How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

Andrew Huberman:
Welcome to the Huberman Lab podcast, where we discuss science and science-based tools for everyday life. I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. My guest today is Dr. Richard Schwartz. Dr. Richard Schwartz is the founder of Internal Family Systems Therapy, which is a unique form of therapy that's less centered on your relationship to other people, but instead focuses mainly on identifying the parts of yourself and your personality that tend to emerge in different situations and that tend to create anxiety, resent, or depression. Another key feature of Internal Family Systems Therapy is that it's not just focused on fixing challenges within us, it also teaches you how to grow your confidence, openness, and compassion. Now, today's episode is different than any other episode of the podcast that we've done before, and that's for two reasons. First, Dr. Schwartz takes me through a brief session of IFS therapy, so you can see exactly what it looks like in practice, and then he takes you, the listener, through it as well. So as you'll soon observe and experience, Internal Family Systems Therapy allows you to work through challenging sticking points, basically the parts or feelings within you that you don't like to have, and then it shows you how to convert those feelings into more functional aspects of yourself. So as you'll soon see, Internal Family Systems Therapy is both super interesting and it's an incredibly empowering practice. It's also a form of therapy that's now been studied and for which there's a lot of peer-reviewed science to support its efficacy. By the end of today's episode, Dr. Dick Schwartz will have shown you that a lot of the negative reactions that we tend to have with different people and things tend to originate from a few basic patterns that once we understand, we can really transmute into more positive responses. It's a really interesting practice. It's one that you can apply today during the episode, and that you can return to in order to apply going forward in your life. Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize that this podcast is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford. It is, however, part of my desire and effort to bring zero cost to consumer information about science and science-related tools to the general public. In keeping with that theme, this episode does include sponsors. And now for my discussion with Dr. Richard Schwartz. Dr. Dick Schwartz, welcome.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Thank you, Andrew. It's delightful to be with you.

Andrew Huberman:
Yeah. I've heard so much about you and your work and internal family systems models. I've had the opportunity to do a little bit of that work.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman:
And to be honest, I don't know whether or not the person I did that work with was formally trained in it. So-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm

Andrew Huberman:
... I'd like to start off by just asking you what is internal family systems and what are the different components?

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman:
And as we do that, I'm sure people are going to be thinking about these various components for their own life and the people in their lives.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Correct.

Andrew Huberman:
Yeah.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Well, originally, I developed it as a form of psychotherapy, which is probably the way it's used most now. But it's also become a kind of life practice, and just a paradigm for understanding the human mind and as an alternative to the culture's paradigm. So that's saying a lot. And it's been quite a journey.

Andrew Huberman:
I know of Freudian psychoanalysis. I know of any number of different branches of psychology that have a clinical slant to them.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman:
There's cognitive behavioral therapy.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman:
What are the core components of internal family systems?

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah. So one basic assumption is that the mind isn't unitary, that actually we're all multiple personalities, not in the diagnostic sense.

Andrew Huberman:
Uh-huh.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
But we all have these, what I call parts, other systems call subpersonalities, ego states, things like that. And that it's the natural state of the mind to be that way. That we're born with them because they're all very valuable and have qualities and resources to help us survive and thrive. But trauma and what's called attachment injuries and the slings and arrows we suffer force these little naturally valuable parts into roles that can be destructive. Often, they don't like it all, but because they're frozen often in time during the trauma, and they live as if it's still happening, they're in these protective roles that can be quite extreme and interfere in your life. And yeah, so I just stumbled on the phenomena 40, now I think it's 41 years ago.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
And it's been an amazing ride.

Andrew Huberman:
So at the time, were you already practicing as a clinical psychologist?

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Actually, I have a PhD in marital and family therapy. So I was part of the movement in family therapy away from intrapsychic work. There was a polarization, and we thought we could reorganize families and heal all these symptoms just by doing that. We didn't have to muck around in the inner world. And I went to prove that, and this was about 1983, by getting a group of bulimic kids together and their families, and tried to reorganize the families just the way the book said to and failed. The kids didn't realize they'd been cured, and they kept binging and purging. So out of frustration, I began asking why, and they started talking this language of parts, and they would say some version of, "When something bad happens in my life, it triggers this critic who's calling me all kinds of names inside, and that goes right to the heart of a part that feels empty and alone and worthless. And that's so distressing to feel that the binge part comes in and takes me out, takes me away from all that pain. But the critic comes in and attacks me for the binge." And then the criticism goes right to the heart of that worthless part. So to me, as a family therapist, this sounded like what I'd been studying in external families, these circular sequences of interaction. And so I just got curious and just started to explore.

Andrew Huberman:
Are these different parts that exist within each and all of us, are they represented by a clear and distinct voice from the other? Or do people typically experience them as just the self, like my inner critic? You'll give us the other names and titles. Or is this happening typically below people's conscious awareness?

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Some of both. So most people are aware of their critic, but other times you're not aware of these parts we call exiles that you've locked away because you didn't want to feel their feelings. They're stuck in these bad trauma scenes, and to survive in your life, you had to push them away. And so with those parts, a lot of people aren't really consciously aware of them until these protector parts give space and open the door to the exiles.

Andrew Huberman:
I'd like to take a quick break and acknowledge our sponsor, BetterHelp. BetterHelp offers professional therapy with a licensed therapist carried out entirely online. Now, I personally have been doing therapy weekly for well over 30 years. In fact, I consider doing regular therapy just as important as getting regular exercise, which of course I also do every week. There are essentially three things that great therapy provides. First of all, it provides a good rapport with somebody that you can trust and talk to about pretty much any issue with. Second of all, it can provide support in the form of emotional support and directed guidance. And third, expert therapy can provide useful insights. Insights that allow you to better not just your emotional life and your relationship life, but of course also the relationship to yourself and your professional life and to all sorts of goals. BetterHelp makes it very easy to find an expert therapist with whom you resonate with and that can provide you those three benefits that come from effective therapy. Also, because BetterHelp allows for therapy to be done entirely online, it's super time efficient and easy to fit into a busy schedule. If you'd like to try BetterHelp, you can go to betterhelp.com/huberman to get 10% off your first month. Again, that's betterhelp.com/huberman. Today's episode is also brought to us by David. David makes a protein bar unlike any other. It has 28 grams of protein, only 150 calories, and zero grams of sugar. That's right, 28 grams of protein and 75% of its calories come from protein. This is 50% higher than the next closest protein bar. David protein bars also taste amazing. Even the texture is amazing. My favorite bar is the chocolate chip cookie dough, but then again, I also like the new chocolate peanut butter flavor and the chocolate brownie flavor. Basically, I like all the flavors a lot. They're all incredibly delicious. In fact, the toughest challenge is knowing which ones to eat on which days and how many times per day. I limit myself to two per day, but I absolutely love them. With David, I'm able to get 28 grams of protein in the calories of a snack, which makes it easy to hit my protein goals of one gram of protein per pound of body weight per day, and it allows me to do so without ingesting too many calories. I'll eat a David protein bar most afternoons as a snack, and I always keep one with me when I'm out of the house or traveling. They're incredibly delicious, and given that they have 28 grams of protein, they're really satisfying for having just 150 calories. If you'd like to try David, you can go to davidprotein.com/huberman. Again, that's davidprotein.com/huberman. I definitely want to go into what the various protector roles or titles are, labels, excuse me, and the exiles. Before we do that, since you brought up the topic of trauma, and this is a topic that I think many people are interested in, I'm just curious, how do you define a trauma? And why do you think it is that traumas tend to lock us into a state that was representative of an earlier time?

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman:
Why is it that it's so linked to this thing of time perception?

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah. The why question I can't totally answer, but it definitely is. And for me, traumas aren't necessarily traumatizing. So something bad happens to you, and if you can access what you and Martha Beck were calling the Self, it's capitalized, and you go to the part of you that got hurt by what happened, instead of pushing it away and locking it up, and you embrace it, and you bring it closer to you, which means going to your suffering, which is counter to what most of us try to do. But if you were to do that, and you could help it unload the feelings it got from the trauma, then you're not traumatized. What's traumatizing is something bad happens, these more vulnerable parts of us, the most sensitive parts of us, get hurt or feel worthless because of what happened, or get terrified, and then we lock them away because we don't want to feel that feeling anymore, and everybody around us tells us to just let it go, just move on, don't look back. And so we wind up exiling our most sensitive parts simply because they got hurt. And then when you have a lot of exiles, you feel more delicate. The world seems more dangerous because anything could trigger that. And when they get triggered, they'll blow up, they'll take over. So it's like these flames of raw emotion come popping out. So other parts are forced into these manager roles or these protective roles. And some of them are trying to manage your life so that you don't get triggered anymore, so that, for example, nobody gets close enough to you to trigger any of that, or so you You look really good, so you don't get rejected or perform at a really high level to counter the worthlessness. Many of those become the critics because in their effort to try to get you to look good, they're yelling at you to try and behave and do what they want so you look better. And then there are other, what we call manager protectors that are, for some people, particularly women, have these massive caretaking parts that don't let them take care of themselves and take care of everybody else. And so I could go on and on. There's a lot of common manager roles. And I want to make clear as I'm talking about this that these are not the essence of the parts, and that's a big mistake that most of the field has made, is to assume the critic is just an internalized critical parental voice instead of listening to it and hearing that it's desperately trying to protect you. So none of these are what they seem. That's the role they've been forced into. And the analogy, again, is to an external family. Like kids in dysfunctional families are forced into these extreme roles that aren't who they are. It's the role they got forced into by the dynamics of the family. So the same is true with this internal family. So most of us have a lot of what we call managers. They got us here. They help us in our careers, and other systems would call them the defenses or the ego. And in spirituality, they get vilified, too. But their whole MO is keep everything under control, please everybody, and you'll survive. The world has a way of breaking through those defenses, triggering an exile. When that happens, it's a big emergency because, again, these flames of raw emotion are going to overwhelm you and make you have trouble functioning or even getting out of bed. So there are other parts that immediately go into action to deal with that emergency. And in contrast to these managers, they're impulsive, reactive, damn the torpedoes. I don't care about the collateral damage to your body, to your relationships. I just got to get you higher than those flames or douse them with some substance or distract you till they burn themselves out. So we call those firefighters. And again, these are just the roles. When released from these roles, they'll transform into being something very valuable.

Andrew Huberman:
So the inner firefighter role is one of the exiles that surfaces-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Sometimes

Andrew Huberman:
... under conditions of a lot of emotion. This is a beautiful description, and I'm completely on board this idea that we have multiple aspects of self or selves inside. Jung said that, too, I think, right?

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
Like you-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Jung had all this a long time ago.

Andrew Huberman:
Yeah. And what I like about this protectors/managers versus, again, not versus because they're combative, but as a distinct category, the exiles, it just feels very true to me. And I like the directness of the language. So maybe we could just create a mental grid for people.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman:
Let's say I came to you as a patient, and I said, "Listen, I'm..." I'll be honest. Why not?

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Let's do it.

Andrew Huberman:
Let's do it. All right.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Let's do it.

Andrew Huberman:
Secretly, I brought you here to get therapy. No. But okay, so I'm somebody who for a very long time has been able to organize his life. I tend to have smooth interactions with my coworkers, great friendships. I now have a very good relationship with my immediate family. Very good, in fact. I'm still working on a few things with a few people, but I'm living in a mode of great joy and appreciation these days. However, I'm not going to give the details of this for sake of privacy, but the other day, I was in a discussion with a family member. They had a grievance with me that I felt we had already addressed, and it became a very high friction conversation very quickly to the point where we tabled as an idea that maybe we just take some serious space.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman:
Which was not reflective of how deeply I love this person or they love me.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman:
It was just a feeling of both of us just being in this high tension place, like, "Ugh." And fortunately, the conversation ended well with a path forward that involved more contact, not less.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman:
That both of us feel really good about.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman:
But in that moment where I'm feeling overwhelmed-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm

Andrew Huberman:
... and they're feeling overwhelmed-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm

Andrew Huberman:
... what's going on there? We're both adults.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
So overwhelmed with anger at each other or-

Andrew Huberman:
Frustration.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Frustration, yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
Frustration, like that previous conversations, I felt I was saying things, they were saying things, but I feel like there was so much underlying tension based on-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm

Andrew Huberman:
... a history of poor communication nested on top of the kind of an intensity of emotion that we both tend to carry.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman:
And somehow we just couldn't parse things from that state.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
And so I sat in my chair, and I just told myself, "Okay, I'm going to not say anything-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah

Andrew Huberman:
... for five minutes because I know myself."

