Internal Family Systems Skills Training Manual: Trauma-Informed Treatment for Anxiety, Depression, PTSD & Substance Abus

Richard Schwartz began his career as a systemic family therapist and an academic, at the University of Illinois and at Northwestern University. Grounded in systems thinking, Dr. Schwartz developed the Internal Family Systems model (IFS) in response to clients’ descriptions of various parts within themselves. In 2000, he founded the Center for Self Leadership (www.selfleadership.org), which offers three levels of trainings and workshops in IFS for professionals and the general public, both in this country and abroad. A featured speaker for national professional organizations, Dr. Schwartz has published five books and over fifty articles about IFS.

Martha Sweezy grew up in Cambridge, MA, with two older siblings, assorted dogs, and many musicians coming and going. Her mother, Nancy Sweezy, who was instrumental in the functioning of the legendary folk music venue Club 47, later revived and managed Jugtown Pottery in North Carolina, founded Refugee Arts Group to work with refugees from Southeast Asia, worked with folk artists in Armenia, and was finally awarded a National Heritage Fellowship by the NEA for her work in traditional arts. Her father, Paul Sweezy, the founder of Monthly Review magazine and press and the author of numerous books, including Monopoly Capital. She attended Shady Hill School in Cambridge, Palfrey Street School in Watertown, Boston University for undergraduate work and an MA in creative writing, where she studied with Leslie Epstein and Derek Walcott, and Smith College School of Social Work for an MSW and a PhD.

Martha is an assistant professor, part-time, in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, and a clinical and research consultant at the Cambridge Health Alliance Center for Mindful Compassion. Before opening a private practice in Northampton, MA (and more recently moving to Portland, ME) she worked in community mental health at the Cambridge Health Alliance for 18 years providing therapy, helping to run a DBT program, supervising, and teaching.

Martha’s books and manuals include:

1) a book called Internal Family Systems Therapy for Shame and Guilt, published by Guilford in August, 2023

2) a co-authored manual called Internal Family Systems Couple Therapy Skills Manual: Healing Relationships with Intimacy From the Inside Out, published by PESI in March, 2021

3) a co-authored manual called Internal Family Systems Therapy for Addictions: Trauma-Informed, Compassion-Based Interventions for Substance Use, Eating, Gambling and More, published by PESI in March, 2023