“What's healing is the self to part relationship. And that relationship gets built based on the part being able to tell its story without repercussions.”

In this episode of the Mindspace podcast, Dr. Joe speaks with Dr. Robert Grant. Dr. Grant is an Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapist, a ketamine-assisted psychotherapist, a pulmonary physician, a professor of medicine at UCSF, a former researcher in HIV prevention and treatment, and a cofounder of the Healing Realms Center (healingrealmscenter.com). The Healing Realms Center is a clinic specializing in ketamine-assisted psychotherapy.

Dr. Grant is especially well known for his work as an IFS therapist specializing in ketamine treatments. IFS was developed by Dr. Richard C. Schwartz. It is a therapy based on the notion that the human mind is made up of inner parts. And healing involves the cultivation of harmony among these parts. It is commonly used in the treatment of post-traumatic stress.

In this interview Dr. Joe and Dr. Grant explored:

- How his research into preventing HIV led him to studying IFS

- What “parts” mean in the IFS model

- The three most common types of parts: Managers, Exiles, and Firefighters

- What “self” mean in the context of IFS

- How parts become burdened by trauma

- The role of “self” in healing

- The 6 F’s: Find, Focus, Flesh it out, Feel, beFriend, and Fear

- What ‘unblending’ is

- Why IFS fits so well with psychedelics