Understanding the Mind: Religion, IFS and Relationships with Dr. Joshua Pritikin

Reza Ghaemi: Hello, hello, hello. Welcome to the Res Podcast, the show where we explore ideas, habits, and conversations that help us grow, think differently, and live more intentionally. Today's guest is Dr. Joshua Pritkin Pritiken. I'm sorry, I butchered your name, Dr. Joshua. an internal family

joshua pritikin: It's okay.

Reza Ghaemi: systems certified practitioner, psychological counselor, and the author of Religion Underbur Unburdened by Belief. Joshua works With both individuals and couples, and his work brings together psychology, emotional intelligence, spirituality, relationships, and personal development. Today we're going to learn more about what inspired his book, The Role Psychology Plays in It, How Internal Family Systems Helps Us Understand Ourselves, and How these ideas can improve the way we connect with our partners. Joshua, welcome to the Res Podcast. It's great to have you here.

joshua pritikin: Yeah, thank you for having me. I'm I'm delighted to be here.

Reza Ghaemi: My pleasure. It's an honor. Joshua, what inspired the book? Let's begin with your book, Religion Unburdened by Belief. What inspired you to write it and what is the main idea you hope readers take away from?

joshua pritikin: sure. So it was inspired by an a book that I encountered a couple of years back written by James Karst with a similar title. The his his book was called the religious case against belief and like that's where I got the idea that belief and religion might be separatable. And I felt like his his analysis was very persuasive and I I very much enjoyed his book, but then about halfway through I felt like he dropped the ball and didn't really fully develop the idea. so that's what I set out to do in my book. And w one of the goals for my book is to basically show how or identify a way to measure personal development that doesn't rely on self report because self report is not a great measure. It's very it's vulnerable to self deception. so yeah that that was w one of the goals.

Reza Ghaemi: I see. Thank you for sharing that. I just how much of the book is connected to psychology? Like are you mainly examining religion and spirituality, or is the book also about understanding the human mind, our emotions, and the way we develop?

joshua pritikin: Right. Yeah, yeah, it's a great question. So there's actually kind of an overlap between psychology and religion. you know, think of the what psychologists call schizophrenia, like what what is that from a religious perspective? Well it might be people accessing the spirit world or in from a religious perspective, what is ego dissolution from a psychological perspective, you know, might be considered psychosis. so the so these Yeah, please.

Reza Ghaemi: I love this. Wait, can I interrupt you for a second? So okay. Okay, okay, okay. So wait, you mentioned two terms. what was the first one? You not before the schizophrenia one. Yep. Yes.

joshua pritikin: s ego dissolution.

Reza Ghaemi: Ego dissolution, what does that mean?

joshua pritikin: well, okay, so as as individuals, like everyone who's an individual has this sense that there's something that's me and something something that's not me. So there's like a boundary between me and not me. And when mm people have a a like a a real like a extreme experience of of ego dissolution, this boundary dissolves so that you There's no longer this boundary between me and others, but but what people report is that they feel connected to something larger than themselves, like a like a presence that b s s seems like a like a universal presence, something like that. and n probably the most reliable way to cause this experience to happen is to use this drug called Five MEO DMT, which there was some news about that recently. I think some pharmaceutical company acquired that there's there's some drug some yeah, if you just look in the news, five MEO DMT is there and from what I've read like of the research, like there's better it's like more than half the time people that that use a five MEO DMT report this experience.

Reza Ghaemi: What did you say about schizophrenia and religion? Because this is something that like I like this is interesting for me because I always say these prophets, they might have been schizophrenic or bipolar. Because am I crazy to think that way or?

joshua pritikin: No, I I think I think that tracks like but so the the issue is these terms are considered dysfunction or pathology from a psychological point of view or psychiatric point of view from a like the diagnostic and statistical manual that that's how it looks at things and

Reza Ghaemi: D S

joshua pritikin: yeah and like religion also like in the in the past religion also saw these or or you know, could see symptoms as pathologies. But w you know, we're I think we're kind of moving to a a different place in our understanding of these constellations of symptoms that just sees them kind of as as presentations of symptoms, not necessarily pathology. and so in in an like in a religious context you know, schizophrenia can look like access to the spirit world, something like that. and it's it's really not clear what's actually happening or you know, even w you know what it means. Like how how do you even understand the reality of of people that report these kinds of experiences? It's not super clear how to interpret it.

Reza Ghaemi: I I know, right? Yeah, yeah, because I mean imagine in today's world I woke up and I told you I received a revelation from God, right? They would diagnose me as bipolar for sure.

joshua pritikin: Ma w well they could. Someone could, yes. D depends who you talk to, I guess.

