Schema Therapy Brisbane

Break long-standing patterns and build healthier ways of thinking, feeling, and relating.

Schema therapy helps people address unmet needs, break deep-rooted negative patterns of thinking, feeling and behaving, and develop healthier alternatives to enhance their lives and relationships.

What is Schema Therapy?

Schema therapy is an integrative psychotherapy approach that helps individuals address deep-rooted negative patterns and beliefs about themselves and the world. It was developed by Dr Jeffrey E. Young in the 1980s and has become a popular treatment for various mental health conditions.

Schemas are unhelpful beliefs and patterns of thinking, feeling and acting that are formed early in a person’s life and continue to the present day. The beliefs are so deeply held that they are just felt as ‘the way things are’. An example might be the ‘mistrust/abuse’ schema, where the person believes that ‘others will just let you down, you can’t trust anyone’. Another is the ‘unrelenting standards’ schema, believing that one must always strive to be their absolute best and achieve, or else they don’t feel good enough about themselves. These become ways of seeing the world, oneself and other people, and then the person is driven to act in ways associated with the schema. For instance, a person who holds an unrelenting standards schema may push themselves so hard at work and in other areas that they never have time to relax and have fun or procrastinate a lot to avoid all the tasks they feel overwhelmed by.

Schema therapy with a psychologist can help people recognise which schemas and problematic coping styles affect them most, understand the origins and how to make lasting changes.

Schema therapy can provide several benefits when undertaken with the guidance of a trained psychologist. By providing guidance, a safe space, and a collaborative approach, a psychologist can help individuals overcome maladaptive schemas and achieve their treatment goals, leading to improved mental health and overall wellbeing.

Early Maladaptive Schemas

Schemas are the ‘lenses’ through which individuals view themselves and their world. Schemas or ‘negative life beliefs’ can lead to low self-esteem, relationship issues, and problems expressing feelings and emotions, among other issues. These beliefs can also create strong attraction to inappropriate partners and lead to dissatisfying careers.

There are several types of schemas. Examples include:

Abandonment / Instability: The belief that significant others will leave or die, resulting in feelings of abandonment and instability.
Mistrust / Abuse: The belief that others are untrustworthy and that abuse and betrayal are inevitable.
Emotional Deprivation: The belief that one’s emotional needs will not be met, resulting in feelings of emptiness and longing.
Defectiveness/Shame: The belief that one is flawed, defective, or inferior, resulting in shame and self-hatred.
Social Isolation: People with this schema feel disconnected and alienated from the rest of the world. They avoid social contact and situations.
Dependence / Incompetence: The belief that one cannot handle everyday tasks and responsibilities, resulting in feelings of helplessness and dependence on others.
Vulnerability to Harm or Illness: The belief that one is vulnerable to harm or illness, resulting in excessive worrying and hypervigilance.
Enmeshment / Undeveloped Self: The belief that one’s needs and desires are not important and that others’ needs and wants must come first, resulting in a lack of a clear sense of self.
Failure: The belief that one will inevitably fail, resulting in fear of trying new things and taking risks.
Entitlement / Grandiosity: People with this schema feel superior to others and don’t believe they need to follow the rules that apply to others.
Insufficient Self-Control / Self-Discipline: People with this schema come across as impulsive, unreliable, and disorganized and typically can’t resist their impulses and endure discomfort.
Subjugation: Adults with this schema usually allow others to dominate them and often enter relationships with controlling partners.
Self-sacrifice: People with the self-sacrifice schema choose to put others and their needs first because they believe this is the right thing to do.
Approval-Seeking / Recognition-Seeking: The sense of self-worth is based on the opinions, reactions, and approval of others.
Negativity / Pessimism: Focus on the pain, suffering, failure, and adversity of life and downplay its positive aspects.
Emotional Inhibition: Placing great value on self-control. Thus, these adults don’t usually act naturally, spontaneously or playfully.
Unrelenting Standards / Hypercriticalness: Strive to meet extreme and rigid standards and rules. This schema is associated with perfectionism, attention to detail, and being highly critical towards others and oneself.

