The Third Wave

In this episode of The Psychedelic Podcast, Paul F. Austin welcomes Dr. Richard Schwartz, creator of the Internal Family Systems (IFS) model of psychotherapy. Dick shares how he discovered that psychedelics naturally facilitate access to what IFS calls "Self energy" - the compassionate core within everyone that can heal wounded parts. He explains how medicines like ketamine and MDMA help relax protective parts of our psyche, revealing both Self energy and exiled parts that need healing. Dick reveals his personal journey with psychedelics, including his work with ketamine-assisted IFS therapy, and discusses the relationship between psychedelic experiences and spiritual guides. He emphasizes how reframing "bad trips" as opportunities for exiled parts to be witnessed can transform challenging experiences into profound healing moments. Dick Schwartz began his career as a family therapist and academic at the University of Illinois at Chicago. There he discovered that family therapy alone did not achieve full symp