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Right.

Andrew Huberman:
It's not that I thought I would say something really barbed wire, but I just thought, "This is not going to work. I'm slamming my head against a wall."

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman:
"They're not hearing me. I'm clearly not hearing them."

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman:
And the thing that helped me through that was just because it was what was taught to me, I just decided to surrender.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm

Andrew Huberman:
And the word surrender used to mean to me letting go of truth.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
And it felt really scary because when you say surrender, it's almost like saying one context is surrender means you're right, no matter, and you're right.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
I was just going to say, that's right.

Andrew Huberman:
But I've come to realize that surrender to me is just a, it's surrender in the moment-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah

Andrew Huberman:
... so that I can get better optics.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
Internal and external optics. So to me, the thing of embracing surrender in those types of moments, very uncomfortable.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman:
But I now have learned it's a great way to get perspective. But even as I describe it, the whole situation was so heavy.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
I came out of that call, even though it ended well, and was like, "Ugh."

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
Like, "Ugh." That was like, I'd never run a marathon, but I'd rather run a marathon than do two of those a week.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Totally agree, and-

Andrew Huberman:
Yeah

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
... I had one of those with my wife a few days ago.

Andrew Huberman:
Oh, okay. All right. Well.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
And yeah, very similar. Just caught that part and said, "Okay, let's just let it go for now, and we'll talk later."

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
So I could give you my take on what happened-

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
... but if you wanted to, we could just go in and do a little exploring.

Andrew Huberman:
Sure.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah?

Andrew Huberman:
Yeah. Sure.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Okay. Should we start with the frustrated, angry part?

Andrew Huberman:
Sure.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
All right. You ready?

Andrew Huberman:
I believe so, yeah.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Okay. So remember that feeling.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
And then focus on it and find it in your body or around your body.

Andrew Huberman:
Okay.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Where do you find it?

Andrew Huberman:
It's somewhere between the middle of my midsection and up, like right behind my forehead. There's pressure-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
That's great

Andrew Huberman:
... in both places.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
It's great you have such clarity about it. So as you focus there, how do you feel toward this part of you?

Andrew Huberman:
I don't know. It's very unpleasant.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
So you don't like it?

Andrew Huberman:
No, I don't like it.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah. Which makes sense-

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
... because it does sometimes escalate things with your friend, and doesn't leave you feeling good. So I understand why you don't like it. But we're going to ask the parts that don't like it to give us the space to just get curious about it, and see if that's possible.

Andrew Huberman:
Okay. Okay.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
So how do you feel toward it now?

Andrew Huberman:
I feel a little bit of relaxation in the head part of it.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman:
Yeah. It's funny how when you asked me to localize it, it's so clear. It's like this thing inside me. It's about the size of a teddy bear that's just like, "Oh!"

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman:
But it's not a good thing. It's pushed up there. But then when you said to get curious about it, it feels like it kind of drops down a little bit and kind of-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
That's great

Andrew Huberman:
... moves in a little, maybe softens a little bit.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
So you do feel curious toward it?

Andrew Huberman:
Yeah.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
All right. So go ahead and ask it what it wants you to know about itself.

Andrew Huberman:
Silently?

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Up to you. Either way. Whichever is more comfortable.

Andrew Huberman:
Well, since this is a podcast and none of this is comfortable anyway for me to do in public- ... to be, if I'm quite honest.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah, just ask inside.

Andrew Huberman:
Sure. No, I'll do it out loud.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Okay.

Andrew Huberman:
Okay, so what do you want me to know about you?

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
You. Yeah. And just wait for the answer. Don't think. I know you've got a big cognitive part, so we're going to ask that one to relax. And just whatever comes in terms of the answer-

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
... just wait for it.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm. Well, my answer is based on the feeling that occurred immediately after asking it-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm

Andrew Huberman:
... which was, the answer was, "I can dissipate." And then I kind of felt it dissipate.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Okay.

Andrew Huberman:
So it feels like an energy, that when condensed, sucks.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman:
But when I look at it, softened a little bit-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm

Andrew Huberman:
... and then it asked the question you asked, and then it feels like it just kind of went into the rest of my body. But not poisoning the rest of my body, just kind of mixing in with-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Okay

Andrew Huberman:
... of course, we're speaking in completely mystical terms here, but-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Right. So it relaxed. It may not have dissipated in the way we think about that. It might have just relaxed more.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
But just keep asking it, what's it afraid would happen if in that context it didn't try to take over in the way that it did? Just ask that question.

Andrew Huberman:
That if it didn't try to take over?

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah. What's it afraid would happen if it hadn't tried to take over?

Andrew Huberman:
Oh.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Just wait for the answer.

Andrew Huberman:
Yeah, that's a good question. Okay, so what would happen if you didn't take over my system that way?

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
That's right.

Andrew Huberman:
Condense from my stomach up to my head when I'm feeling that way.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah. Don't think. Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
Oh, the answers are coming really quick. That I wouldn't be able to discern the truth.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Okay. So the truth is really important to this part of you.

Andrew Huberman:
Yeah. Because it tends to surface when I'm hearing something that I-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm. That you know is wrong

Andrew Huberman:
... that I believe to be fundamentally untrue, typically about my thoughts or feelings, right?

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Okay.

Andrew Huberman:
I've come, maybe with age-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah

Andrew Huberman:
... I've come to the conclusion that two people can look at the same interaction or same thing and have two very different versions of it.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman:
I'm okay with that.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
The part that I'm very sensitive to, people in my life know this, is when someone else tells me how I feel.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Right.

Andrew Huberman:
What my motives are or how I feel. That to me is like that's a kind of a hard, fast way to engage this thing.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Okay. So just stay with this thing.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Just stay with it.

Andrew Huberman:
Okay.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
And let it know you get that, that having people misinterpret your motives is really hard for it.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
And ask it more about that. Just, again, don't think, but ask why that's so hard. Why does that bother it so much?

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
What's it afraid would happen if it let that go?

Andrew Huberman:
Yeah. So why are you afraid to-- or why do you have to step in-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah

Andrew Huberman:
... when that happens? My answer is not going to be very satisfying for the listeners or for me. But it's saying because if you can't hold on to your truth, then nothing will make sense.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
So there's something about making sense or nothing making sense that it's really scared of. Is that right?

Andrew Huberman:
Yeah. I decided to become a biologist, and to try and understand the meat inside our heads and body that is the nervous system because I felt, and I still feel that it can reveal some fundamental facts or truths as-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah

Andrew Huberman:
... understanding reality, as it were, is really important to me because I feel like humans, including myself, of course, are so prone to misinterpretation.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman:
So the truth as a thing out there, I'm willing to let go of completely.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Right.

Andrew Huberman:
Like completely.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Right.

Andrew Huberman:
The truth as it exists for knowing for certain what my motivations were-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm

Andrew Huberman:
... or what did or didn't happen, but typically it's about motivation.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Right.

Andrew Huberman:
What did or didn't happen, you usually can parse with somebody.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
That's something I feel I need to protect at all costs.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah. So speaking of protect, and so this is a protector part, right? Ask it if it's protecting other parts of you that are vulnerable and get hurt when someone misattunes to what your motive is. Just ask that question. Don't think.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm. That's an easy, that's a fast one. Not easy, but it's a fast one. Yeah, the part of me that feels injured-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah

Andrew Huberman:
... by that is the fact that I believe that I, at least at the beginning and throughout most of a relationship, and even if a relationship ends for whatever reason, that I know it's my nature to try and imagine as much goodness in the intent of the other person as possible.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman:
So if I were to let go of this response, the-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm

Andrew Huberman:
... keep going. In my mind, I'm calling it like this, it's like a titanium teddy bear-shaped thing, but it doesn't feel like a ted-- it's like a titanium block there.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman:
I would potentially move into a mode of judgment-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm

Andrew Huberman:
... of them. It's interesting because there are many people from my past and maybe even a few from my present, that people close to me who are pretty well qualified tell me, like I should dislike them or-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm

Andrew Huberman:
... cut them out of my life and there are a few, maybe one or two instances of people I've cut out of my life. But it's my inclination always to just try and see what can-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm

Andrew Huberman:
... exist.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
And that part feels important to me.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
I don't know why it's important now that I've come to think about it. Like-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Well, we can ask.

Andrew Huberman:
Yeah.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
But-

Andrew Huberman:
Yeah

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
... so what I'm hearing is this guy, this titanium guy-

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
... is keeping at bay another part that can be very judgmental of the other person.

Andrew Huberman:
Yeah. I don't like feeling that.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
It feels energetically wasteful.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
And more than that, it feels incredibly sad.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
It's sort of like, I think to accept that part of myself is to kind of give up on some fantasy, which is probably an unrealistic fantasy, which is why I'm calling it a fantasy, I realize.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
Yeah. Because I look at, and I always have since I was a kid, I look at people as we are among the animals. We're the curators of the Earth because we're good at technology development. But aside from that, and just like you wouldn't-- I can't imagine that a raccoon looks at another raccoon, and it's like, "That's a bad raccoon."

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Right.

Andrew Huberman:
It's just a rabid raccoon.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Right.

Andrew Huberman:
And they just, I sort of yearn for the same-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah

Andrew Huberman:
... sensitivity to our own species.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
I get that.

Andrew Huberman:
Yeah. Like, I don't hate anybody.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Well, there might be parts of you that do, but-

Andrew Huberman:
I hate behaviors.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Okay.

Andrew Huberman:
I hate things that people have said or done. Certainly mostly to other people, not to me. But, yeah, really being angry at someone in a pervasive way, not just in the moment-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah

Andrew Huberman:
... is something that's very difficult for me.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
But what I'm hearing, what we heard from this part, it's afraid if it doesn't do this, a part that judges the other, probably in a not-so-nice way-

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
... would be released.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Does that sound right?

Andrew Huberman:
Yeah.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
So there is that part in there. It's just that you've been able to kind of exile it.

Andrew Huberman:
Yes. Yeah.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Okay.

Andrew Huberman:
Yeah. I'm comfortable with the idea that you take the appropriate amount of distance, could be zero or could be near infinite, but that I should take the appropriate amount of distance from things and people so that I can be in the most loving stance-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm

Andrew Huberman:
... toward them-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah

Andrew Huberman:
... or that.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
I'm not trying to sound technical here with all the parallel constructions, but I've thought this through a lot. Like, there's some people that I There's no limit to the extent to which I want to interact with them.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
We have other things to do. We're not going to spend all our time together. And then there are other people that I love them, but I know that I have to keep a certain amount of distance in order to continue to love them. This is the same thing.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman:
So in that moment, it's almost like, but it's coming up without my conscious thing. It's not like saying, "Listen, that's the kind of person I can talk to once a month or something." And I'll just add, in professional settings, not now, but in the distant past, when I was in a very hierarchical structure of-- I'm still in academia, I still teach, but not running research anymore formally. I had a couple senior colleagues that I really loved and respected, but they would say or do things that I thought were frankly unethical-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm

Andrew Huberman:
... to other people. And to me, I felt them as kind of abrasive.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman:
So, the physical manifestation of this is I would make it a point to walk past their office door quickly so that they didn't say, "Hey" because I don't want to interact.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Right.

Andrew Huberman:
I'm not familiar with cutting people out of my life.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Right.

Andrew Huberman:
I'm just not familiar with doing that. I sort of don't believe in it as a value.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Let's pause for a second, and I'll give you a little overview of where we are.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
So we started with this guy who came up with your friend-

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
... and is trying to protect that relationship, because if you continue to be misunderstood in terms of your motives, it would have an impact. Does that sound right?

