I get energy when I get a really good audience - a really receptive audience.

I: That’s great – and what do you think about the enthusiasm shown for IFS training here, at LST?

R: It’s very exciting, I told the people that I would be involved and that’s very unusual, as I don’t do that sort of thing anymore. So if you get enough people then we’ll make it happen.

I: That would be absolutely amazing, thank you. So, may I ask, how do you think IFS works with a Christian perspective?

R: I found people resonating and seeing aspects of the fit [IFS from a Christian perspective] that I didn’t see, quoting pieces of scripture that fit with what I was saying, which was exciting to me. I don’t feel attached to a religious school as I try to make clear, and at the same time for me, probably more than any prophet, Jesus embodied what I call Self-Leadership and is a model for that. From what I know of Jesus, in particular his going to the exiles and the culture with love and honouring them and washing their feet – that is a direct parallel to what Self naturally does inside of people … to go to these parts which have been exiled with the same acceptance and healing. So that’s one aspect that’s totally compatible, and I wasn’t even thinking about that until I went to Mississippi and William Richardson pointed it out to me.

I: That was at the Christian conference?

R: Yes – this idea that man is created in the image of God and what I’m calling Self might be that image, or it might even be God, or a piece of God, or however you want to think about it, which accounts for why it’s never damaged no matter how bad the trauma. That was the biggest thing when I encountered it, that I couldn’t account for it using Science. That’s what made me leap to the spiritual side.

I: So can I clarify that as a Christian believes that people are made in the image of God, I think you are saying that that Self also might image God.

R: Yes, this might be what you are calling ‘the image of God’ within the Self, covered over by these burdens. As we unburden, people become more soulful I guess, or lead by whatever you want to call that, if it’s the soul or Christ’s consciousness.

I: One last question if I may: I think you said that Jesus was a model of Self-Leadership, so for the people coming on the website who haven’t been to this conference can you say a little bit about what Self-Leadership is.

R: So when I can achieve that [Self-Leadership] with a client and when I have them open to the Self that immediately comes forward … people manifest these c-word qualities that include ‘curiosity’ and ‘confidence’ but also ‘compassion’ which I think was a big aspect of Jesus. Another is ‘connectedness’ – the sense that we are not separate, that we are all connected to God and to each other. Those are all qualities that I find automatically to manifest not just in Christians, but in anybody who accesses this state. Also, ‘courage’ – Jesus was a model for courage in various ways – he stood up to the moneychangers in the temple and was very courageous in the crucifixion and so on. Others qualities are ‘clarity’, ‘connectedness’, ‘creativity’ – all these qualities that seem to manifest spontaneously in people, Jesus embodied at a certain level. I don’t call myself a Christian, my ethnicity or my cultural religious tradition is Judaism, but I was never really trained in it. Therefore without having answers already, I am left more curious. I have never studied intra-psychic processes really, and that left me without presumption about what parts were there when I encountered them. I just was curious and I had to trust my clients’ reports rather than make these assumptions about what they must be. So I feel like I was blessed in a way to not be indoctrinated by religion or psychotherapy before I met the phenomena.

I: I understand.

R: And then I kind of pieced together a spirituality of my own, and after that I couldn’t deny that there were spiritual elements to this work I was doing.

I: A spirituality of your own that incorporates Jesus – because I’ve heard you say that he frequently shows up in the counselling room?

R: Yeah as I say, I’m a big fan of Jesus, I just don’t think he’s ‘the only’, which makes a bit of a difference …. and I don’t think that unless you are re-born that you don’t have Self, which I am afraid some people believe … so that’s the only difference really ….

I: So although our theologies aren’t entirely the same, I want to really thank you for being willing to come here and debate with this approach, which you have given the therapeutic world, from a Christian perspective, and for your openness. I think we have been really enriched by it.

R: Thanks, I feel the same, I think I said that it’s been a corrective experience in some ways as there have been experiences with Christians that haven’t been as respectful. I felt thoroughly respected – even with the disagreements – and I think a lot of that is how much people respect you, Irene, and your embracing of this that transfers onto me, so again I throw the gratitude back to you.

