Podcast Summary

The Dream – “My Family Just Moved In Upstairs”

Host: Jane Marie
Guest: Aaron Barrow (Veteran, Peer Specialist)
Date: October 3, 2025
Main Theme:
The episode explores the reimagined format of The Dream, focusing on the intersection of recovery, therapy fads, and the complicated “American Dream.” In this episode, Jane Marie interviews Aaron Barrow, a peer specialist working with veterans, about the controversial rise of Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy in addiction and trauma recovery communities.

1. Setting the Stage: The Reboot of The Dream (01:51)

• Jane Marie announces the podcast’s new weekly, looser format but reiterates the ongoing focus: “the American Dream and all the assholes that make it infinitely harder to achieve.”
• Invites audience participation—stories, weird ideas, or just to say “hi.”
• Introduces guest Aaron Barrow, whose message raised concerns about IFS therapy infiltrating recovery spaces.

2. Aaron’s Role and Background (02:27)

• Aaron Barrow: Veteran, recovery peer specialist, mental health advocate, psychology degree holder.
• Works closely with the Veterans Mental Health Advocacy Council.
• Peer specialists provide support based on their own lived experiences in recovery.
• Description of peer roles - “prison peers,” “substance peers,” “mental health peers” (04:51).

Memorable Metaphor:

“If I'm building a fence, I'm definitely going to want to find someone who's built a fence before... A lot of the time... you go to someone who's read a lot about fences in a book and is going to help them... but actually hasn't ever built their own fence.”
—Aaron Barrow (06:55)

3. Peer Support vs. Traditional Therapy (06:15 – 10:00)

• Peer specialists often form deeper, more vulnerable connections with clients than traditional therapists.
• The role requires authenticity and openness: “If I'm not vulnerable... then it doesn't work.” (Aaron, 07:40)
• Traditional therapy enforces separation: “There's an us, and then there's a them.” (Aaron, 09:24)
• Peer support: “We’re on this journey together.” (Aaron, 09:29)

4. Aaron’s Journey through Addiction and Military Life (10:09 – 15:14)

• Grew up in a chaotic, blended family; joined the military to escape instability.
• Military culture: heavy drinking was normalized, but marijuana became his drug of choice post-service.
• Marijuana addiction is often minimized or stigmatized differently than other substances.

Notable Quote:

“Weed is kind of still widely accepted... Not widely. Well, that’s Cali sober.”
—Jane Marie (14:44)

• Aaron affirms that while some can use weed without issues, that was not his case.

5. Internal Family Systems (IFS) Therapy Defined (18:50 – 27:45)

• IFS originates with Dr. Richard Schwartz; now a trend in recovery/trauma therapy.
• Concepts:
  • Everyone has a “core self” and numerous “parts.”
  • “Exiles” (suppressed parts), “Managers” (protective parts), “Firefighters” (emergency protectors).
  • Therapy’s goal: nurture and integrate parts rather than suppress them.
• Jane’s skepticism: “No, stop naming things stupidly, Dr. Schwartz.” (Jane, 21:49)
• IFS proposes that all personalities—even those causing distress—are “good” and “protective.”
  • “No Bad Parts” is Schwartz’s mantra.

Key Quote:

"But the premise is that there’s no part of you that's bad. It's all good. It's all there to help you. It's all there to protect you."
—Aaron Barrow (25:55)

6. IFS in Addiction and Trauma Therapy (29:03 – 36:51)

• Aaron explains how IFS is entering the recovery field and the dangers of superficial adoption.
• Concerns about “us vs. them” dynamic in therapy—IFS can reinforce or challenge this depending on practitioner.
• Issue: Rapid, inadequate dissemination of IFS led to undertrained practitioners using complex therapy on vulnerable populations.