Andrew Huberman:
Yeah. The only thing, it's a family member.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Okay.

Andrew Huberman:
Yeah. Not that it matters, but close family member.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Got it.

Andrew Huberman:
Yeah.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
And in exploring this part, asking what it's afraid would happen if it didn't do that.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
So there's this other part that might come out-

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
... that would be very judgmental of that family member-

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
... and really might have a bad influence on your relationship with that person. Does that sound right?

Andrew Huberman:
That's correct.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Okay. So we have these two. Well, we have you, who's noticing all this, which we should talk more about. And then we have these two parts that are sort of polarized, but one, the judgmental one, you really don't like. And so you really go to lengths to keep at bay. And you kind of admire this guy, but you also know that he can get in the way at times, too. Does all that sound right?

Andrew Huberman:
Yeah, that's right, because I'm describing a recent situation where the presence of this titanium teddy bear sorry. I don't know why that's amusing to me to say that. The shape of a teddy bear. I'm not seeing a teddy bear in there, but roughly that size and shape. It creates a protection, but a pressure internally-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah

Andrew Huberman:
... that's super uncomfortable.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
It's actually taken me a couple of days to dissipate this.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
And I do think, somewhat counter to the way I'm describing it, it doesn't prevent me from saying something.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman:
If it's too much, it's almost like that's when words start coming out-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm

Andrew Huberman:
... and they're not kind.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Right.

Andrew Huberman:
So it's not a real protector in the sense, like it's preventing me from a course of action I don't want to take.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Right.

Andrew Huberman:
It feels like it's kind of extruding all this stuff, and obviously, I'm responsible for my words and actions. I know that, but it does feel like it creates kind of a-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
It kind of takes over.

Andrew Huberman:
It takes over.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
Yeah. That's the way to put it.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
So let's go through that again. So first of all, I'm so grateful that you're willing to be this vulnerable and expose these parts. So this guy, actually, they're both probably what we call firefighters.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Very reactive. There may be some other very vulnerable part that is involved here we haven't heard about. But if we continue to work together, I would work to get permission to go to the judgmental guy, too.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
And what you would find is he's a protector, too. He's not just a bunch of negative thoughts about people. And as I was hearing earlier, you've spent a lot of time in your life trying to be fair to people and to not judge them and to see them. What they do is just their behaviors and not who they are. Which is great, but in the process of doing that, sometimes we wind up having to push away the parts that want to judge and want to hate and so on. And what I find is if we can go there and get to know them, they're just protectors too, and they're young, and when they are able to unload the hate they might carry, or the judgment, they'll transform. So this is a model of transformation in that sense. And there are no bad parts. You go to everybody in there-

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
... regardless of how bad you think they are, and you get curious about them, and you learn how they're trying to protect. And then we help them out of their protective roles and help them trust there's a you, who you talked about with Martha, who can run things, that they don't have to do it, because most of them are young. And get them to trust this you to handle your family member, rather than they have to take over or try to take over in the way they did. Is this making any sense?

Andrew Huberman:
Yeah, it makes total sense. What you said at the beginning, permission to go to the judgmental part, my mind, when I hear that flits to two possibilities. One's a novel possibility, one's a familiar possibility. The familiar possibility is if I were to really feel the disappointment that I'm feeling when this pattern in the other person shows up again, because at least I'm very familiar with the pattern.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Right.

Andrew Huberman:
Then it would fundamentally change the way that I feel about them.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
That's right.

Andrew Huberman:
I'm trying to hold on to the goodness-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
The relationship

Andrew Huberman:
... in it.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
That's right. Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
But of course, I want to be very clear, not just for anyone listening, but for myself too, that clearly the protecting role of this titanium teddy bear has created something where the times when things have broken through from my side, they're not kind.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Right.

Andrew Huberman:
And/or they're spoken in a way that just is not constructive.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Right.

Andrew Huberman:
Right. So yeah. And then the second possibility is that I hadn't considered this possibility, but the second possibility is that, were I to let myself feel that disappointment-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm

Andrew Huberman:
... that maybe the relationship could persist.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman:
I've been looking at those things as mutually-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Exclusive

Andrew Huberman:
... exclusive.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
And as I say all this, I also realize that, well, the honest disclaimer is I don't want to give the impression that I don't judge people. I'm human, and I certainly do. I'm just saying that when there's a relationship that I wish to maintain-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm

Andrew Huberman:
... I'll go to great lengths to push aside knowledge of my own experience.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
And/or just judgment.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
I've engaged in this pattern in ways that ended up being extremely destructive to me by completely putting the blinders on to things that were right in front of me.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
And that's what I'm talking about.

Andrew Huberman:
Consciously.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
That's what I'm talking about.

Andrew Huberman:
Because I adored the person so much-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah

Andrew Huberman:
... in other dimensions.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Right.

Andrew Huberman:
And, it's not a, for lack of a better word, a holistic way to approach things. But I also will say that in contrast to those types of relationships, the relationships where the titanium teddy bear is not required-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm

Andrew Huberman:
... feel to me, so by comparison, but also in the absolute scale, feel to me like the best possible relationships one could have. They're like pinch me type of relationships.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
Like my friendships, some of my relationships to family, like my coworkers and there are others too. Certainly had romantic relationships like that. My relationship to my dog.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman:
As trivial as people might think that seems. The contrast of that, where there's no need for this protector part-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm

Andrew Huberman:
... it's like the best thing because it feels completely safe and uninhibited.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
I never have to worry that I'm going to be taken over from the inside.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
Nor do I ever worry that I'm going to really screw up.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
And I hope that if I do screw up, they'll tell me. But it's the complete absence of fear.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
So let me check in and just see how this has been to discuss and focus and so on. What's it been like to do this process?

Andrew Huberman:
It's a lot in the sense that I don't like feeling that titanium thing.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Teddy bear.

Andrew Huberman:
Teddy bear. It's been very informative, so it's balanced by that. And maybe that's why I went into a little riff about the pleasant relationships-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm

Andrew Huberman:
... and how-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
How he feels

Andrew Huberman:
... outsized positive they are for me. They're like a salve and an elixir for me.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
That maybe I gave myself a little wash over with that because it's pretty uncomfortable.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
But it's really informative. And it also tells me that the internal family systems work that I did with someone else was an attempt at this, but so very different, which makes sense because-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah

Andrew Huberman:
... this is your art and science.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
So, I'm grateful.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
Yeah, it feels good.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
What I was saying earlier is if we were to pursue it, we could get to the point where the teddy bear guy could unload the feelings he carries that makes it so uncomfortable, and he would transform.

Andrew Huberman:
How would we go about doing that? Just to-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
You would focus on him again.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
We would explore more of what he's protecting.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Either we would go to the guy he's trying to keep at bay that would ruin a relationship, or often these parts are protecting something much more vulnerable from your past.

Andrew Huberman:
Yeah.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Some young part that stuck somewhere in the past that has a big issue about being misunderstood in terms of motives or something.

Andrew Huberman:
Yeah. Not that I need clarity on this right now, but it's more that it protects the possibility of a relationship at all.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah, I get that.

Andrew Huberman:
I think the fear is if I were to look through my lens of truth at what's happened or is happening in the moment, if I were a quote unquote better boundaried person-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Right

Andrew Huberman:
... it'd be done yesterday.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
So it's sort of like a desire to live out a fantasy.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Got it.

Andrew Huberman:
If I'm honest.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
So that would be the part that we would go to, that it protects, that has this fantasy of what a relationship should be or could be.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Who might be stuck somewhere in the past. And we would witness, you talked with Martha about compassionate witness. We would witness where he's stuck and what was happening back then.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
And then I would have you go in and get him out of that time period. Then we'd have him unload the desire for that fantasy that keeps you getting hurt. And then I would have the teddy bear see it doesn't have to protect him anymore. And then we would help the teddy bear unload the feelings he carries. And then he could relax, and they would all start to trust you, which we should talk about a little bit now. Who is you who's separate from these others?

Andrew Huberman:
For the record, I never owned a teddy bear as a kid. I had a stuffed frog.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
I had a teddy bear.

Andrew Huberman:
Well, I'm not embarrassed to... I had a stuffed frog that I loved. It was Freddy the Frog.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
So I don't know where the teddy bear thing came up, but the shape is so very clear.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
But let me just elaborate on what I was just saying.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Because when you separated from him and you found him here, and I asked you how you felt towards him, and you had an attitude about him at first, remember? And we got that to relax and got curious about him.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Then you started to access more of what I call yourself with a capital S.

Andrew Huberman:
So it comes through curiosity.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Well, it often starts with curiosity.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
And just to backtrack a little bit, so when I would have these clients in the early days starting to work with these parts, like the critic and so on, once I got hip to the fact they weren't what they seemed, and they deserved to be listened to rather than fought with-

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
... so I would help the parts that hated them step out, and clients could do that pretty readily. And then I would say, "Now how do you feel toward this critic?" And spontaneously people would say, "I'm just curious about why it calls me names all day." Or even would say, "I feel sorry for it that it has to do this. I want to help it." And when they were in that state and I would ask, "What part of you is that? That's great. Let's keep that around," they'd say, "That's not a part like these others. That's me. That's my essence. Or that's my self." So I came to call that the Self with a capital S. Forty years later, thousands of people doing this all over the world, turns out that that self is in everybody just beneath the surface of these parts, so that when they open space, you can access it quickly. It has all these great qualities, what I call the eight C's. So curious, but also calm, confident, compassionate, courageous, clear, creative, and connected. And that person knows how to heal these parts. So once I get somebody in a lot of what we call self, I'll just say, "Okay, what do you want to say to this part? And how does it react? And now what do you want to do with the part?" I can kind of get out of the way. And one of the hallmarks of IFS, as opposed to a lot of other therapies, is that it's not so much about me becoming that good attachment figure to these hurting parts of you, these inner children. You become that. You become the good attachment figure yourself.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Or the good inner parent, or the good internal leader for these parts, and they come to trust you as a leader. And then you get into it with your family member, and you just remind the part, "No, I can handle this. Just let me stay." And now, when that happens with my wife, sometimes, not on a good day-

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
... I can stay in the C word qualities and have a totally different conversation with her than if that protector took over.

