🔼: [[⭐️ Internal Family Systems]], [[💡 Compassionate Inquiry]] # Internal Family Systems and Compassionate Inquiry Compared[^1] --- [[👤 Richard Schwartz]] and [[👤 Gabor Maté]] agree that the other's modality is the one closest to their own and that they have more commonalities than differences. Schwartz and Maté have independently reached similar conclusions and created similar modalities, and there could be great benefit in bringing them together. If you’re unable to find an IFS therapist, Compassionate Inquiry might be an excellent alternative. ## Differences For Schwartz and Maté it's not a question of the one being wrong and the other being right. It’s different approaches toward the same goal, getting to the same place via different routes. - Maté does not relate to himself as [[💡 Parts|Parts]]. He thinks we're born with certain capacities, qualities, and needs. If our needs are met, those capacities manifest and integrate and we are whole. If they're frustrated or trampled, they get suppressed or sent in the wrong direction, becoming adaptations (protector roles) instead. Still, he thinks IFS is powerful and useful and encourages his students to learn it on a regular basis, but still thinks of it as a model and not reality. Schwartz not only takes parts literally, but he considers them sacred beings. One of the reason he thinks we're born with parts is because when we ask them where they're stuck in the past they sometimes go into the womb. "And we’ll say things that happened that the person shouldn’t know if they get corroborated by their parents later." Some also talk about past lives. He says that these adaptations are the roles the parts were forced into by trauma, not the parts themselves. - Maté says Compassionate Inquiry is less methodical and more reliant on intuition than IFS. For him, IFS is too complex (though it is useful to work with it that way sometimes) with parts and complex relationships between them branching out. To him it's much more simple. CI is more direct and moves quickly. - IFS has a deliberate [[💡 Unburdening|unburdening]] process. In CI unburdening is more organic or spontaneous. - IFS is more client-directed and takes place in the mind's eye. The client is asked where they want to go, what parts they want to explore, and that's where the session goes. In CI the facilitator is directing the flow of conversation with their questions, leading the client from one point to another. Schwartz pointed out that these questions help people [[🕯️ Unblending|unblend]] from [[💡 Protector Parts|Protectors]] extremely quickly. ## Similarities - Both were more like discoveries than inventions. - Both modalities are grounded in [[💡 Systems Thinking]]. - Both believe that illnesses are the [[⭐️ Body]]'s way of [[🔑 We have a right and responsibility to say No|saying no]] when a person doesn't know how to. That [[🛡️ Emotional Suppression]] leads to [[💡 Chronic Illness]] and disease. - Both suggest that [[🛡️ Addiction or Dependence|addiction]] and many illnesses are [[Symptoms of Unresolved Trauma]]. - Both suggest that addictions and illnesses can be prevented, lessened, or even reversed by [[🦮 How to Recover from Trauma|resolving trauma]]. - Despite the fact that Maté and Schwartz conceive of them differently (in that Maté does not relate to himself as parts), both believe that [[🔑 Parts are literally real]]. For Maté, it's just a difference in what he calls them and how he relates to them. - Schwartz and Maté agree on the concept of [[💡 Presence|Presence]]. - Schwartz and Maté believe in the efficacy of the other's modality. - [[The Goals of Internal Family Systems]] and [[The Goals of Compassionate Inquiry]] have significant overlap — Maté himself thinks the two are looking for the exact same outcome with a different approach. "We just don't put it in the language of parts." - CI doesn't make distinctions between [[💡 Proactive Protectors|Managers]] and [[💡 Reactive Protectors|Firefighters]] [^1]: [[📖 ✅ Embracing All of You - Compassionate Inquiry Meets Internal Family Systems]]