I: Thank you so much, we are really honoured, and yes please come back I’m going to try and set some training up.

God’s Faithfulness Gets Real

As a first entry into the world of blogging I guess I want to share a little of my story. I must be honest and say I put this up with a little trepidation as to what people might think of our course and me!

Despite my misgivings I hope this entry will provides a little insight into why we teach what we teach to our counseling students.

God’s Faithfulness Gets Real

It was my second night in hospital with serious and unexplained bleeding after the birth of our third child. I stared at my 3 month-old son who was being cradled by my husband while doctors and nurses buzzed around.

I didn’t realise it at the time but I was dying. My body was fighting hard, but was so weak. It turned out that I had a very rare but aggressive type of cancer called Choriocarcinoma .

Despite the odds being against his survival, my son had miraculously survived growing alongside a tumour in the womb. With further tests it was discovered that the tumour had rapidly progressed to my lungs. To beat the disease would require me to have many gruelling weekly treatments, with the good news being that this type of carcinoma was highly responsive to chemotherapy.

But worse than the gruelling treatment was the moment when I was told that I was to be transferred to another hospital, meaning I would have to hand over my son to be cared for by my husband and mum; Daniel and I had never been parted for more than a couple of hours. As I breast fed him for the last time I had no idea whether either of us would be ok. I had gone from being a strong carer and protector to being as weak and vulnerable as he.

The pain of loss I felt was unbearable, and the moment I handed him over was one of the hardest of my life. In some ways it would have been easier to tell me to tear out my heart, which is how it felt handing him over that night.

Sitting in the A&E of Charing Cross Hospital, which specialises in this kind of cancer, I felt stripped of everything I found comfort and security in, I was in immense pain, and mental torture. When eventually taken to my room, I curled up in the foetal position and cried out from the deepest part of my soul to know His Spirit was with me. Honestly, nothing happened. The room remained bare, cold, and dark, perfectly reflecting my State.

What followed from that point was what can only be described as the hardest journey of my life thus far. I went to places within myself and had experiences that there really are no earthly words for. As the chemo took its toll I felt at times as if I was in a kind of hell. And yet, at the same time, I have never experienced such a profound and glorious sense of God’s presence.

The time that stands out most is the night the hospital lost my chemo. I was in complete pain and turmoil about my situation, but as the night wore on I came to realise there was a lady in the last hours of her life in the bed next to me. I could hear her agony from behind the curtain and knew that it was an honour to be able to pray for her as we lay side by side in pain. It was then I saw how even in the darkest night His Spirit calls us to reach out, and I have never felt so sure of my calling to simply be His hands and feet whatever the circumstances.

I must also add that I saw His love through friends and family stepping in and filling the gaps made by my inability to care for our family and myself. I was often dumbfounded as people, Christian, Non-Christian, family, friends, strangers came and showed abundant love and grace to us.

You might think that as a counsellor it would be my skills as a therapist that would have come to the fore. But in that first dark night, and the ones that followed, what remained when I was stripped to my core was a deep profound belief, a sense of God’s sovereignty, and the pervasiveness of His Spirit.

Of course, I did (and still do) use my skills as a therapist to help deal with the trauma happening in my body, mind, emotions, and spirit. But what most impacted my experience of the diagnosis and treatment of cancer was what I believe about God and who I am in relation to Him. I also couldn’t deny the repeated experience of what I could only describe as ‘Spirit saturated’ times with hospital workers and others in treatment.

Unfortunately much of what happens in life does not come with an instruction manual, and yet we need to respond, somehow, to what we experience. What informs our responses seems, to me, to be vitally important. We need to know what we believe, and why, as this affects how we see the world and how we respond to it. Our minds need robust and vigorously thought-out views which make sense of and support the rigors of life – either to help us process events in our own lives, or when we spend time working with others.