Andrew Huberman:
I'd like to take a quick break and thank our sponsor, AG1. AG1 is an all-in-one vitamin mineral probiotic drink with adaptogens. I've been taking AG1 daily since 2012, so I'm delighted that they're sponsoring this podcast. The reason I started taking AG1, and the reason I still take AG1, is because it is the highest quality and most complete foundational nutritional supplement. What that means is that AG1 ensures that you're getting all the necessary vitamins, minerals, and other micronutrients to form a strong foundation for your daily health. AG1 also has probiotics and prebiotics that support a healthy gut microbiome. Your gut microbiome consists of trillions of microorganisms that line your digestive tract and impact things such as your immune system status, your metabolic health, your hormone health, and much more. So I've consistently found that when I take AG1 daily, my digestion is improved, my immune system is more robust, and my mood and mental focus are at their best. In fact, if I could take just one supplement, that supplement would be AG1. If you'd like to try AG1, you can go to drinkag1.com/huberman to claim a special offer. They'll give you five free travel packs plus a year's supply of vitamin D3 K2 with your order of AG1. Again, go to drinkag1.com/huberman to claim this special offer. Today's episode is also brought to us by Wealthfront. I've been using Wealthfront for my savings and my investing for nearly a decade, and I absolutely love it. At the start of every year, I set new goals, and one of my goals for 2025 is to focus on saving money. Since I have Wealthfront, I'll keep that savings in my Wealthfront cash account, where I'm able to earn 4% annual percentage yield on my deposits, and you can as well. With Wealthfront, you can earn 4% APY on your cash from partner banks until you're ready to either spend that money or invest it. With Wealthfront, you also get free instant withdrawals to eligible accounts every day, even on weekends and holidays. The 4% APY is not a promotional rate, and there's no limit to what you can deposit and earn. And you can even get protection for up to $8 million through FDIC insurance provided through Wealthfront's partner banks. Wealthfront gives you free instant withdrawals, where it takes just minutes to transfer your money to eligible external accounts. It also takes just minutes to transfer your cash from the cash account to any of Wealthfront's automated investment accounts when you're ready to invest. There are already a million people using Wealthfront to save more, earn more, and build long-term wealth. Earn 4% APY on your cash today. If you'd like to try Wealthfront, go to wealthfront.com/huberman to receive a free $50 bonus with a $500 deposit into your first cash account. That's wealthfront.com/huberman to get started now. This has been a paid testimonial of Wealthfront. Wealthfront Brokerage isn't a bank. The APY is subject to change. For more information, see the episode description. I'm struck by a couple of things that I think people will be, if I may, wise to think about. One is in the classic psychodynamic or CBT model of therapy, it's clear that the client or patient, sometimes it's called-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Patient

Andrew Huberman:
... patient-therapist relationship is one where it takes on certain components that exist in the outside world with other people. And it's always slightly bothered me/concerned me that that's the structure.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman:
And as you said, in IFS, internal family systems, you become your own-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm

Andrew Huberman:
... kind of therapist, if you will-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm. Done

Andrew Huberman:
... for lack of a better way to put it. I like that because there's so much discussion nowadays about parenting yourself-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm

Andrew Huberman:
... and this kind of thing, and learning to mother yourself and father yourself, and I actually think there's great value in that.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman:
I learned by living alone how to cook for myself-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm

Andrew Huberman:
... and clean for myself. These are, I'm mapping to stereotypes here, but also to protect myself-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm

Andrew Huberman:
... and to organize myself and be very disciplined and actually running a laboratory was a great teaching there because you're basically a single academic parent to all these people. So you have to quickly realize where you lack maternal instincts and where-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah

Andrew Huberman:
... you may lack or over-emphasize or have hypertrophied paternal instincts.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman:
So that was a good forum to see my weaknesses-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm

Andrew Huberman:
... and hopefully some strengths, too. So I like this idea that one can play those roles for oneself. How is IFS typically done if somebody doesn't have access to a therapist who's expert in it?

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman:
Or is that really the only proper gateway into it?

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
No. So-

Andrew Huberman:
Because I'm sitting here with the master, the founder, and I'm very grateful, by the way, for the work we just did.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Good.

Andrew Huberman:
So thank you.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
You're welcome.

Andrew Huberman:
It feels good.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
It was a privilege.

Andrew Huberman:
Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, likewise. But most people won't have direct one-on-one access to you.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Right.

Andrew Huberman:
So it's very experiential.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman:
I imagine in books and courses, people can learn how to do this. And by the way, this was not preconceived as a pitch for books and courses.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
No, it's good.

Andrew Huberman:
But I'm wondering, can somebody do this on their own the very first time?

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
That's what I want to know.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah. So for a long time, I resisted trying to take this directly to the public because I learned the hard way that some systems, particularly people with huge amounts of trauma, are quite delicate.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
And if you start going to these, the part we talked about that's vulnerable inside, that has this view of relationships, this kind of idealized view of relationships, of yours, would be what I call an exile that if we were to go to it, and we won't today because it requires a lot of vulnerability, but if we were to, a lot of extreme protectors might come out and then people start to get scared. So it took a long time to figure out how we might bring it to the public in a safer way, and so we just put out a workbook for people, and it doesn't involve necessarily going to those places.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
But there's a huge amount you can do just by working the way we started to with these protectors and getting to know them and know that they're not you. They're just a part trying their best. And no, it's not anything negative. That judgmental part you've got such an attitude about or fear of, if you were just to begin getting curious about it and getting to know it a bit, you'd find out that it's a very valuable part that has a lot of discernment, like you said, and wants desperately to keep you from getting in these relationships where you get hurt and gets so judgmental because you don't listen to it. Do you follow what I'm saying?

Andrew Huberman:
I do. In fact, something pops to mind. Maybe I could just ask you about it. My mind's right on what you're saying, but something occurred to me as you said it Which is, if I were to, for instance, really feel the feeling of like, "Hey, that's really screwed up," or like actually feel the disappointment or judgment that this titanium teddy bear is trying to protect against, I realize it leads to a lot of role confusion and identity confusion.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
That's right.

Andrew Huberman:
And I'll just be very blunt. It's probably not the best thing to do on a podcast, but I'm going to do it anyway, which is, this is how I feel about modern politics.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman:
I see things on the left-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm

Andrew Huberman:
... that make sense to me, and things that are, to me, just absolutely ludicrous, inappropriate-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Me too, yeah

Andrew Huberman:
... and offensive, and just badly wrong.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman:
I see things on the right that make a ton of sense to me, and also things that are inappropriate, offensive, and wrong.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman:
And as a consequence, I'm trying to see the goodness in both sides-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Right

Andrew Huberman:
... and just kind of create this kind of Swiss cheese model of the world. I'm talking about politics because it's just simpler to do, and people at least know the groups we're talking about. But then it leaves me in a place of no affiliation.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman:
And I'm then between one of two stances. One of just kind of standing there and being like, "Yeah. Well, there's no real position in the middle that is an official position in the middle." But it also makes me just want to put up the middle finger to both and say, "I'm a double hater." But of course, I'm an adult and a citizen who cares about people in the country.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman:
And so I feel like to be an adult, I can't opt out, but I feel unaffiliated.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman:
I feel like there's no option for me. And this maps pretty well to, I think, the identity and role confusion-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm

Andrew Huberman:
... that I feel when I place my, again, understanding the truth is a complicated thing, but my judgment on things and people. It's like, well, then, what is my role as a son?

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Right.

Andrew Huberman:
What is my role as a partner? What is my role if this thing is true?

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Right.

Andrew Huberman:
And so it's a way I'm realizing of protecting the simplicity of a role.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
That's right.

Andrew Huberman:
And I did grow up in a home where the roles were like, you're a son, you do certain things.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman:
But I also have a rebellious side to me. So the role confusion is something that I imagine a lot of people are familiar with.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
And I also believe that when you just really say, "Well, they did something bad, therefore all bad, therefore I'm part of the opposite team."

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Right.

Andrew Huberman:
That, to me, is an unlived life.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
But I see a lot of people do it, and actually-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah

Andrew Huberman:
... sometimes I'm envious of people that have that ability.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
Because they seem so unconflicted.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Right.

Andrew Huberman:
So it's a tough thing to be a thinking, feeling person-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
It is

Andrew Huberman:
... at the level of nuance.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
It kind of sucks sometimes.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
I'd rather do that than be a double hater or just cleanly opt in.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
Does that make sense?

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Totally makes sense.

Andrew Huberman:
Okay.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
And what I'm hearing is that when you're looking at a person or a political party or issue in the world, you'll hear from these conflicted parts. They each have perspective, just like our country now. Hears from these conflicted parts. But you don't have a lot of access to what I'm calling self in those contexts.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Because one of the C words is clarity. So again, as I was listening to you and Martha, you were talking about how there are times where you just have this sense in your body of what's right or what's true.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
That's what I'm calling self. Self has that clarity, and self sees injustice. Some of those C words are courage, confidence, and clarity. So there's an impulse also to act to correct imbalance, to correct injustice, too. So self isn't a kind of passive witness as it is in a lot of spiritual traditions in IFS. It's an active inner leader. It's an active external leader. And too often, our actions are driven by these protective parts, and that's true in our politics now, too.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
So one of my goals is to try to bring more self-leadership to the world, to all these conflicts. But to do that, people have to unburden. They have to release these extreme beliefs and emotions they got from their traumas in the past. We have a concept we call legacy burdens. So many people have inherited these extreme beliefs and emotions that came down through their ancestors and drive their parts, drive their extremes. And many conflicts in the world are driven by these legacy burdens. And we've gotten good at helping people unload these things.

Andrew Huberman:
Yeah, we've seen this in the Middle East recently.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Totally.

Andrew Huberman:
Right.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
We're doing a lot of work in the Middle East, so we have training programs there. And one of my visions is to have large-scale legacy unburdenings, where large groups of people come together, and we help them unload the Holocaust legacy burdens on the one side and the 1941 legacy burdens on the Palestinian side. And have more self accessible to each side. And when we do couples therapy, we do other kinds of negotiated conflict. If people's parts start getting into it, you just say, "Timeout." You sort of did this on your own with your family member.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Just say, "Timeout. I want both of you to go inside, find the parts that have been doing the speaking Don't come back until you can speak for them, but not from them. And come back in these C-word qualities, in that state of psy. If we can hold people in that, it's really easy to get out of the conflict. If their protectors are going at it all the time, conflicts never change.

Andrew Huberman:
Do you think that people who have the reflex or the ability to kind of somaticize a bit... I don't think of myself as somebody who's psychosomatic. I don't have stomach aches and headaches and stuff unless I caught a virus. But I can feel where certain things are in my body-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm

Andrew Huberman:
... pretty quickly-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm

Andrew Huberman:
... and always have. Do you think that IFS lends itself better to people who feel things somatically versus people that are really cognitive and in their head? Because I have that component, too. I can actually feel the switch.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
I'll go into a narrative, and then-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah

Andrew Huberman:
... I start to see the structure up here.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
And-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah, that happened several times when we were working together.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
I would have you stay with something, and then the narrator part would kick in.

Andrew Huberman:
Yeah.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
And then I would try to refocus you.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
But I lived in Boston for 10 years, so I worked with lots of cognitive people who didn't know their bodies, who just were in that rat race to try and get tenure, and so on.

Andrew Huberman:
Been there.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yes. Me too.

Andrew Huberman:
Yeah. Tenure's nice, but one should tend to their emotional selves-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Exactly

Andrew Huberman:
... while they're pursuing it.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
But just to answer your question, they can do it, but we first have to start with that thinking part-

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
... and get it on board, and get it to step out, and to stay out long enough that they can feel their bodies. So yeah. It lends itself to anybody, but with people like that, it takes a while for that thinking part to trust that it's safe to let them into their bodies.

Andrew Huberman:
So if we were to just step back for a moment and do sort of a top contour summary of the process. Someone brings forward a memory, a recent or a distant memory of something that made them feel not good, and you try and localize some sensation in the body.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
Get a sense of its location.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Let me pause there.

Andrew Huberman:
Yeah.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
I'll tell you why.

Andrew Huberman:
Yeah.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Because if they find it in their body-

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
... and they direct the question there, and they wait for the answer to come from there-

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
... they're less likely to be in their head.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
So-

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
... it sort of short-circuits that thinking part. And so many people come to therapy, and that thinking part thinks it's supposed to do the therapy. It's CBT or whatever. Even a lot of the more psychodynamic therapies, the thinking part is really trying to explain why they feel stuff.

Andrew Huberman:
Right.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
So this is getting them out of that and getting them to actually listen inside into what they think is their body, but it's really these parts that live down there-

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
... that they haven't had access to because the thinking part is running things so much.

Andrew Huberman:
Got it. And then one places some attention from the stance of curiosity to like, "What's there? What's it trying to say?"

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Exactly.

Andrew Huberman:
And then you start to reveal the underlying layers of what's it protecting.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Exactly.

Andrew Huberman:
What are those things that are protective trying to say?

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah. It's not even you're trying to reveal. It's just that you're asking these questions, and the answers start coming.

Andrew Huberman:
I see. Oh, I love this because I'm a big believer in seeding the unconscious mind and then letting things surface, either in sleep or in meditative states or... Has internal family systems been combined with some of the therapies that are now getting tested, still in clinical trial stage, around psychedelics?

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah. In fact, two days ago, we just completed a IFS and ketamine retreat.

Andrew Huberman:
Oh, wow.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
And we're doing it more and more. Like I said, I'm trying to bring this more out of the psychotherapy world. So we invited 32 leaders to come, of various kinds, and had three days where they do ketamine and then do IFS. The nice thing about psychedelics is it puts those manager parts to sleep somehow a lot of the time.

