• The therapy that normalizes than pathologizes psychological disorders. Each of us brings something negative from the childhood, each of us has schemas, coping styles, and modes. The individual difference resides in rigidity, how entrenched are these.
• The therapeutic process in which the therapist and the client draw together a clear frame that helps the client understand the origin of his problems and organize all the aspects in a comprehensive manner from which to start the healing process.

When is Schema Therapy suitable?

• For personality disorders, chronic pathologies, for those clients with difficult long-term problems
• When the client is facing intimacy challenges and relationship problems and has the feeling that ʺis something out of his awarenessʺ.
• For personal growth, emphasizing the positive schemas and the necessary steps for wellbeing.

Why do I use Schema Therapy?

• I saw its effectiveness, both in simple and complicated cases, and my clients noticed the benefits of this. Here you are one fragment from a client’s feedback, mentioning the most important therapy benefits for her: “The imagery helped me to unblock emotions from the past. Also, becoming aware of my Overcontroller mode, I managed to release the pressure on myself. Following the therapy sessions, I set healthy limits in my professional and personal life and made important decisions that changed my life a lot, bringing balance for me and my family. I adopt more often the Healthy Adult perspective.”
• I consider Schema Therapy as being a mixture between science & art, because on the one hand I have the possibility of using well defined strategies, I can use scientifically based techniques and, on the other hand, I can creatively adapt these to the uniqueness of each client.
• It resonates for me personally and it proved to be helpful for me, in my own therapy, on my way of becoming a Schema Therapy Practitioner

How can you find more?

Here you are a short and easy to understand definition: Schemas are self-defeating patterns that begin in early childhood & adolescence, are the lens through which one can see the world in a distorted way.

In addition, for a better understanding of schemas’ origins, I will offer you three brief case illustrations. To keep confidentiality, I changed names and other identifying data.

Ana wants to have a functional couple relationship, but for about 12 years she has been in burdensome relationships, either having a partner who cheated her, either having a married partner. We start to identify together how her self-defeating patterns originated in her childhood. She remembered the period when she stayed with her grandparents and how painful were those moments when her parents left, leaving her behind. Also, three years later, her little brother became the mother’s favourite. Her Abandonment and Emotional Deprivation schemas, resulted from unmet core emotional needs in childhood, prevented her to have the life she dreamt of. Every time she chose a partner, “schema chemistry” entered the scene, respectively she had been attracted to partners who triggered her core schemas, meaning uncommitted, unstable, or ambivalent partners.

Adrian came in therapy because of the issues related to his sexual life. Even if his girlfriend is supportive, he avoids as much as he can the intimacy or go into those moments with a tremendous anxiety. Therefore, his sexual life is an unsatisfactory one. His personal history highlighted important aspects: he was a shy child whose mother was extremely critical and compared him many times with a cousin. Also, the mother showed him low empathy and humiliated him every time he showed vulnerability. All these contributed to the formation of Defectiveness/Shame schema. To avoid criticism and thinking that if he tries to be perfect will be worthy of his mother’s love, Adrian developed Unrelenting Standards schema. He used a lot of “should” in many areas of his life (including sexual life) and put emphasis on perfectionism.

Ileana has sought therapy for help with her professional and marital problems. She feels exhausted in these two areas and has moments when she is resentful. If one colleague asked for help, she volunteered and if her boss asked who would perform an additional task, she always expressed her willingness to help. Ileana’s husband was alcohol dependent and for more than five years she has been trying to help him with no results. Even so, she remained in this toxic relationship. Looking back to her childhood, we found the explanation: she was the elder sister who took care of her little brothers, and only then she received affection and praises from her mother. This way she learnt that she had to suppress her own needs, in order to gain the mother’s love and attention, that others’ needs are more important than hers and developed a Self-sacrifice schema.

After the identification of cognitive patterns, in the therapeutic process, work takes place at the cognitive, emotional and behavioral level, so that these patterns weaken in intensity.