Revealing Fact:

• IFS practitioner certification increased from ~$200 to $4,000 for Level 1 (Jane & Aaron, 33:47–33:59).
• “For money, you can learn to be this internal family systems instructor or therapist.” (Aaron, 34:07)

7. Dangerous Experimentation & The Problem with Fads (32:45 – 46:36)

• Aaron’s personal experience: pressured to participate and “perform” IFS with colleagues as an example for others.
  • “I was performing it for the group to satisfy this colleague.” (Aaron, 38:28)
• Underqualified facilitators teaching IFS (sometimes without even reading the full book).
  • “She hadn't even watched more than two videos and she was teaching it as an expert. And that's what broke me.” (Aaron, 43:16)
• Potential harm: Unsupervised, shallow use can exacerbate mental health issues, provoke relapse, or cause confusion in vulnerable clients.

Notable Critique:

"You’re supposed to pull all these really wounded, hard to face parts out in front of everybody in the group...with someone who doesn’t really know what they’re doing."
— Aaron Barrow (44:53)

8. Broader Critique of Wellness, Therapy Fads, and MLM Parallels (46:03 – 48:45)

• Jane notes parallels between the IFS training model and multi-level marketing (MLM): expensive courses, superficial credentialing, and “gurus.”
• Aaron observes dubious claims by Schwartz, including using IFS “to cure racism.”
  • “He makes some pretty wild claims in the book, too. Like, one claim is he'd—you can use this to cure racism.” (Aaron, 47:28)
  • Jane: “I don't want to get to know my racist exiles. Or my racist uncle.” (Jane, 48:24)

9. Final Thoughts & Takeaways

• IFS can be helpful if practiced one-on-one with a highly trained practitioner—but can be harmful or confusing if applied superficially by unqualified people.
• Real danger in faddish, mass-market therapy approaches in recovery settings.
• Jane and Aaron both express exhaustion and wariness with the layer of jargon and self-referential “healing” culture.

Closing Quote:

"This IFS shit is like, how many more hamster wheels can I create?...And let’s just hang out with these guys all the time and talk about them all the time..."
—Jane Marie & Aaron Barrow (47:22–47:28)

Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• “Peer support at its very essence…is to help other people figure out where they want to go and then help them realize how to get to that point.”
  – Aaron Barrow (06:21)
• “Traditional therapy...there’s an us, and then there’s a them.”
  – Aaron Barrow (09:24)
• “Ifs, in a way, is really beneficial because it...takes the parts of you that are scary...and helps you to form a relationship and show that part compassion.”
  – Aaron Barrow (28:46)
• “I was performing it for the group to satisfy this colleague.”
  – Aaron Barrow (38:28)
• “She hadn't even watched more than two videos and she was teaching it as an expert. And that's what broke me.”
  – Aaron Barrow (43:16)
• “He makes some pretty wild claims in the book, too. Like, one claim is you can use this to cure racism.”
  – Aaron Barrow (47:28)

Key Timestamps

| Time | Segment/Topic | |-----------|---------------| | 01:51 | Show intro, new format, guest intro | | 02:27 | Aaron’s background, role as peer specialist | | 06:15 | What peer specialists do, comparison with traditional therapy | | 10:09 | Aaron’s personal journey: family, military, addiction | | 18:50 | Introduction to Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy | | 25:55 | “No Bad Parts” philosophy explained | | 32:45 | IFS adoption in Aaron’s work setting, certification and cost | | 36:51 | Real-world problems: underqualified facilitators, group harm | | 44:53 | Specific examples of harm, IFS as a recovery fad | | 47:28 | Overblown claims, “curing racism” via IFS | | 48:45 | Podcast outro |

Tone and Style

The tone is candid, irreverent, and critical—true to The Dream’s trademark style. Both Jane and Aaron inject dark humor and healthy skepticism, especially regarding therapy fads and the dangers of credentialing without real-world experience.

Summary Takeaway

This episode provides a raw, insiders’ look at how therapy trends like IFS can sweep through mental health and addiction spaces, bringing both hope and risk. The conversation is a call for more grounded, experience-driven approaches, and a warning against the “wildly experimental” adoption of new modalities without proper oversight.

For those considering or witnessing the rise of IFS or similar methods in treatment settings, this episode is essential listening.