For the Theology and Counselling course at the London School of Theology (LST) we teach that the most effective tool a counsellor takes into the counselling room is themselves. Therefore self-awareness - knowing what we think, believe, and why - is fundamental in the ability to walk in the sacred path of the care of others.

So there I was, with the words “We are fairly sure you have a rare carcinoma we don’t know much about” echoing around me. In that moment, when I was faced with the ultimate question which demanded an answer, in the face of possible death, of everything being stripped away: what stands?

I stared at my young son and felt shock and horror but amazingly, underneath it all, a profound clarity. I found that what I was experiencing was supported by the theology I had studied at LST. Themes such as: God’s sovereignty, my purpose even in the face of death, the pervasiveness and persona of the Holy Spirit, healing and what it means, the ecclesia, and the call to care for a broken world… I could go on, yet it would suffice to say, I experienced each of these in a new and profound way with thanks to the exceptional grounding I received as a student at LST.

Rather than feeling tossed around by my illness and all it entailed I experienced what I can only guess it might have been like when Jesus calmed the storm for his disciples. The trauma of my illness did not disappear, and yet there was a calling of order in a chaotic and scary world through my understanding of the nature of God. 

I love being a counsellor, and teaching counselling is a gift and privilege. I fervently believe in the body of Christ being an effective healer in the world. The tools of therapy we teach through the various counselling courses at LST are equipping people to be Christ’s hands and feet in a hurting world.

However, without knowing what we believe and why, I wonder how truly effective we are? I believe that it’s not what happens to us in life, but what we believe about what’s happening, that affects our experience of it. Our underpinning philosophies and beliefs will affect how we connect to God, others and ourselves. 

The Theology and Counselling team is passionate about training well-equipped and skilled counsellors, pastors, missionaries, youth workers and carers grounded in a profound understanding of God and His word. We are inspired by Christ’s words calling His followers to be ‘like a wise man who built his house on the rock’ (Matthew 7:24).

Some people I talk to question whether they can afford to do the LST Theology and Counselling course. My reply: Can you afford not to…?

This was first published in LST’s own magazine, Insight (Volume 2, Issue 3). Click the image below to read the original article and the other contributors to this super publication. 

If you want to hear more, you can listen to my recent preach in LST Chapel by clicking on the image below. As well as my sermon you can hear a rich variety of in-house and visiting speakers.

Kirsty Annable 

Lecturer in Counselling and part of the Student Pastoral Support Team at LST. 

Described by her colleagues as ‘Real, warm, caring, pastoral and funny, sometimes irreverent but having a deeply spiritual core.’

An 'Introduction to Internal Family Systems Therapy' Conference

These are exciting times at LST. And of the most exciting events is coming up on 9th and 10th June 2014, when Richard Schwartz, the founder of Internal Family Systems Therapy, will be holding a two-day conference entitled: 'An Introduction to Internal Family Systems', which includes a Christian dialogue with IFS on Day Two.

What's special about this event, is that Richard Schwartz is rarely in the UK, and has never participated in an Internal Family Systems Conference on UK soil that includes a dialogue from a Christian world view.

So, are you students, counsellors or therapists who are intrigued to learn more about this model? Or are you experienced practitioners already working with this model and/or aspects of the internal family, including parts and Self, and want to know how to use it within an holistic approach or Christian framework? If so, this conference is for you, and if you want to find out more, go to: www.lst.ac.uk/IFS.

But in the meantime, a few thoughts for you to reflect on:

- Are you aware of times when you feel internal conflict, and part of you wants to go in one direction whilst the other part resists?

- Are you aware of losing a sense of control when these internal pulls take over?

Well, according to Richard Schwartz, Internal Family Systems Therapy, was "developed in response to clients’ descriptions of various parts within themselves", which sometimes were in conflict with each other and destabilised the internal system. However, "when the clients’ parts felt safe and were allowed to relax, the clients would experience spontaneously the qualities of confidence, openness, and compassion that Dr. Schwartz came to call the Self. He found that when in that state of Self, clients would know how to heal their parts".