Andrew Huberman:
Yeah. I've been open about the fact, and I always have to provide the disclaimer. I don't just say this to protect me, I say this to protect listeners, that I do think young people should avoid psychedelics. The brain is already in a psychedelic state.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
I do, too. Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
The amount of plasticity, and this is really tremendous, and this is coming from somebody who regrets it, but I did psychedelics recreationally as a kid.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Me too.

Andrew Huberman:
And I regret it. I returned to them later in a clinical setting and derived a lot of benefit, I think, from them. Namely, high-dose psilocybin and MDMA. But both of those are still very much illegal. You can get into a lot of trouble for-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah

Andrew Huberman:
... taking them and/or certainly for selling them. So, that's the cautionary note there. And the clinical trials are really impressive, in my opinion.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Impressive. Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
Spectacularly impressive, especially for MDMA and for the treatment of PTSD. But the FDA, this last year, did not approve MDMA as a treatment for PTSD. I think going forward in the new administration, it's likely that it will get approved.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman:
Who knows?

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
Who knows? So anyway, that's a bunch of pseudo legalese jargon, but it's sincere. If I were an 18 or 19-year-old person, or 30-year-old person listening to a conversation about psychedelics and how they can be helpful, I would want to also know that there are instances where people take them and they don't have the appropriate guidance in-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Totally

Andrew Huberman:
... and through it and out of it, and it leads to serious problems.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
And that's-

Andrew Huberman:
So this is a real thing that we're talking about

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
... that's why these ketamine clinics where they just hand them the drugs and-

Andrew Huberman:
Yeah. It's terrible

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
... your medicine and just leave them on their own is scary to me. I'm proud to say that IFS has been adopted as one of the primary models for psychedelics now.

Andrew Huberman:
Great.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Because it's a really nice fit.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
And as I was saying earlier, what I see happening often, not always, is these manager parts go offline, and that releases a lot of self. So you start to just feel those C word qualities emerging. And that's a big invitation to all these exiled parts to come and get attention. And so as people come out of the ketamine experience, I can work with them for 15 minutes and do something that would take maybe five sessions, because they can get access to parts that they couldn't get, or it would take a long time to convince their protectors to let us go to.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
And we can unburden those exiles and then bring back their protectors, and so I love it. And ketamine's the legal one, so that's why we do it. And the other nice thing, and I don't know as a scientist how much you would go with this, but ketamine, again, because it opens the door with these protectors, you can also taste what I call the big self. You taste this, what they call non-dual state, that can be quite blissful. And some people go, "God." And then as you come back, you have this sense of, I'm much more than this little body and this little ego, that there is something much bigger. And that's why they're using it with end of life and why it, and psilocybin, has such a big impact on depression and because it sort of lifts you out of this little box your protectors have you in, to know that there's something much more, so.

Andrew Huberman:
Interesting. I've never tried ketamine. A few years ago, and I've talked about this publicly as well, I started developing a pretty deep relationship to spirituality and God, and mostly through the path of giving up control.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman:
I mean, there's just certain... Breaking news, folks, you can't control everything.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Right.

Andrew Huberman:
You can control certain things, but most things, no. And the way you describe ketamine's very interesting because as a dissociative anesthetic, it works in such a fundamentally different way than, say, MDMA-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm

Andrew Huberman:
... which is an empathogen-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm

Andrew Huberman:
... which makes people feel so much more.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Right.

Andrew Huberman:
I sort of half joke that aside from the safety, legality stuff, the concern I have about MDMA is that if one is not in the eye mask-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm

Andrew Huberman:
... if you don't have somebody guiding you through it and taking-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Right

Andrew Huberman:
... some notes, if you listen to a piece of jazz or classical music or your favorite rock and roll album, or you're there with your dog or cat or plants, you can spend the entire four hours bonding with the plant.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Right.

Andrew Huberman:
You're not going to run off and get married to a plant. You're not going to try and fornicate with a plant.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Right.

Andrew Huberman:
One hopes . But it's a very precious but very labile situation.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Totally agree.

Andrew Huberman:
Because it's such a strong empathogen that whatever you direct your attention to-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm

Andrew Huberman:
... internal or external, is going to hypertrophy.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman:
So just have to be really careful.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Totally agree.

Andrew Huberman:
And given that the neurotoxicity issues seem worked out and that if it's actually MDMA and isn't other things... By the way, the big study that showed neurotoxicity of MDMA-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm

Andrew Huberman:
... in non-human primates-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm

Andrew Huberman:
... turned out they were injecting methamphetamine.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
What?

Andrew Huberman:
Yeah. That paper was retracted. It was published in "Science." We'll provide a link to the paper and the retraction.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
I had no idea.

Andrew Huberman:
The retraction was not as publicized.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Wow.

Andrew Huberman:
Methylenedioxymethamphetamine, MDMA, has not been shown to be neurotoxic, provided that's what people are taking.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Wow.

Andrew Huberman:
And not taking some combination of other things. Yeah. It's a real tragedy the way that retractions don't get nearly the kind of popular press coverage that-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah

Andrew Huberman:
... initial studies do.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
Regardless of whether or not the initial study was positive or negative.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
In any case, I do believe there are other routes to calming down the forebrain-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm

Andrew Huberman:
... in the context of doing this kind of work that-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm

Andrew Huberman:
... I'd just like your thoughts on.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Sure.

Andrew Huberman:
When I first wake up in the morning-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm

Andrew Huberman:
... I'm in kind of a liminal state.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman:
But the thing that I don't want to think about comes to my brain. I can't avoid it. It's like the protectors are not available.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Exactly.

Andrew Huberman:
They're still asleep.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
That's right.

Andrew Huberman:
So that seems valuable.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
I've tried recently to keep my eyes closed. Sometimes I'll get up and use the bathroom, but keep my eyes closed, stay in that still state, and explore the contours of that thing.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman:
Provided it's done safely and not anywhere near water, cyclic hyperventilation breathwork-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm

Andrew Huberman:
... done for a few minutes or cycles.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman:
we think can change the brain activity so the forebrain kind of comes off of line a bit, so to speak.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
All these things just-

Andrew Huberman:
Do those-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
... put managers to sleep.

Andrew Huberman:
Put managers to sleep.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Like when you go to sleep, your managers go to sleep.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
And then you have these weird dreams, and that's because your exiles have access to your mind now.

Andrew Huberman:
Yeah.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
And they're trying to give you signals about what they want. The other thing I'll say about psychedelics and the breathing too, is that as your managers go to sleep and your exiles start coming in, it can seem really terrifying because these parts are stuck in horrible places often with a lot of terror. And so what's called bad trips is them trying to get attention.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
So they'll come in and they'll totally take over, and you'll look like you're having a panic attack. But what we've learned, and this happened a few times last week, is instead of thinking of it as a panic attack or a bad trip, to welcome it. Here's a part that needs a lot of attention. It's taken over entirely. But if I were to say, "Okay, Andrew, I see you're really scared, but how do you feel toward this really scared part that's here now?" And I could get you to say, "Well, I feel sorry for it," then I would have you start to get to know it and work with it and comfort it, rather than have a panic attack. You would access calm and those C words. And then it becomes a hugely useful healing of something that's in you that's stuck in a terrified place.

Andrew Huberman:
I'd like to take a quick break and acknowledge one of our sponsors, Function. Last year I became a Function member after searching for the most comprehensive approach to lab testing. Function provides over 100 advanced lab tests that give you a key snapshot of your entire bodily health. This snapshot offers you with insights on your heart health, hormone health, immune functioning, nutrient levels, and much more. They've also recently added tests for toxins, such as BPA exposure from harmful plastics, and tests for PFAS, or forever chemicals. Function not only provides testing of over 100 biomarkers key to your physical and mental health, but it also analyzes these results and provides insights from top doctors who are expert in the relevant areas. For example, in one of my first tests with Function, I learned that I had elevated levels of mercury in my blood. Function not only helped me detect that, but offered insights into how best to reduce my mercury levels, which included limiting my tuna consumption, I'd been eating a lot of tuna, while also making an effort to eat more leafy greens and supplementing with NAC, N-acetylcysteine, both of which can support glutathione production and detoxification. And I should say, by taking a second Function test, that approach worked. Comprehensive blood testing is vitally important. There are so many things related to your mental and physical health that can only be detected in a blood test. The problem is blood testing has always been very expensive and complicated. In contrast, I've been super impressed by Function's simplicity and at the level of cost. It is very affordable. As a consequence, I decided to join their scientific advisory board, and I'm thrilled that they're sponsoring the podcast. If you'd like to try Function, you can go to functionhealth.com/huberman. Function currently has a wait list of over 250,000 people, but they're offering early access to Huberman Podcast listeners. Again, that's functionhealth.com/huberman to get early access to Function. What is so striking to me is that, and Martha taught me this practice of when we think about the things that create shame for ourselves, if we're able to go up and really look at those and-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yep

Andrew Huberman:
... own them not from the perspective of I'm proud of them, but own them as in us and not of us.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman:
That it's incredibly freeing.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
And indeed, it is so freeing, right?

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
If there were a secret to life, it would at least include that.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
Because-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Let me riff off of that for a second.

Andrew Huberman:
Yeah, please. Yeah.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Just as an example, I've done workshops where I have people work with their racism. You're speaking of something very shameful. And a lot of people say, "I'm not a racist. I don't have any racism." But if I really convince them to look inside and check, they'll find there's a little part in there that does spout racist things when they meet somebody of a different skin color. It has these white supremacy beliefs, and they're really ashamed of it. So if I were to have you focus on that racist voice in there, we would have to get a lot of the parts that are ashamed of it to step out, and then I would have you get curious about it rather than ashamed of it, and ask it about where it picked up these beliefs. And it could tell you. And then I would ask, "Do you like having to carry this racist stuff?" Usually, they'll say no. If it's ready to unload it, we can just unload it. So one of the key things to know is these parts are not the burdens they carry. They're all good. The little guy who's got the racist rant is a part that got stuck with these beliefs. But when he releases those beliefs, he transforms into being a good. And the mistake our culture makes, the mistake that most psychotherapies make, is to assume that he is that racist rant and to try to exile him. But it's a different way of understanding even very seemingly evil people, that they're dominated by these protectors, and they're so afraid of their exiles And they relate inside in the same way they relate outside. So if they hate parts of themselves, they'll hate people who resemble those parts of them. They'll try to dominate those people. Do you follow what I'm saying?

Andrew Huberman:
Yeah, and I'd like to really go into this a bit because we hear all the time that when we're upset about something, it's something in ourselves that we're really upset about.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm. And for me, that isn't always true, but that's sometimes true.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
So if I'm upset about the intolerance of good ideas from people in opposite groups-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm

Andrew Huberman:
... of each other's good ideas, this logic would say that I'm really just disapproving of that aspect of myself that is black and white judgmental.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Which we already established.

Andrew Huberman:
Got me. Then again, you're the therapist. Right. So is this always true?

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Not always.

Andrew Huberman:
Okay.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
But a lot of the time.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
So if you can come to have compassion for that judgmental part of you and-

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
... not be embattled with it and actually see it as desperately trying to help you be more discerning, and help it unburden and get out of this role that it's in. Because in the role that it's in, it can be destructive.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
We're not trying to minimize that or say... When I say all parts are, there are no bad parts, there are no bad parts, but they can get into very destructive roles, and they can carry these burdens from the past that can drive them to be harmful. But part of my work is to help all that change. And, so if you were to start a new relationship with that judgmental part of you, then you would see past the judgmental parts of other people, and you could see the exiles that drive those protectors. And you would have compassion for them. It wouldn't mean you wouldn't stop them or stand up to them, but you would do it with compassion rather than from these hateful protectors.

Andrew Huberman:
I think it's important that people hear that. Namely, that if we get in touch with these parts of ourselves that are protectors, that it makes us less vulnerable, not more vulnerable-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Totally

Andrew Huberman:
... both to, quote-unquote, "attack." But that also, I guess put simply, that in understanding of ourselves and compassion for ourselves, one develops understanding and compassion for others. But that doesn't mean that you're opening yourself up for harm.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
That's right.

