Schema therapy is a straightforward, open, and deeply supportive therapy. It gives me so much pleasure and satisfaction to use it to help my clients.

 

Schema therapy helps you change old ways of coping that block contact with your true feelings and prevent your needs being met. It uses active techniques to process emotions.  It also helps you overcome negative patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving that may have been going on for years.

 

In therapy, you start to build up new strategies that work better for you. Your emotional needs can then be met – sometimes for the first time.

 

Schema therapy assumes that long-term problems stem from unmet need in childhood. Some parents were chaotic, abusive, or self-absorbed, and so caused harm. Other parents were well-intentioned but struggled to meet their child’s needs over time. If caregivers ignore a child’s feelings and needs, respond unpredictably, or act in ways that cause fear, children must adapt to protect themselves. This can lead to the development of schemas (painful life themes) and negative ways of coping. These show up in all sorts of ways, such as depression, anxiety, anger, low self-esteem or feeling unable to be close with others. 

 

When the underlying needs from childhood are met, starting in therapy, the mechanisms that keep longstanding problems going are finally broken. Your sense of control and choice grow. Your relationships with others and how you feel about yourself undergo significant change.

 

Schema therapy is an intensive model that aims for deep change that lasts over time. It is not intended to be a brief therapy. It usually lasts at least several months but typically will take longer.

 

Next, you might want to read my blog for an example of how schema therapy works in practice.

 

Or, reach out to me using my contact form if you would like to talk with me about starting schema therapy for yourself.

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