Reza Ghaemi: It's like yeah, like you know what I mean? I'm sorry. Okay. all right, let's talk, let's dive right into the internal family systems. so you're an internal family systems practitioner. For someone who's never heard of that before, what exactly is internal family systems and what does it mean to say that we have different parts within ourselves?

joshua pritikin: Okay. so before I answer your question, I just want to finish up from the previous question. and so I wrote this book, it includes it includes psychology because there's overlap between religion and psychology. but the other reason it includes psychology is because internal family systems was designed to to receive to to help help people who you know are very very vulnerable, who are really struggling. And so one of my goals for this book was to meet people where they're at. And so that that's that's the other reason that I start with psychology so that people feel like cared for, like it no matter where you're coming from, like this this book can serve you. so let me move to introducing internal family systems. This this is a talk therapy modality that was developed by Dr. Richard Schwartz some decades ago. he was trained as a family therapist and what he was noticing working with his individual clients who had eating disorders is that they would describe their inner experience in a way that was very similar to what he was doing when he was working with families. So Probably the easiest way to explain parts or like these subpersonalities that Internal Family Systems talks about is to consider a situation where you have mixed feelings. So suppose you're driving to work late, like a situation everyone can relate to. so part of you maybe wants to get to work on time, another part is worried about being pulled over by the police, another part is maybe frustrated with yourself or not leaving enough time to get to work. so internal family systems is a w is like a systematic way of unpacking these mixed feelings and helping the these parts of ourselves to kind of develop a more trusting relationship with each other and with ourselves In leading towards a greater inner harmony.

Reza Ghaemi: Damn, I love that. I love that. I fucking love that. so can you elaborate a little bit more? Are you telling me that I should embrace like the parts of me that is sort of feeling stressed in the morning when I'm arriving late to work? Like, what do you mean by inner harmony? Like, how do I harmona harmonize, if that's a word, those two parts of myself from a micro level?

joshua pritikin: Okay, well if we just extend that scenario that I posited, like probably the way you could put yourself in that situation is like one part of you one part of you wants to get to work on time, maybe another part feels like there's not enough time in the morning to get done what you wanted to get done. so so that s so the so these two parts are kind of pulling in opposite directions. And when I encounter that as a as a facilitator, I'm like, okay, this sounds like like a polarity, that's a technical term for it, that we use, where it's it's kind of like we're calling opposites, like north north is the opposite of south, so so that like these these parts are pulling in opposite directions. And so the idea would be to to address that is you would Facilitate an internal discussion. you would ask the person to th there's I'll just leave it at that. Like it would facilitate an internal discussion. Try try to get to know in more detail what's motivating these parts, like why why it's so important, what what needs do they have, like where where do these needs come from, what's their history, those kinds of questions.

Reza Ghaemi: Is that kinda like journaling or like when you d are you familiar with C B T cognitive behavioral therapy?

joshua pritikin: Yeah. So

Reza Ghaemi: Is it similar at all or

joshua pritikin: It's it's

Reza Ghaemi: am I am I off the track here?

joshua pritikin: No, no, it it is I mean the the it's similar in the sense that they're both talk therapy, but

Reza Ghaemi: Okay.

joshua pritikin: s so how would I distinguish the difference? Well, okay. So maybe maybe I could introduce some terms from internal family systems. The the concept of blending and unblending are are really key. so before I answer I could just put that question aside for now

Reza Ghaemi: Yeah.

joshua pritikin: and and talk about blending and unblending. So these are these are really the the key ideas in in IFS. So so let me let me just give an example. Suppose I have a part that a part of myself that is very anxious about doing interviews and if I became blended with this part then like it tends to freeze up, like I lose track of what I'm saying, my mind goes blank, and then I just like become overwhelmed by anxiety. so but but since I've worked with this part and it trusts me, like it doesn't feel the need to do that right now. And so I can still feel that anxiety, but I'm staying unblended from it, which so the difference is that when it's when this part is blended, then it controls my actions. It's I feel like taken over by this part. I'm fully fully expressed like however it's feeling and and and follow the behaviors it recommends when it's unblended, then I can I still feel that anxiety, but the but my behavior, you know, I I'm fully in control of my behavior. Like other parts can suggest how I should behave and and I can I have more choices. I can decide how I behave. Does that make sense?

Reza Ghaemi: Yes. A little bit.

joshua pritikin: Okay.

