Schema Therapy offers new hope in Psychological Therapy

When common Psychological therapies failed      

Dave (name changed) told his psychologist that he often wakes up feeling anxious without knowing why and he would often panic for no reason. He went to see a number psychologists, counselors and psychiatrists but his situation did not change much.

Panic disorder, bipolar depression, as recently dramatized in popular Hollywood movie A Star is Born, personality disorders are often difficult to achieve remission despite psychotherapy and pharmacological drug therapy.

Although CBT is often used for major depressive disorder, there are studies that found that CBT was ineffective when treating severely depressed patients (Driessen & Hollon, 2010). Other research (Johnsen and Friborg (2015)) found CBT to get less effective over time. This is because CBT focuses on patient’s cognition or thinking. However, we are more than just thinking beings. We have emotions and deep psychological needs and many unmet childhood needs. In such cases, schema therapy is able to help those suffering from these difficult psychological disorders connect with these experiences.

Schema Therapy offers new hope

Schema therapy (ST), also known as third wave CBT, was devised as the treatment for more pervasive, enduring psychological disorders, such as major depression and Borderline Personality Disorder, in which other psychotherapy methods such traditional CBT was less successful. Dr. Jeffrey Young, the founder of ST who also founded the International Society for Schema Therapy believed that to successfully treat these and most psychological disorders successfully and in a more lasting fashion, the therapist needs to help the patient uncover and change their deep subconscious programs – called schema that have locked us in repetitive negative and self-sabotaging patterns of behavior.

Training in Schema Therapy is Effective in successful treatment outcome

In schema therapy, the patient works with a therapist to uncover and understand their schemas or early maladaptive schemas. Schemas are unhelpful patterns that many of us develop when our emotional needs are not met when we were children. The effectiveness of schema therapy is reported by numerous research such as the one by Hashemi and Darvishzadeh (2016). The researchers concluded that schema therapy training is effective in reducing the symptoms of depression, promoting mental health, and preventing mental injuries. Schema therapy’s effectiveness can be attributed to specific elements such as the therapist’s bonding with the patient through re-parenting and schema change. The therapy tracks back into the history and past traumatic childhood experiences of the patients and identifies how their current negative emotions and behaviors are affected by those past experiences. These has not be done in other counselling, psychological, and psychiatric therapies which often focus only on the current situations of the patients. In doing, Schema Therapy is able to reformat our past negative experiences which all of us have despite the best effort and intention of our parents. Only then can we break free of our patterns of negative behaviors which other forms of psychological and psychiatric therapies had not been able to help patients do.

Finally, Dave was recommended by one of his friends to visit psychologists at the International Psychology Centre (www.Psychology.com.my) who were trained in Schema Therapy. On the first session itself, his therapist identified a childhood memory where he woke one day and found his dad had gone away. Although now he knows his dad was away on a business trip but at that time no one had explained that sufficiently to him and he felt scared and abandoned. This was how he developed his abandonment schema. The psychologist hypnotized Dave back to that memory and appeared with young Dave to give him the assurance he needed at that time that his dad will be back and be with him whilst he missed his dad. Dave’s traumatic memory was reformatted. His abandonment schema was transformed to a healthy schema. Now Dave is able to sleep well, feels confident with himself and is able to feel happy which he has not been able to do for a very long time.

Psychologists at the International Psychology Centre (www.Psychology.com.my) are trained in Schema Therapy which have helped hundreds of patients suffering chronic psychological disorders that other therapies have failed to treat.

The International Psychology Centre (www.Psychology.com.my) with the Malaysian Association for Psychotherapy (www.MalaysianPsychotherapy.net) will be organizing a Schema Therapy certification training accredited by the International Society for Schema Therapy at the post-Conference workshop of the 4^th International Psychotherapy, Counseling & Psychiatry Conference: www.ISPCP-TRCP.org, April 29^th- May 1^st 2020. Psychologists, counsellors, psychiatrists and other mental health practitioners are invited to register as well as presenting their research or clinical work at the  conference which will be published in the International Journal of Psychotherapy, Counseling & Psychiatry (www.IJPCP.com).

This article is contributed by the International Psychology Centre. For further information please contact:

☎ :+ 603 27277434

Info@Psychology.com.my

www.SchemaTherapyAsia.net; www.Psychology.com.my

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