Andrew Huberman:
And the opposite is actually true.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
The opposite is actually true because these protectors will generate often what they fear. So by being so protective, they'll create protectors in the other that will attack. Whereas if they could stay in self, self can be very protective with those C word qualities, very forceful, sometimes fierce.

Andrew Huberman:
This idea of, I'm definitely following that we will sometimes create in others what we fear because it allows us to engage in this unhealthy dynamic.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman:
It seems so counterintuitive, right?

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Right.

Andrew Huberman:
Maybe we take a kind of classic set of examples that I think are pretty common. A person who's codependent with somebody who's a substance abuse addict.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman:
Or somebody who's very timid and always wants to pacify-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm

Andrew Huberman:
... and somebody who's very dominant.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman:
When I zoom out from the second case, it actually kind of makes me chuckle how crazy that is because if you think about it, a person who is very dominant doesn't need somebody very timid in order to feel dominant, right? They could probably feel whatever power it is they need to feel with somebody who is less timid and maybe-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm

Andrew Huberman:
... the relationship would be healthier. But that's not how people tend to other select.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Look, yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
It's kind of interesting.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Right.

Andrew Huberman:
So it raises perhaps a bigger question. Why do people select people that are fundamentally bad for them?

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Okay. So I did a book called "You're The One You've Been Waiting For," and in it, I talked about this whole issue. And so for a lot of people, you get hurt by your parent, and there are parts that want to protect you from your parent, but there are other parts who are desperate, who took on the worthlessness from being rejected by your parent and are desperate for redemption. Do you follow this?

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
And so, as you leave and you're looking for a partner, that part from a subconscious place can influence your decision to find somebody who resembles that parent in their effort to be redeemed again.

Andrew Huberman:
Yeah. Is this anything like the sort of repetition compulsion?

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah. Exactly.

Andrew Huberman:
That we tend to repeat a pattern over and over again as an attempt to resolve-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah

Andrew Huberman:
... not just a manifestation of dysfunction.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
That's a version of what I'm talking about.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
And so you find somebody who does resemble that person, that parent, and unfortunately, they do resemble that parent.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
And so they'll hurt you in the same way.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
And then your protectors go into one of four modes. They'll say, "I've got to change that person back into who they're supposed to be." So they'll try to change the person's behavior. Or they'll say, "I've got to change myself so they'll be who they're supposed to be." Or they'll say, "Oh, this wasn't the redeemer after all," and they'll go looking for the real redeemer who's still out there.

Andrew Huberman:
And it's always inside.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
And yeah, that's what I try to do is to help them see that that redeemer is inside of them itself.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
And if we can go to that exile who's got this thing for this parent-like person and help it connect to self and help it unburden, that whole repetition compulsion disappears. Because now they can take care of themselves. They trust self to do it. They don't need that from some other person like that. And so when we're working with couples, and you always find some version of that in couples, if we can get each of them to become their own good attachment figure, good caretaker inside, that frees up the partner. Because when this exile is leading the relationship, your partner feels a lot of demands or feels a lot like your partner has to take care of that young part of you, and can't fully do it. So there's always this sense of, oh, a burden. You know what I'm saying?

Andrew Huberman:
Yeah. It's so interesting how romantic relationships are where these patterns get repeated.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm.

Andrew Huberman:
And at the same time, I have numerous examples in my life of healthy relationships. Is that usually the case because people have done the work before or because they had a minimum of trauma in their upbringing?

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Both. Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
Yeah. What percentage of kids, adults as well, do you think had a minimum of trauma are just because of the way they're wired and the way the stuff is organized within them that they naturally attach to a good partner and are pretty healthy? Is it like 25%, 30%?

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Wow.

Andrew Huberman:
Does it-- I know. Let's see.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
I really can't say because my sample is very skewed. I'm working with psychotherapy patients who always have a lot of trauma.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
So I really can't say. I'm very biased.

Andrew Huberman:
Well, half of marriages in this country end in divorce. And presumably, of the ones that don't, I'm guessing somewhere between a half and a quarter of those people are really unhappy. Sounds so pessimistic, but if you just look at the numbers. And I'm an optimist. I already acknowledge that I don't like to think about bad stuff and I-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Right

Andrew Huberman:
So, yeah, I'm guessing that a lot of people repeat these patterns. But it seemed as if maybe 20, 30 years ago, because these ideas weren't discussed really-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm

Andrew Huberman:
... so many fewer people were in any kind of analysis or personal exploration work.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman:
That as a society, we defaulted to just sort of role execution.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman:
You're a father and a husband, so you do certain things.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm. Right.

Andrew Huberman:
And you don't do certain things.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Right.

Andrew Huberman:
You're a wife and a mother, so you do certain things and you don't do certain, and so on. And I think nowadays there's a lot of discussion about is there a resurgence of organized religion because we've drifted so far from these kind of core structures? I'd love your thoughts on that. And also what you think doing this kind of internal work on oneself without requiring any input or participation from another, what the value of that is. It sounds like there's tremendous value to just doing this work for oneself, maybe with someone trained in IFS.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah. Like I was saying, there's a lot you can do with working with your protectors and helping them get to know self. We didn't do it, but had you asked that titanium teddy bear how old it thought you were and just really waited for the answer-

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
... most people will get a single digit.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
It still thinks you're very young.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
And it still thinks it has to protect you the way it did when you were very young. And just even updating it creates a huge amount of relief with these protectors. So there's a lot that can be done just by working with protectors, introducing them to self, helping them see they don't have to keep doing this all the time. Some protectors, it's very hard for them to totally drop their weapons until what they protect has been healed. So that's where the therapist comes in. So there are coaches doing this work, for example. They'll work with some executive and they'll do great, and then they'll get to an exile, and then they'll have the person see a IFS therapist for a couple of sessions to heal the exile and then come back. Because coaches aren't trained as therapists and-

Andrew Huberman:
Right

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
... so yeah, there's still need for therapists. But you can do a lot on your own.

Andrew Huberman:
I'm struck by how experiential it is as opposed to just conceptual. Obviously, the concepts are important, but I think Internal Family Systems was described for me previously, kind of mapped out for me on paper. I got a sense of it actually with some objects placed out and these-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm

Andrew Huberman:
... and it was helpful, but I think just having done a little bit of it today, only by actually feeling the sensations in the body associated with it-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Exactly

Andrew Huberman:
... does it actually really make sense to me.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
That's right.

Andrew Huberman:
It made sense cognitively, but that's so very different.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
It's very removed, yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
Yeah, it's like me telling people, "Get out and get sunlight in your eyes in the morning to set your circadian rhythm."

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Right.

Andrew Huberman:
You can know that, you can know the underlying mechanisms, the neurons, the pathways, the hormones, et cetera, but At some level, until you experience what that's like for two or three days in a row, you might as well be reading about, I don't know, titanium teddy bears. Yeah.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Exactly, and that's why I'm so grateful to you that you were willing to try it. And because it's true, as I describe it to people, they don't really get it until they actually feel it, experience it. And it is very different from many other therapies which are much more cognitively based, because we're trying to bypass that and actually get to this raw stuff in here.

Andrew Huberman:
In order to be deliberately repetitive, I wonder if it would be useful to the listeners to-- Would it be possible to just pose the questions-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Sure

Andrew Huberman:
... to them-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah

Andrew Huberman:
... as an exercise that they could do in real time?

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Totally. Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
Thank you so much. I think that would be tremendously valuable. So I'm going to have to erase myself here.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman:
For once, I'm going to be quiet for a little while, folks. And you are the lucky patient that gets to talk to Dr. Schwartz here, and he's going to pose a series of questions. And we'll allow some moments of break or silence for you to be able to tap into the answers to these in real time. That way, you don't have to create a parallel construction of what we did earlier.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah. And let me lead by saying, please don't do this if you have fear about doing it. But if you're interested in some inner exploration, then I'll lead you through some of the steps. So as you've been listening to our conversation, I'm speaking to the listeners, you may be thinking about some of your own parts, particularly your own protectors. And if you can't think of any, most people have a kind of critic inside or part that makes them work too hard or a part that takes care of too many people. So I'm going to invite you to pick a protective part to try to get to know for a few minutes, and just notice that inner voice or that emotion, that thought pattern, that sensation. Just focus on it exclusively for a second. And as you do that, notice where it seems to be located in your body or around your body. And just take a second with that. And some people don't find a location. Some people, they still sense it, but it's not clear where it seems to be located. But if you do find it in or around your body, then just focus on it there. And as you focus on it, notice how you feel toward it. And by that, I mean, do you dislike it and want to get rid of it? Are you afraid of it? Do you resent how it dominates? Do you depend on it? So you have a relationship with this part of you. And if you feel anything except a kind of openness or curiosity or willingness to get to know it, then that's coming from other parts that have been trying to deal with it. And we're just going to ask those other parts of you to relax back for just a few minutes so you can get to know it. We're not going to have it take over more. We're just going to get to know it better. So see if they're willing to let you open your mind to it. And if they're not, then we're not going to pursue this, and you can just get to know their fear about letting you get to know this target part. But if you do get to that point of just being curious about it without an agenda, then ask it what it wants you to know about itself. Just a kind of nice, open-ended question. And don't think of the answer. Just wait and see what comes from that place in your body. And don't judge what comes. Just whatever comes, we'll go with it. What does it want you to know about itself? And what's it afraid would happen if it didn't do this inside of you? If you got an answer to that question about the fear, then it was telling you something about how it's been trying to protect you. And if that's true, then extend some appreciation to it for at least trying to keep you safe, even if it backfires or it doesn't work. Let it know you appreciate that it's trying to protect you, and see how it reacts to your appreciation And then ask if you could go to what it protects and heal or change that so it didn't need to protect you so much, what might it like to do instead inside of you if it was released from this role? And I'll repeat that. If you could go to what it protects and heal or change that so it was liberated from this protector role, what might it like to do instead inside of you? And then ask it this kind of odd question. How old does this part think you are? Not how old is it, but how old does it think you are? And again, don't think, just wait and see what comes. And if it got your age wrong, then go ahead and update it and see how it reacts. And the last question for this part is, what does it need from you going forward? What does it need from you? And again, just wait for the answer. And when the time feels right, thank your parts for whatever they let you do in this, and then begin to shift your focus back outside and maybe take some deep breaths as you do that.

Andrew Huberman:
Thank you for that.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Awesome.

Andrew Huberman:
That was awesome. I also was able to get some, I think, good work done in the-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Is that true?

Andrew Huberman:
Yeah. Totally different location, totally different set of dynamics. Even though what you just took us through is very experiential, what, if any, value do you think there is to writing down sort of-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
A lot of value

Andrew Huberman:
... key takeaways?

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
Okay.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah. So it's great to do the work session or this exercise. But ideally, it's the beginning of a new relationship with this part.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
And that takes work on your own. So what I advise people is as you get that ball rolling in that good direction, it'll reverse if you don't stay with it for a while. So every day, like you were saying, you wake up, rather than what am I going to do today or what problems do I have in my life? How's that part of me doing that I've been starting to work with?

Andrew Huberman:
Yeah.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
What does it need from me today? What does it want me to know? Is it still feeling better? Do I still have compassion for it or appreciation for it? So like I said earlier, this kind of becomes a life practice.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
So I do that every morning.

Andrew Huberman:
Every morning?

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Well, not every.

Andrew Huberman:
Well, you're very familiar with these parts.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
And to clarify for people, when Dr. Schwartz is saying parts, he's saying these personalities within us.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
Not necessarily the body part where it manifests.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
That's right.

Andrew Huberman:
But that provides a physical anchor-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Exactly

Andrew Huberman:
... to look to.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Exactly right.