Schema Therapy for Longstanding Issues

Schema therapy helps deal with long, unhelpful, repeating life patterns in which people can become stuck.

In relationships, people might often become involved with partners who are unable to commit or who are overly oppressive, or the person may continue to feel uncared for despite having a loving and committed partner.
Patterns can also emerge in the area of achievement – in a person who always pushes themselves to attain perfection at work and in their life outside work.
Another pattern might be that a person may have always felt socially isolated and different and had trouble forming friendships or have suffered chronic low self-esteem, feeling defective and inferior to others.

Schema therapy often involves helping a person understand the repeating patterns in their life and the origins of these, and then challenging them using discussion, ‘experiential’ techniques such as imagery and chair role-play, and behaviour change strategies, such as learning how to become more assertive, to set limits on work, or to change the way they approach relationships.

Benefits of Schema Therapy

Schema therapy can provide several personal benefits for individuals seeking treatment with a trained psychologist. Here are some of the main benefits that individuals can achieve:

1. Identify and challenge negative patterns
Schema therapy helps individuals identify and understand their negative thinking, feeling, and behaviour patterns. By identifying these patterns, individuals can begin to challenge and change them.
2. Greater self-awareness
Schema therapy can help individuals develop greater insight into themselves, their emotions and behaviours and their relationships. This increased self-awareness allows people to build better coping mechanisms, improve their relationships, and increase overall wellbeing.
3. Improved coping mechanisms
Schema therapy helps individuals develop healthier coping mechanisms to deal with stress and difficult emotions rather than relying on harmful coping mechanisms such as substance abuse or self-harm. Individuals can learn new ways to cope with stress and difficult emotions by learning new ways to cope.
4. Improved relationships
Schema therapy can help individuals improve their relationships by addressing maladaptive schemas that may interfere with healthy communication and connection. Identifying negative patterns and changing them into healthier ways of relating to others leads to a more fulfilling and meaningful life and relationships.
5. Improved self-esteem and confidence
Schema therapy can help individuals improve their self-esteem and confidence by challenging negative beliefs about themselves and the world. Individuals can develop a more positive sense of self and feel better about themselves by identifying and changing maladaptive schemas.
6. Enhanced emotion regulation
Individuals can better cope with life’s challenges and experience greater emotional wellbeing by learning to identify and manage their emotional states. Schema therapy can help individuals improve their ability to regulate emotions, leading to greater emotional stability and resilience.
7. Greater life satisfaction
By improving their self-awareness, relationships, self-esteem, coping mechanisms, and emotional regulation, individuals can experience greater life satisfaction and overall wellbeing.
8. Treat specific mental health conditions
Schema therapy effectively treats various mental health conditions, including depression, anxiety, personality disorder, and substance abuse.

Find a Schema Psychologist Near Me

Schema therapy is available in Brisbane and is offered by a number of qualified psychologists in private practice.

Schema therapy is delivered through individual counselling sessions and can be tailored to meet your specific needs. Many psychologists in Brisbane who offer Schema therapy also have experience working with a range of evidence-based methods, such as CBT Therapy, ACT Therapy, EMDR Therapy, among others.

You can find a Schema psychologist online and call or send them an online booking request to learn about their experience, fees and availability. You can also ask for a referral from your GP. It is important to ensure that the Schema therapist you choose is well-experienced and trained in Schema therapy.

Make an Appointment

Send a request to a Psychologist in Brisbane by completing the form below.

Schema Therapy Brisbane

What is Schema Therapy?

Early Maladaptive Schemas

Schema Therapy for Longstanding Issues

Benefits of Schema Therapy

1. Identify and challenge negative patterns

2. Greater self-awareness

3. Improved coping mechanisms

4. Improved relationships

5. Improved self-esteem and confidence

6. Enhanced emotion regulation

7. Greater life satisfaction

8. Treat specific mental health conditions

Find a Schema Psychologist Near Me

Recommended Schema Therapy Reading

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