Schema Therapy

Maladaptive coping strategies can sabotage your life. Learn how to change them with this method.

This method - Schema Therapy - is a highly effective technique of addressing self-defeating, maladaptive life patterns - or lifetraps - that develop early in childhood. As the self-destructive progression of addictive tendencies can most definitely be considered a maladaptive strategy, an intimate understanding of these patterns in your life can vastly improve the effectiveness of your Personal Addiction Recovery Program.

Implementing the solutions proposed for each of your schemas will enable you to be more in touch with your core feelings and better equipped to meet your everyday emotional needs.

Using a series of highly targeted questionnaires, an individual such as you or I can identify the maladaptive behavioral patterns - schemas - that we have developed in our lives, and to what degree we are affected by them. Our schemas relate to unmet emotional needs and lead to less than healthy behavior in adulthood.

Schema Therapy also enables us to understand the coping styles that we tend to resort to in situations that trigger our schemas. Once we have identified and understood our schemas, this model proposes active solutions to generate less self-defeating and healthier coping behavior.

One of the goals of this approach is thus to raise awareness of these patterns so that when they do emerge, we are alerted to our true emotional needs and can respond more effectively to fulfill them.

Fundamentals of Schema Therapy

The maladaptive behavioral patterns identified in this therapeutic approach are called schemas. Schemas are defined as "broad, pervasive themes regarding oneself and one's relationship with others, developed during childhood and elaborated throughout one's lifetime, and dysfunctional to a significant degree."

Developed by Dr Jeffrey E. Young, Schema Therapy is comprised of 18 distinct patterns which are grouped into 5 categories or domains. Below is a listing of these schemas within their respective categories.

DISCONNECTION & REJECTION

Abandonment / Instability

Mistrust / Abuse

Emotional Deprivation

Defectiveness / Shame

Social Isolation / Alienation

IMPAIRED AUTONOMY & PERFORMANCE

Dependence / Incompetence

Vulnerability to Harm or Illness

Enmeshment / Undeveloped Self

Failure

IMPAIRED LIMITS

Entitlement / Grandiosity

Insufficient Self-Control / Self-Discipline

OTHER-DIRECTEDNESS

Subjugation

Self-Sacrifice

Approval-Seeking / Recognition-Seeking

OVERVIGILANCE & INHIBITION

Negativity / Pessimism

Emotional Inhibition

Unrelenting Standards / Hypercriticalness

Punitiveness

Each of the schemas addressed through this approach concerns a type of self-view developed during childhood, which is reinforced through adolescence, and has a major impact on our actions, reactions, choices and decisions.

This self-view - who I believe myself to be, and why I believe I have become the person I am - influences the way in which we cope with difficult situations, emotions and events. 3 basic strategies have been identified in Schema Therapy as ways an individual copes with, or adapts to, a particular schema as shown below.

SURRENDER

giving in to the schema and repeating it over and over

AVOIDANCE

blocking or escaping from the schema

OVERCOMPENSATION

reacting to the schema and doing the opposite of what it makes us feel

For each of these coping styles, we respond by adopting a type of maladaptive behavior such as the ones below.

SURRENDER

Compliance, Dependence

AVOIDANCE

Social withdrawal, Excessive independence

Compulsive Stimulation-seeking

Addictive Self-Soothing

Psychological Withdrawal

OVERCOMPENSATION

Aggression, Hostility

Dominance, Excessive Self-assertion

Recognition-seeking, Status-seeking

Manipulation, Exploitation

Passive-aggressiveness, Rebellion

Excessive Orderliness, Obsessionality

Any combination of identified schemas and coping mechanisms can be present during any one of several schema modes as noted below.

SCHEMA MODES

Child Modes

Maladaptive Coping Modes

Maladaptive Parent Modes

Healthy Adult Mode

A schema mode is defined as being the predominant state in which we find ourselves at any given moment in time. (The terms "child", "parent" and "adult" refer to these periods of self-view, not to other individuals.) Schemas may be active or dormant as we shift from one mode to another. Thus, the impact and influence our schemas have in our lives evolve over time and with the accumulation of experiences.

A review of the interlocking concepts as noted above shows us that the overall objective of Schema Therapy is to encourage the development of the nurturing Healthy Adult Mode. It is in the Healthy Adult Mode that we learn to combat and eventually replace our maladaptive coping strategies with more self-supportive and self-nurturing behavior.

Although the first slideshow refers only to the 11 original schemas (the method has since been updated), it does resume the theory, the steps and the benefits of this approach which you can put into practice with Jeffrey Young's book entitled Reinventing Your Life: The Breakthough Program to End Negative Behavior...and Feel Great Again

1 - Reinventing Your Life

This first slideshow was developed for the general public and it will give you an easy-to-grasp overview of the approach. Highly recommended.

2 - Revised Conceptual Model

The second one describes the theory of the approach and was designed mainly for therapists. However, if you're interested in the underlying theory, it's a fascinating read.

3 - Treatment Strategies

The third, also meant primarily for therapists (but helpful nonetheless), goes into greater detail about implementing the various steps that make up this approach.

How Schema Therapy influenced the development of the tools & strategies on this site

The action-oriented strategies of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy deal mainly with presently held attitudes and beliefs, and their resulting behavior. Schema Therapy is a solution-oriented approach towards understanding "why and how I have become the person I am today", and "why I act the way I do".

The conscientious application of these two methods in conjunction can only lead to a heightened awareness of who you are, and enhance your ability to effect durable and beneficial changes in your life.

These two methods were used during my own voluntary 8½ month long internment in a program of therapy. The inner connectedness I was able to achieve by retracing the origins of my own maladaptive behavioral strategies - and developing healthier ways of dealing with Life's ups and downs - has helped me to create a more joyous and loving life for myself.

Practicing and implementing the solution-oriented strategies of Schema Therapy in my day-to-day life has not only enhanced my ability to deal with difficult situations and emotions, also has it enabled me to more fully appreciate the lessons I can learn from those experiences. (In and of itself, the appreciation of experiential lessons is an effective way to challenge schemas and prevent resorting to coping modes.)

My own experience with this approach has therefore convinced me that utilizing a variety of its techniques in the tools & techniques included in the Strategies section of this site is a darn good idea!

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