This, then, prompts me to offer some questions for reflection:

• How do you understand 'Self' in either psychological or theological terms?

• If people where in 'Self-leadership', would they be capable of healing themselves?

• If people could maintain Self-leadership, would there be less acts of cruelty and selfishness in the world? 

Irene Davies, 10th. April 2014

Rema Model

Welcome to the blog of the Theology and Counselling programme at London School of Theology! Here you'll find contributions from members of the counselling training team, little bios of each of us, and a little introduction to the REMA counselling model at the heart of our course.

For a very little introduction, read below. For a slightly fuller introduction, see the separate page on it! – and as time goes on, we plan to add even fuller reflections on the model and its place in our training.

LST is a great place to live, work and study: and one of its greatnesses is that it has given birth to this Christian counselling training which takes the theological roots of counselling very seriously. Counselling is an ideology-rich activity: it works – it has to – from fundamental notions of what human life is all about, how it goes wrong, and how it can be made better. As Christians we have clear views about those things, too: but are Christian views going to be in fundamental tension with secular theories? Very possibly, they will. But God is so wonderful: when people dig for the truth with honesty and openness, they often find it. So we have found that secular counselling theories often hold a lot of Gospel truth in a different form - very interestingly. So the REMA model at the heart of our programme is seeking to draw this out.

What is the model, in a nutshell? Any counselling model is an over-arching theory including ideas:

(1) about the world and its nature
(2) about human beings – both about how they ‘tick’ and about how things can go wrong – and
(3) about how counselling can work as part of the process of recovery.

All these ideas need to fit with each other coherently in order to form a ‘model’. Obviously, for us at LST, ideas about God, sin, creation, redemption, the Holy Spirit and eschatology are vital as part of our model!

The REMA model was developed by the counselling team at LST, and is at the heart of the revised LST Theology and Counselling programme which was approved by Middlesex University in 2014, and which will run for the first time in the 2014-15 academic year. It is therefore the unique ‘intellectual property’ of the T&C programme at LST.

We believe that human beings are created in the image of God, and that our experience of God and of our own humanness has been deeply disrupted by sin, so that we are all in need of ‘repair’. The letters of REMA are an acronym describing the four fundamental needs of human beings as we live together in God’s world and undergo this repair.

We need:

1. Relationship. We are deeply relational beings! ‘Sin’ is about relational disruption, and redemption is about being brought back into positive, trusting, open relational connection with God and with each other. For counselling clients, the counselling relationship itself can be a vital part of this process.

2. Embodied Spirituality. Our ‘embodiment’ as God’s creation is the most fundamental fact about us, and it is as bodies that we become temples of the Holy Spirit in Christ. Our model takes this very seriously, and explores the deep connections between embodiment and spirituality – a connection often neglected by Christians in the past.

3. Meaning. The drive to find meaning for our lives is very powerful for us human beings. We see this written all over Scripture in different ways. The ‘meaning’ we seek is not just a coherent understanding of our lives that ‘makes sense’, but also a meaningful place to live – a calling that fulfils us, a purpose that gives us a reason to live, a way to cope with pain, a story to inhabit (all of which has Jesus at its heart for us).

4. Agency. As human beings we need to know that we matter, that we can have impact on our environment – that we are noticed. So to be noticed, and held accountable, by God, is the ultimate affirmation of our Agency. It matters, what you do, and how you live! Scary, but very true. In different ways people can be robbed of their agency by others – or shy away from it – and God calls us to rediscover our agency in Christ.

These four points are simply made in a summary like this, but you will discover how profoundly they go to the heart of human experience. It so happens that ‘rema’ is also the Greek for ‘word’, used in Ephesians 6:17 (“the sword of the Spirit which is the word of God”) or in Romans 10:8 (“the word of faith which we preach”), and this points symbolically to the way in which our LST counselling model is rooted in the word of God and in the faith of the Gospel.