Andrew Huberman:
Yeah.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
So, yeah. I'll check in, not with all my parts because I've met many, but the ones I've been working with-

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
... just to see how they're doing. And as I go through the day, I'll notice, am I in those C-word qualities? Is my heart open? Is my mind curious? Do I have a big agenda? Any departures from that is the protector usually. And I'll just have a little internal board meeting and say, "I get you feel like..." In preparing to come and be on this podcast, I had to work with the parts that were nervous, and my father was a big scientist, a big endocrinology researcher and-

Andrew Huberman:
Oh, cool.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
Great field.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Great field.

Andrew Huberman:
Yeah.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
My brother is a big shot endocrinology researcher. So I have some issues put that way.

Andrew Huberman:
I hope I didn't reinforce the negative ones.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Well, that was my parts' worries-

Andrew Huberman:
Yeah

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
... coming in.

Andrew Huberman:
Yeah.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
And so I worked on it and said, "Okay, I get it. I get you're scared." I could feel them in my hands when I was taking a drink earlier.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm. Interesting.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
But I just kept, "Okay, I get that. I get you're scared, but just trust me. Just step back. Just relax." And then I feel this shift, a literal shift.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
And then I feel those C-words flooding, and then we have a much different kind of conversation.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
So it's a life practice in that sense.

Andrew Huberman:
Love that. Thanks for sharing that.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
I didn't detect any anxiety whatsoever, neither pre-recording nor during this discussion. If you don't mind, could you describe or maybe even just list off some of the other labels of parts that people might encounter if they do this kind of work?

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman:
So you describe them as protectors that manage, and then the exiles, which are the parts of us that the protectors and managers are protecting.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
Correct? Okay. Those are two different things, right?

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yes.

Andrew Huberman:
Okay.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
So yeah, the big distinction is between parts that by dent of simply being hurt or terrified or made to feel shamed and worthless. And usually, those are our most sensitive parts. They're the young inner children. They get stuck with those burdens of worthlessness, terror, and emotional pain, and then we don't want anything to do with them because they can overwhelm us, and so we lock them away. And everybody tells us to do that. So those are the exiles. And when you have a lot of exiles, these other parts are forced to become protectors.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
So there are two classes of protectors. One are the managers we've been talking about, and the other are the firefighters. So we mentioned a number of manager common roles, but there's just lots and lots of them. Firefighter common roles include addictions, dissociating, the kind of judgmental, rageful parts. I could go on, but-

Andrew Huberman:
Yeah

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
... anything that is reactive-

Andrew Huberman:
Yeah

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
... impulsive-

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
... and is designed to protect those vulnerable parts, but in an impulsive way, as opposed to the managers who are all about control and pleasing. These firefighters are all about, "If I don't get you away from these feelings right now, you're going to die." A lot of them believe that. And some of them, it's true. So there's often a kind of hierarchy of firefighter activities. If the first one doesn't work, you go to the next one. If that doesn't work, the top of the hierarchy for most people is suicide. If things get painful enough-

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
... there's this exit strategy. It's actually very comforting to lots of people. And here we come along and get really scared of these suicidal parts. So this is, again, it's one of the hallmarks of the difference with IFS. If you were to say you've got a suicidal part, say, "Let's go get to know it." I would have you find it and all those steps. And I would have you, "What are you afraid would happen if you didn't kill Andrew?" What do you think the answer to that is most of the time?

Andrew Huberman:
That it would just feel like too much to bear.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
Like I just couldn't take it anymore.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Exactly.

Andrew Huberman:
Which, of course, is a crazy statement because it's not like my brain would explode.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
But these parts believe it.

Andrew Huberman:
Yeah. They're not grounded in logic.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Well, my response to that part is, "If we could unload the pain that you're so afraid would overwhelm, would you have to kill him?"

Andrew Huberman:
No.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
"And would you let us do that?"

Andrew Huberman:
Well, fortunately, I don't feel suicidal.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Right.

Andrew Huberman:
But the answer would be yes.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Okay. Because we can prove to you that we can unload that pain. And if we could do that, what would you like to do instead of being the suicidal part?

Andrew Huberman:
I have to imagine that if somebody, forgive me for going into my head about this, but it's just hard for me to imagine being suicidal.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
No, that's okay.

Andrew Huberman:
Yeah. But I have to imagine that if somebody is feeling suicidal in order to protect themselves against the enormity of the feelings that they would otherwise feel, and then they are offered the opportunity to be released from those feelings, I think the scary part would be, it's like wading into really cold water.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman:
I always feel that way about negative feelings. Once you get past your waist or so-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yes

Andrew Huberman:
... you get your shoulders under-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
That's a good analogy

Andrew Huberman:
... it's a heck of a lot easier.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
It's a really nice analogy. Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
Because you realize there's an upper limit to this stuff-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah

Andrew Huberman:
... and you passed it a little while ago.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
Yeah.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah, so that suicidal part often transforms into a part that wants to help you live, actually. They're often in the role that's opposite of who they really are.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
So as you can hear, this is a totally different approach to suicide, for example. And we do the same with addictive firefighters. Find that part that makes you so high. How do you feel toward, "I hate it. I want to be in recovery. I want to just lock it up." Just get all that to step out and just get curious about and ask it what it's afraid would happen if it didn't get you high all the time. Same answer.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
If we could heal all that pain or that shame, would you have to get them high all the time? "No, but I don't think you can do that." Would you give us a chance to prove we can? Totally different approach to all these problems.

Andrew Huberman:
Something comes to mind. For a number of years, not now, fortunately, I still work a lot, but I worked, I'll share the numbers, but it's not a goal that no one should try and exceed this. There were times in graduate school where I, no joke, worked 80, 85 hours a week, slept under my desk.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Wow.

Andrew Huberman:
I lived in my office as a junior professor.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Wow.

Andrew Huberman:
My students can attest to that. Brushed my teeth in work. Not every night, but if I had Deadlines. It was just all in with mind, body, heart, everything. It's not healthy.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Right.

Andrew Huberman:
Right? And at some point, I had to take a look at it because it's not conducive to a lot of things. You can get a lot done. I won't lie.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Right.

Andrew Huberman:
You can get a lot done, you can get a lot of degrees, you can get a lot of knowledge, and you can accomplish a lot. But I decided to take a look at it.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman:
Like what would happen if I, I don't know, published five awesome papers in a year instead of 10 or something. I just started looking at it, and it seems crazy now, but I remember the genuine fear of backing off.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
That's right.

Andrew Huberman:
And I started to realize that I loved what I did, but that some of the work came from a-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah

Andrew Huberman:
... a desire to compete out other feelings. It's a form of dissociation.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Totally.

Andrew Huberman:
And then what happened was I was able to adjust my hours, really pick the projects that held the most meaning for me, and then really savor them and enjoy them. And that's how I approached the podcast and other things I'm doing. So it was a tremendously useful-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm

Andrew Huberman:
... exploration, but it was terrifying. I didn't have to go to 12-step for work addiction or anything.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Right.

Andrew Huberman:
It wasn't at that level. But-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
But you're giving an example of exactly what we do. We go to that workaholic part.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
What are you afraid would happen if you didn't do this to them?

Andrew Huberman:
Yeah. So what I came to, it's interesting, it was literally a fear of annihilation.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
Of disappearing.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
And then I thought, well, then you parsed it a little bit further. Disappearing to who?

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah, exactly.

Andrew Huberman:
It's not like there was an absence of positive feedback. So it wasn't actually to avoid disappearing from the outside world.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Right.

Andrew Huberman:
Because I'll tell you, when you're working 80, 85 hours a week-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
You're already disappeared

Andrew Huberman:
... you're already gone. You just don't realize it. It was actually some way of avoiding this thing that I've now come to really love. I learned it from my bulldog. I used to have this assumption that slow is low.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman:
Like to slow down is depressive.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman:
Now I love slowing down.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Right.

Andrew Huberman:
And I did learn that from my bulldog, and a few people came into my life and their dogs as well.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman:
And I learned to really savor slow.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman:
And not just so that I can bounce back into work.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman:
That too, admittedly. But also, and it came through, I just would like your thoughts on this. I realized right as I would go into or come out of a meditation or what I call non-sleep deep rest, this kind of yoga nidra like deep relaxation thing that listeners of this podcast will be familiar with hearing about, that there's this really terrifying moment where I realize someday, assuming I'm awake when it happens or it's not an accident or I don't get involved in an accident, I'm going to take my last breath. And it's absolutely terrifying-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah

Andrew Huberman:
... that concept. And I realized that the fear of disappearing is actually a fear of death.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
And what I was really afraid of-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yep

Andrew Huberman:
... was death.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
And I was using work.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Right.

Andrew Huberman:
So it's a long way from working 60 hours or 40 hours a week instead, or 30, whatever, but people choose as opposed to 85. But what I realized what I was running from was the fear of my own mortality.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
That's right.

Andrew Huberman:
And I didn't have to use any substances to realize this. I just had to keep peeling back the layers of like-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
That's exactly right

Andrew Huberman:
... what are you really afraid of? And now I've come to the conclusion that most addiction, having talked to a lot of addicts with process addictions and substance addictions, et cetera, that deep down, everyone, addict or no, is terrified of death. It's just that some people are in touch with that terror and have worked through it.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
But, and so-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Well, you remember what I was saying earlier when we talked to these addict parts, what are you afraid would happen if you didn't make him high? He would die. So that's a really common answer. And basically what you just described is you were doing IFS without knowing it. Asking those questions, what are you really afraid of? Till you get to the key answer, and then I don't know how you help that part that feared death, but somehow you helped it relax more.

Andrew Huberman:
Yeah, I think, for better or worse, if I see or experience something that scares me a lot, I have to explore the contours of it.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman:
That's been a dangerous part of my life, and it's been a helpful-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
To go toward it.

Andrew Huberman:
Oh, yeah. And it's been a helpful part of my life, too.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
The ability to suppress one's reflex to avoid fear-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm

Andrew Huberman:
... is such a complicated thing because on the one hand, it's necessary to navigate life. On the other hand, people always say, "What would you tell your younger self if you could tell your younger self anything?"

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
And I would have said, "Psst, hey dude, listen, if something makes you anxious, get out of there." Because my reflex has always been that if something gives me anxiety-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
You go toward it

Andrew Huberman:
... like, okay, here's a test of myself.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
I see, yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
I need to overcome it.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Okay. So that's another part protecting.

Andrew Huberman:
Yeah. So in any case, some people are the opposite.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
Yeah, I've tended to touch the hot stove three times-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah

Andrew Huberman:
... when it should've been one trial learning.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
That's right, yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
And it hurt, excuse me, the first time.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
But that's just me. Everyone's got these things, but what I'm discovering, certainly through what you're telling us today, but also the exploration of these things is that so much of life is structured, especially nowadays with the phone, love the phone, love social media, but so much of life is structured to fill all the space between activities. And I do want your thoughts on what you see in terms of things that are active impediments to doing good work of the sorts of ... work that you're describing today, self-work. I would never ask, I guess, to be disparaging of the world just for its own sake, but I think people are now starting to develop an awareness of how certain technologies and lifestyle habits that are unique to the last five or 10 years are really exacerbating our problems-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah

Andrew Huberman:
... as they relate to ourselves, not just interpersonal dynamics.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Very much, sure.

Andrew Huberman:
You seem to be thinking about the big picture a lot, so I'm curious what your thoughts are.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah. So, all these little machines we have and all the ways we have of never spending any time by ourselves, or alone, or thinking, just feed these protective parts, these distractors, and leave in the dust more and more these exiled parts. So a lot of people's fear of not having something to do is because when they don't, or if they're not working in your case, then these exiled parts start to come forward. They're not being distracted from. In my case, I mentioned my father. I'm the oldest of six boys.

Andrew Huberman:
Oh, wow.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
I was supposed to be a physician like him and a researcher, and I was spared that fate because I had undiagnosed ADD and wasn't a good student. And three of my brothers were physician research types. But I was the oldest, so he was really hard on me in terms of lazy and worthless and so on.

