You Are the One You've Been Waiting For: Applying Internal Family Systems to Intimate Relationships

A groundbreaking approach for practicing courageous love and resilient intimacy—from the creator of Internal Family Systems therapy

Do loving relationships end because couples lack communication skills, struggle to empathize, and fail to accommodate each other’s needs? That’s a common belief within and outside of the therapeutic world… but what if it’s all wrong? In You Are the One You’ve Been Waiting For, Dr. Richard Schwartz, the celebrated founder of Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy, offers a new way—a path toward courageous love that replaces the striving, dependent, and disconnected approach to solving relationship challenges.

The breakthrough realization of IFS is that our psyche contains multiple parts, each with a life of its own. Most problems in relationships arise because we unknowingly burden our partner with the task of caring for our disowned and unloved parts. In this book, you’ll discover essential insights and tools to foster healthy dialogue with your parts and your partner, including:

• How to recognize and disarm the cultural assumptions that create shame, guilt, and isolation in relationships
• The Three Projects—why we fool ourselves into thinking we must change our partner, change ourselves, or give up on true intimacy
• Finding and Healing Exiles—transforming the way our most vulnerable parts influence the way we treat each other
• How to reorient relationship conflicts to help each of us grow toward the Self—the center of our clarity and wisdom
• Courageous Love—building resilient intimacy with each other and our parts to create healthy, lasting partnerships

“No one can do the work of healing our orphaned parts for us,” says Dr. Schwartz. “Yet when we begin with Self-leadership, a relationship can become a safe place in which we help each other heal and grow.” Here is an invaluable guide for therapists and laypersons alike to promote connection, trust, and understanding—within yourself and with the one you love.