Are you finding that you can’t get your needs met in your primary relationship?
Are you repeatedly drawn to partners who treat you badly or are cold or insensitive to your needs?
Are you feeling inadequate in relation to others around you?
Are you afraid to get close to others so that they really know you?
Are you struggling with low self-esteem?
Are you having trouble finding a relationship because you can’t find someone you can trust or rely upon?
This is a small sample of the types of problems that Schema Therapy can help you resolve. Schema Therapy assists clients with making changes in lifelong patterns, such as those in relationships, self-esteem, and self-defeating behaviors.Schema Therapy was developed by Dr. Jeffrey Young, a student and colleague of Dr. Aaron Beck. It is an integrative approach that combines elements of various psychotherapeutic techniques and schools of thought (cognitive behavioral, psychodynamic, gestalt, attachment theory, etc.) into an organized framework for change.
Schema therapists presume that everyone is born with fundamental core emotional needs. These needs are grouped into five domains:
- To feel secure in our attachments with others (nurtured, accepted and safe in a stable relationship)
- To feel secure within ourselves (competent, with a sense of identity and autonomy)
- To be free to express our needs and emotions
- To be spontaneous and playful
- To know realistic limits so that we develop self-control
When core emotional needs are met, we feel content and happy. When not met, we feel anxious, angry, and/or sad. When core emotional needs are not met during childhood or adolescence, schemas often develop. Research has validated the existence of 18 specific schemas:
- Abandonment/Instability
- Mistrust/Abuse
- Emotional Deprivation
- Defectiveness/Shame
- Social Isolation/Alienation
- Dependence/Incompetence
- Vulnerability to Harm or Illness
- Enmeshment/Undeveloped Self
- Failure
- Entitlement/Grandiosity
- Insufficient Self-Control/Self-Discipline
- Subjugation
- Self-Sacrifice
- Approval-Seeking/Recognition Seeking
- Negativity/Pessimism
- Emotional Inhibition
- Unrelenting Standards/Hypercriticalness
- Punitiveness
Schemas are deep-seated emotionally-based beliefs that develop under specific circumstances. For example: If a parent often criticizes his child; then that child eventually believes that he is fundamentally unworthy. This is an example of how a defectiveness schema can develop. Although the child’s belief is incorrect, it is an understandable belief to have developed under those circumstances. Once a schema develops, it is experienced as a ‘truth’. Schemas strongly affect how we feel about ourselves, others and the world around us. They also affect how we then behave or cope.
If You’re Interested
Please do not hesitate to contact us for the highest quality Schema Therapy NYC provides.