Andrew Huberman:
Right.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
So I came out of my family with a lot of worthlessness, and actually the model wouldn't exist if I didn't have that because I had this part that had to prove him wrong and drive me, not to the extent you're talking about or sleeping in the office or anything, but would drive me to find this model and then take it in the face of a lot of attack to where it is now. And if I wasn't working on it, if I wasn't getting the accolades, then that worthlessness would crop up, and then I'd have other firefighters to try and deal with that. And I had not only the workaholic part, but I had a part that could close my heart and make me not care what people think. And because I was attacked by traditional psychiatry and so on.

Andrew Huberman:
For developing internal family systems?

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah. I was humiliated at Grand Rounds a couple of times, and I was in a department of psychiatry.

Andrew Huberman:
What is with the field of psychiatry?

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
It's a good question. So point being that I was dominated as I developed this by these protectors, and it got me through all that, but it didn't serve me as a leader of a community. And I was lucky to have some students who would confront my parts and would just say, "You can't keep going on like this if you're going to be any use to us." And I listened, and I went and worked with that worthlessness, and now I don't have it. I don't have to work. I feel free because I'm not so afraid of that bubbling up if I'm not distracted. And now we have more distractions than ever, as we're saying.

Andrew Huberman:
Right. The pain point can potentially become the source of tremendous growth and value to the world-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah

Andrew Huberman:
... based on what you've developed. Keep in mind, I learned about your work not just through Martha Beck, although Martha as well, but several incredibly talented psychologists-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm

Andrew Huberman:
... scholars in the field of research psychology-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm

Andrew Huberman:
... and actually a psychiatrist as well.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah, there are some-

Andrew Huberman:
There are some good ones

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
... good psychiatrists.

Andrew Huberman:
Maybe I'll just share. So a psychiatrist that I think the world of said to me, I won't reveal who it is, but they said, "Do you know why there are so many lousy psychiatrists?" This isn't a joke, actually, even though it sounds like the setup for a joke. I said, "No, why?" And they said, "Well, because if you're a cardiothoracic surgeon and 30% of your patients die, you're considered a pretty terrible cardiothoracic surgeon. If you're a psychiatrist, unless your patients kill themselves on a frequent basis, you can have a pretty, quote-unquote, successful career."

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm. That's interesting.

Andrew Huberman:
And no one ever questions-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Challenges you

Andrew Huberman:
... whether or not you're good at your job or not.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
Because the field, A, has a dearth of tools, B, the kind of assumption is that a lot of things don't get better-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm

Andrew Huberman:
... and on and on. And they listed off all these reasons why the field of psychiatry is so replete with what they described as-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm

Andrew Huberman:
... lousy psychiatrists.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm.

Andrew Huberman:
So I do believe there are some excellent psychiatrists out there, research and clinical, and both. I don't know if that does anything. It sounds like you worked through your relationship to psychiatrists on your own.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
I have.

Andrew Huberman:
You don't need my statements.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
And I agree with you entirely, yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
Yeah.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
I tried to stay in psychiatry and just kept hitting the brick wall, and so I went grassroots for 30 years, and now it's started to come around into psychiatry, so-

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
... it feels good that way.

Andrew Huberman:
It's interesting how timing in a field is so important, and not just an academic field, but a clinical field, and the ethos. If anyone is interested in understanding where we are in the arc of medicine and culture, I highly recommend reading Oliver Sacks' book, "On the Move."

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm.

Andrew Huberman:
He was obviously a neurologist and writer, but he describes coming up through medicine And being in these various fields, he worked on headache for a while.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman:
It's pretty interesting. He wrote a book about migraine. He worked with kids on the autism spectrum and-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm

Andrew Huberman:
... a bunch of different fields, and in every single one of those fields was vehemently attacked-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm

Andrew Huberman:
... by some individual for whatever reason.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman:
Usually a superior. Kicked out of universities.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman:
Moved to another one. Now, he did have his own issues.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Right.

Andrew Huberman:
There was a time he was a methamphetamine addict and things like that, but he got over that and became the great Oliver Sacks that he was. But, he describes these fields as having a culture at the time of really trying to suppress new ideas and holding people down. And then, toward the end of his career, several of the universities that essentially had fired him earlier-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm

Andrew Huberman:
... hospitals and universities, were trying to recruit him back with multiple appointments-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm

Andrew Huberman:
... because now he was this famous guy who had written the movie or worked on the movie "Awakenings" and like- ... and it revealed the hypocrisy of these big institutions. And so it made me chuckle, and also realize that for those of us who are doing public health education at any level, and certainly on these more non-traditional things, approaches, that the time is right for sharing them and well, and the good news is nobody lives forever. So, the old guard dies or retires.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
That's true, and I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for that department of psychiatry to invite me back.

Andrew Huberman:
I won't ask which one it was. We can have an offline discussion about that.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Sure.

Andrew Huberman:
They just might. A couple of more questions. First of all, going back to this thing about the larger context-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm

Andrew Huberman:
... of culture.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman:
I love the optimism that's threaded through your view.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
That we could get, God willing, Democrats and Republicans to come to some sort of common ground around the most important issues.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman:
That we potentially could eradicate destructive racism.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman:
Racism of all kinds.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman:
But given the way you described it, certainly its implementation in the world is the first thing that needs to be dealt with, right? Certainly, if people can see those parts of themselves-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm

Andrew Huberman:
... and work with them, that we stand a chance to do that. And given that trauma is near ubiquitous, that people could start to address their own traumas so that they can induce fewer in other people.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman:
I guess that's basically the ultimate goal of humanity.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Totally.

Andrew Huberman:
And I, like so many people lately, by the way, not just in the last year or so, but for the last 10 years, have just been developing the sense like, goodness, it just seems like the number of problems just seems to be expanding exponentially.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Right.

Andrew Huberman:
How do we get our heads around this? And there's so much blame game going on of, well, it's because of this, and it's because of that, and that's not a solution at all.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Right.

Andrew Huberman:
So I love your sense of optimism that it's possible. And then my question is, how do we get that going? To be direct.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah. Well, that's what I've been working on the last several years, and what I can say is, for example, I spent 20 years. I worked with bulimia, like I said, and I thought, "Okay, this really works with that population."

Andrew Huberman:
You got people who were bulimic to essentially not be bulimic any longer?

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
Wow.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
And then I thought, "Okay, well, let's see if no bad parts is really true." And so I went to the toughest populations I could find. And so for 20 years, I worked with DID, and I worked with-

Andrew Huberman:
DID? Sorry

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
... dissociative identity disorder-

Andrew Huberman:
Ah, thank you

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
... like multiple personality disorder.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
And I worked with what's called borderline personality clients and-

Andrew Huberman:
Yeah, very common, right?

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
Before, when you talked about bulimia, bulimia is notoriously difficult to-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah

Andrew Huberman:
... to treat, let alone cure.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
It's because people fight with the symptoms. They try to get rid of the symptoms instead of listening to the part that's making them binge about what that's about.

Andrew Huberman:
Moving from the one-on-one therapy model to a model where people can do this work on their own as well as in groups. But if I'm correct in thinking this, it seems like getting the work done with oneself is the first real step.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
That there's no replacement for that, right?

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
Yeah.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
And, in the activist world, there's always been a kind of, "You're wasting your time," but there's been a polarization between being in the activist mindset of really trying to change things in the outside world versus sitting around and just focusing inside and not being an activist. But I'm working with a lot of the people you would recognize in terms of activists, and when they came to me, they were doing their activism from the sort of righteous, judgmental part. And if we can get that one to step back and have them do their activism from self, they have a totally different impact. People are willing to listen to them, whereas when they're in that righteous place, nobody wants to listen to the shaming it does. It needs to be both.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
People need to do their work, access self, and then start to try to change the outside world. Or not one before the other, but at least simultaneously.

Andrew Huberman:
Fantastic. No, really fantastic. I don't think we've ever done a podcast like this where the audience had a chance to do self-work in real time.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Oh, I really appreciate you giving me the opportunity.

Andrew Huberman:
Yeah, I don't know that I've ever heard a discussion like it, to be honest, which is just a testament to you and your bravery. It's very clear that your decision not to go into endocrinology was one that we all are grateful for.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
It wasn't a decision.

Andrew Huberman:
Well, my endocrinologist friends will have to just accept that we've got a lot of good endocrinologists. We needed you, Dr. Dick Schwartz, to find yourself in this business of discovering and creating a truly novel approach to therapy and self-work that goes all the way up to the potential to change culture and change the world.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
That's the goal.

Andrew Huberman:
Yeah, those aren't just words. Those are real aspirational, possible things that could be accomplished if people do this work. And in coming here today and sharing with us the structure of internal family systems and a demonstration of how it can work and offering people the opportunity to do it themselves in real time and giving us your perspective about the things that are around it as well as in it with incredible clarity and just a real beautiful sense of care for people that comes through. But also I like the concreteness of it so very much.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
It's very concrete.

Andrew Huberman:
Right? It's not abstract.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Right.

Andrew Huberman:
And I really appreciate that, and I'm certain that everyone else does as well. So I want to thank you for coming here today, for sharing this. We will provide links to places where people can learn more through books and courses and-

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Right

Andrew Huberman:
... other resources that you've created and also just for the work that you've done and for being you. It's been a real pleasure, and I'm so very glad we did it.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Me too. Oh my God, my little nervous part's giving me a lot of trouble. But once we got going, I just felt connected, and I felt your appreciation and interest, and so we could have this kind of self-to-self exchange, which I love. I love spending time in that energy.

Andrew Huberman:
Yeah, likewise.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
And you're a great interviewer, too.

Andrew Huberman:
Oh, thank you. Well, this whole thing is a labor of love and a free fall through just curiosity.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
So.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Yeah, it's clear.

Andrew Huberman:
Yeah. I hope to continue the conversation.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Would love to.

Andrew Huberman:
Wonderful. Thanks so much.

Dr. Richard Schwartz:
Thank you so much.

Andrew Huberman:
Thank you for joining me for today's discussion with Dr. Richard Schwartz. To learn more about his work and to find links to his many excellent books, please see the show note captions. If you're learning from and/or enjoying this podcast, please subscribe to our YouTube channel. That's a terrific zero-cost way to support us. In addition, please click follow for the podcast on both Spotify and Apple. And on both Spotify and Apple, you can leave us up to a five-star review. If you have questions for me or comments about the podcast or guests or topics you'd like me to consider for the Huberman Lab Podcast, please put those in the comments section on YouTube. I do read all the comments. Please also check out the sponsors mentioned at the beginning and throughout today's episode. That's the best way to support this podcast. For those of you that haven't heard, I have a new book coming out. It's my very first book. It's entitled "Protocols: An Operating Manual for the Human Body." This is a book that I've been working on for more than five years and that's based on more than 30 years of research and experience. And it covers protocols for everything from sleep to exercise to stress control, protocols related to focus and motivation, and of course, I provide the scientific substantiation for the protocols that are included. The book is now available by presale at protocolsbook.com. There you can find links to various vendors. You can pick the one that you like best. Again, the book is called "Protocols: An Operating Manual for the Human Body." If you're not already following me on social media, I am hubermanlab on all social media platforms. So that's Instagram, X, formerly known as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Threads. And on all those platforms, I discuss science and science-related tools, some of which overlaps with the content of the Huberman Lab Podcast, but much of which is distinct from the content on the Huberman Lab Podcast. Again, that's hubermanlab on all social media platforms. And if you haven't already subscribed to our Neural Network Newsletter, the Neural Network Newsletter is a zero-cost monthly newsletter that includes podcast summaries as well as what we call protocols in the form of one to three-page PDFs that cover everything from how to optimize your sleep, how to optimize dopamine, deliberate cold exposure. We have a foundational fitness protocol that covers cardiovascular training and resistance training. All of that is available completely zero cost. You simply go to hubermanlab.com, go to the Menu tab in the top right corner, scroll down to Newsletter, and enter your email. And I should emphasize that we do not share your email with anybody. Thank you once again for joining me for today's discussion with Dr. Richard Schwartz. And last but certainly not least, thank you for your interest in science.