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 without 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 that each have a life of their 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 learn essential insights and tools to foster healthy dialogue with your parts and your partner, resolve long-standing relationship issues, and access the wise and compassionate Self at the center of your being as the foundation of true intimacy.

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.