Short-term cognitive therapy helps overcome
symptoms of depression and anxiety for the majority of patients.
However, if you experience lifelong patterns of negative thoughts,
emotions, and behaviors, a therapeutic approach combining
cognitive therapy with schema therapy can be more effective.
Based on cognitive and behavioral techniques, schema therapy
applies useful principles from constructivist, psychodynamic,
object relations, and gestalt therapies. Compared with standard
cognitive-behavioral therapy, schema therapy places greater
value on your emotions, emphasizes the therapeutic relationship
between you and your therapist as a vehicle for change, and
places a greater importance on the childhood origins of your
current difficulties. Typically longer-term than cognitive
therapy, schema therapy helps you modify your behaviors and
the ways people feel and relate to you.
Schema therapy is especially helpful in treating chronic
depression and anxiety, eating disorders (anorexia, bulimia,
binge-eating), difficult couples problems, long-standing difficulties
maintaining satisfying intimate relationships, and helping
prevent relapse among substance abusers. Schema therapy addresses
patients who feel hopeless about changing, when their self-destructive
patterns seem to be a part of their identity. The negative
patterns may have become so entrenched that they become rigid
and resist standard cognitive-behavioral therapy.
Schema therapy was developed by Jeffrey E. Young, Ph.D. of
the Cognitive Therapy Center of New York. The negative beliefs
can lead to low self-esteem, lack of connection to others,
problems expressing feelings and emotions, and excessive worrying
about basic safety issues. The beliefs can also create strong
attractions to inappropriate partners and lead to dissatisfying
careers. Through a series of assessments you will learn to
recognize what schemas affect you, understand the schema's
origins, and learn how to make lasting changes in your life.
Many patients who begin schema therapy have spent years in
other types of therapies, gaining valuable insight but frustrated
by their lack of progress. Schema therapy provides a straightforward,
direct approach that goes beyond getting "in-touch"
with your feelings. You work through structured assignments
outside sessions that help you continually confront your negative
beliefs. In each session, you work with your therapist to
identify when your unhealthy patterns are repeating, and “empathically
confront” them with the reasons for change. Your therapist
supplies you with a partial antidote to meet your needs that
may not have been met in your childhood.
Schema therapy is outlined in the Dutton book Reinventing
Your Life, by Jeffrey Young, Ph.D. and Janet Klosko, Ph.D.
| 1. |
Abandonment/Instability: You expect instability,
unreliability, or loss of anyone you are close to. |
| 2. |
Mistrust/Abuse: You expect others will hurt, abuse,
humiliate, cheat, lie, manipulate, or take advantage of
you. |
| 3. |
Emotional Deprivation: You believe that your primary
emotional needs for nurturance, empathy, affection, and
protection will never be met by other people. |
| 4. |
Defectiveness/Shame: You feel that you are defective,
bad, unwanted, inferior, or invalid. |
| 5. |
Social Isolation/Alienation: You feel isolated from
the rest of the world, different or not part of any group
or community. |
| |
|
6. |
Dependence/Incompetence: You feel unable
to handle your everyday responsibilities competently without
considerable help from others. |
7. |
Vulnerability to Harm or Illness: You feel on the verge
of a major financial, medical, natural, or criminal catastrophe,
without evidence to support the belief. Focus may be on
a medical condition, emotionally losing control, or an
external area (airplanes crashing, elevators). |
8. |
Enmeshment/Undeveloped Self: You are excessively emotionally
involved with a partner or parents at the expense of your
individuality. |
9. |
Failure: You believe that you have failed, will inevitably
fail, or are fundamentally inadequate relative to peers.
|
| |
|
10. |
Entitlement/Grandiosity: You believe that you are superior
to other people and not bound by the rules of reciprocity
in normal situations. |
11. |
Insufficient Self-Control/Self-Discipline: You find
it continually difficult or refuse to practice sufficient
self-control and frustration tolerance to achieve your
goals, or to restrain an excessive expression of your
emotions and impulses. |
| |
12. |
Subjugation: You feel coerced to surrender
your needs and emotions to other people, avoiding anger,
retaliation, or abandonment. |
13. |
Self-Sacrifice: You voluntarily meet the needs of other
people at the expense of your own gratification. |
14. |
Approval-Seeking/Recognition Seeking: You emphasize
gaining approval, recognition, or attention from other
people, or fitting in at the expense of developing a secure
and true sense of yourself. |
| |
15. |
Negativity/Pessimism: You experience a pervasive,
lifelong focus on the negative aspects of life (pain,
death, loss, disappointment, etc.) |
16. |
Emotional Inhibition: You excessively inhibit spontaneous
action, feelings, or communication, avoiding disapproval
by others or feelings of shame, or the possibility of
losing control of your impulses. |
17. |
Unrelenting Standards/Hyper-criticalness: You feel that
you and other people must strive to meet very high internal
standards of behavior and performance, usually to avoid
criticism. |
| 18. |
Punitiveness: You feel that people, including yourself,
should be punished harshly for mistakes. |
A Therapist with Empathy and Experience
Travis Atkinson, L.C.S.W., is the Clinical Director of Advanced
Cognitive Therapy of New York. He is a highly experienced,
compassionate therapist working in Manhattan for many years,
and is
affiliated with the Cognitive Therapy Center of New York.
He has been
specially trained by Dr. Jeffrey E. Young, the creator of
schema
therapy, and is the co-author of the latest schema mode inventory,
the Young-Atkinson
Mode Inventory,
with Dr. Young. He is
a graduate of
New York University, You can be assured that you will benefit
from the
latest therapeutic techniques in schema mode
therapy to help
you feel better.
Call now for a consultation to discuss schema therapy options:
(212) 725-7774
or (888) 4-ACT-NYC or
contact us via our online form.
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