Reza Ghaemi: Yes. I gotta read the book for sure. Like it's it's a lot. It's a lot. I gotta it's a lot of stuff. I mean, it's it's pretty but I love it. I I'm you know, I studied science, all that stuff, and this is very much complicated, but yeah. I wanna talk to you because we have limited time, I wanna talk to you about emotional intelligence. so internal family systems and emotional intelligence. How does internal family systems think about emotional intelligence? Does becoming emotionally intelligent mean controlling our emotions? Or is it more about understanding, listening to, and working with the different parts of ourselves?

joshua pritikin: okay, so in my mind emotional intelligence is just another way of describing this process of developing the the relationships with your parts, like the this this inner harmony. so developing the the trust that so that your parts don't feel like they they need to blend and control your behavior. 'cause that To me, like that's that's kind of like the opposite of emotional intelligence. When when parts like suppose you're you're angry if if you if that part doesn't trust you and and you end up blending with it, then you might be cursing people and throwing things and like to that that kind of behavior tends to not not obtain great results. Like it's for angry parts, like it's it's very important to understand them and and also speak for them instead of as them, like as like you don't want to speak as angry, but you want to speak like what you're angry about. so that requires to to stay unblended from the part and and still communicate its concerns without without it taking over.

Reza Ghaemi: Because it's inauthentic if you don't accept those if you don't blend them, then you become fake. Is that am I right? Like if that makes sense? Like like like you're putting on like you're putting on a show, like a

joshua pritikin: well like being fake if you're if you're putting on a if you're putting on a show or putting on a mask, like that that sounds like your your that's like another part that you're using to protect protect yourself from being vulnerable, perhaps?

Reza Ghaemi: Mm.

joshua pritikin: That's what it sounds like.

Reza Ghaemi: Hundred percent. so Dr. Prittigan, since this this podcast is really about dating relationships mainly, of course we do other topics as well, but you work with couples, correct? So how do you use internal family systems when helping two people understanding their conflicts and communicate more effectively? And from that relationship perspective, what does your book offer to couples or individuals who want to build healthier connections?

joshua pritikin: Okay. let me just start with the first part of that question. That was that's a lot.

Reza Ghaemi: Sure. Yeah, I know. It's a lot.

joshua pritikin: Okay, so So when I'm working with couples, what I'm trying to do is facilitate a conversation where both partners are able to speak to each other and listen w while they're unblended. So if I notice that like I I'm I'm always trying to ascertain whether s someone is is becoming blended with their parts or you know they might feel criticized or defensive. and the way the way you can help those parts unblend is basically just to reflect those parts experience. Like, I it it this this it sounds like this part really feels criticized right now and is want wants to say some things in its defense. J just to to to validate, to acknowledge that that's what's going on. And what you what tends to happen if you you validate and reflect what the parts experiences is they they feel heard, they feel listened to, and they're they're able to unblend a little bit and make some space for the conversation. So so that that's what I'm trying to do when I'm working with couples is is I'm facilitating a conversation, but I'm I'm trying to slow it down. So every time I notice that it sounds like a one of the partners like is being taken over by a part, then I I ask that person to to slow down, to to let that part know that we're listening and to speak for that part's experience instead of like as that part's experience. And the and the same thing for the listener. Like often being a listener is very triggering. so you know, it's it's always helpful to ask people like, Are you ready to hear from your partner? Like, do you have any concerns or anxiety about hearing from your partner on this topic? And to to get all those concerns on the table before asking them to listen.

Reza Ghaemi: Okay. in terms of any tangible micro tips that you you just mentioned all of them actually, but what would you say as we're wrapping this up, like what would you say is like for the for the most part, when it comes to healthy relationships, any advice for for people that want you know, we we all get into fights and stuff like that. And so like ultimately, what is it that we can do to be the bigger person?

joshua pritikin: Mm-hmm. that's a great question. So so in terms of tips, like like if if you ask the same question, many couples, many counselors that work with couples will say, you should use this specific phrasing or nonviolent communication or you know, they'll they'll give you like particular phrases that are supposed to be safe to say and and my my take is that it's it's not so much the specific language you use, but more about whether you're you're blended or unblended. Like that that's to in my mind that's the key key dynamic that I'm being attentive to. And and that's that's where my book could potentially help help couples to communicate because the whole book is kind of orbits around this idea of understanding blending and unblending and then helping to helping people understand how to develop more trust among in their their inner system so they're able to stay unblended more of the time. and so to to give s like more specifics about how the book helps with this is that I propose a kind of like a practices that present progressive challenge. So the kind of the least challenging s circumstance is when your when you're with a a talk therapist and then when you become blended with your parts then the therapist can help validate and reflect back how you're feeling and then that that can help you feel understood and help you unblend. And then but many people many people need that kind of support but many people are are ready for something more challenging and For that I recommend the learning a practice of meditation. And I have a particular way of thinking about meditation that it incorporates this IFS perspective. And then once once you develop a like a a fluidity, like an effortlessness in your meditation, then then the the next practice would be to look psychedelics, which is more challenging.

Reza Ghaemi: I knew I was forgetting a topic. So let's look at psychedelics. are you talking about what's sort of the street name shrooms or tell talk to me about psychedelics. Are we talking about THC? Like what are yeah.

joshua pritikin: Okay. so actually name two two different psychedelics in the book because there's a particular cannabis blend that is THC and then equal amounts of C B D and C B N. that this particular blend I feel is particularly great for beginners because it doesn't cause the munchies. It's in it the the come down is like super smooth, like it's you you you feel like the r relaxation of cannabis during the during the journey and then that just fades fades to to normal. Like there's no no difficulty with the come down. So I I think it's a particularly great recipe for beginners just to experiment. but

Reza Ghaemi: And sorry, you said it's combination of T C and

joshua pritikin: THC and then equal amounts of C B D and C B N.

Reza Ghaemi: C B N I've never heard of C B N.

joshua pritikin: okay.

Reza Ghaemi: Is that something that I can find in the Canadian dispensaries?

joshua pritikin: yeah, I think I think it would be available. it certainly you could get like the C B N isolate and then mix that with THC and C B D 'cause the the cannabis most of the market is focused on THC and C B D. That's kind of like the the standard blend. And then if you add an equal amount of C B N then that creates this effect that 'cause the experimentation th like my own experimentation has found that it it's it's really the Yeah, we we we don't have time to get into it. But so

Reza Ghaemi: Hmm. Yeah, yeah, no worries.

joshua pritikin: anyway, I like I have some charts in the book about this.

Reza Ghaemi: I see, I see. No, and and by the way, where can we find your book? Amazon or is it on Amazon Prime or like where where can people listening find

joshua pritikin: It

Reza Ghaemi: your book?

joshua pritikin: it is on Amazon. but I would urge people to look at the the book promo website which is at unburdened.biz B I Z. and even if you're not I'm sure if you're interested in the book, I would encourage you to visit the website because there's a an amazing promo video that came out really well. It shows a a ceremony taking place in the middle of the ocean on a shallow sandbank, which is kind of a like a dramatic it's it came out really spectacular. So I would encourage all your listeners to look at that. And this this actually helps me answer the second part of your question. So you're asking about psychedelics, so I recommend this cannabis blend. But the the case study that I really focus on in chapter seven is about the Santo Daimy religion and how the the practice, the the way they conduct ceremonies, they're using psychedelics, they're using ayahuasca, or they call it daimy, but it's the same thing. but they're using it in a way that's very different from like with a different intention. They're bringing a different intention to it that fits very well with this idea of of parts work of IFS where where there's this tension between becoming blended with a part and staying unblended.

Reza Ghaemi: You know, me and my partner, I'm gonna I'm gonna just throw these terms at her tonight. I'm gonna like, baby, you're not quite unblended enough for me.

joshua pritikin: Ha ha

Reza Ghaemi: I'm learning some stuff. just final question before we wrap up. Is psychedelics good for people with mental health diagnosis, such as bipolar disorder or or schizophrenia?

joshua pritikin: yeah, that that's a great question. And I think it's still like an open research question. It's not settled yet. there's they're cautiously doing this kind of research, exploring. my my intuition is that for for conditions where there's like a excessive rigidity, like where you are you find yourself stuck in habits, then psychedelics can open things up. because they they create like this controlled chaos in your in your head. Like that's one way to look at it is just like from a from a big picture point of view, like there's that it creates this chaos. And so for people that are like already have a kind of like a chaotic mind, like some some people with schizophrenia will describe their internal experience as being a bit chaotic. Mm in that case You know, I would approach psychedelics very cautiously.

Reza Ghaemi: Got it. Dr. Pritikens, I think we're gonna have to wrap up. we know where the listeners can find you. what is your website?

joshua pritikin: Well, so my my websites are all connected. So just go to the books website, unburdened.biz, and on the author page you can find out how to contact me directly if you wanna to work with me w one on one or just email me or or or visit my mm counseling website. It's it's kind of like they're all linked together. So yeah.

Reza Ghaemi: Got it. Thank you so much, Doctor Bri Pritickens. it was a pleasure.

joshua pritikin: Thank you for having me.

Reza Ghaemi: Alright, I'm gonna hit stop. Whoops. There we there we go