Anybody tried schema therapy?

If so, how did it work for you?

I have been doing schema therapy for 6ish years. It is working for me overall, but the painful attachment I have for my T has been difficult

Yes! It has totally changed my life. I think I am quite evangelical about it! But really the changes in my life have been very very good, and profound.
My T said that "standard" CBT would probably not have worked, and I neeeded something longer term and more in depth. But at the same time there are elements of CBT and the really specific skills for coping with life have been very helpful. The idea of the "lifetraps" has been really helpful to me and something I am able to share with close friends too.
I'm on 5 years and now I only go once a month.
I do agree with what JDNA said above though. At times the attachment to T has been very difficult and painful. I *think* I am just getting to the point now where it has helped but I'm not quite so dependent on T. With the dependency and the relationship though it has felt like two steps forward and then two steps back a lot of the time.

We did a lot of works on schemas in group therapy. Extremely difficult stuff but helpful to figure out what the core beliefs you have about yourself are. It is hard looking at them though. I found it very helpful but one of the tougher topics to work through

My longterm CBT T brought up beliefs that take an "If...then..." form as being 'schema'. I think I did wonder at some point whether I had adopted a rule that if i was ok with myself then others wouldn't care about me... So there was an inverse relationship between my opinion of myself and the opinion others would have about me which is why it was really important to maintain a low opinion of myself. Not sure if anything else came of it though, or whether that was a real example of a schema. Nor did I find any others :/

I've been doing schema therapy for almost two years, and it has been amazingly helpful! I can't recommended it enough, especially if you found other treatments liked CBT aren't cutting it.

Yes it can be incredibly difficult and painful at times, but it's totally worth it. The benefits far out way the discomfort.

I like its humanistic approach and use of limited-reparenting. My relationship with T allows me to experience a secure attachment and internalise that nurturing.

Thanks, nobody in my area does it. I got the book a while back but even though the concepts make sense it doesn't seem like something I can do on my own.

But. . .I'll continue to look, maybe a T here will get the certification. Or maybe I could find somebody to try it out with me, but it seems like that would be a risk.

I think my Therapist does this because I saw it on her bio but I don't know what the term means, exactly. Can someone define it here?

what was the name of the book ??

It is a structured, longer-term therapy (usually at least 2 years). In therapist-y terms it is based on CBT and with elements of gestalt. The relationship with T is of central importance. It is recommended for people with personality disorders, but it's not only for people with PDs but for anyone who has long-standing problems that have been with them throughout their life.

In my layman terms, basically it's about identifying core beliefs that are causing problems in life. These are the schemas, in my therapy we call them lifetraps. Examples are the defectiveness lifetrap, which is the core belief that "I am a bad and fundamentally flawed person", or the abandonment lifetrap, "anyone I love and care about will ultimately leave me". You spend time exploring how those beliefs came about - it's usually because you didn't have important emotional needs met during childhood. So that means that these kinds of beliefs were adaptive during childhood, in the sense that they helped you to survibe, but they are maladaptive now. In my therapy we picture the lifetrap as a little green monster and practice talking back to it, which is something I eventually internalised as a kind of positive self-talk.

Next you collect a lot of evidence about those beliefs, and working out that they are not true. You also do a lot of imagery work. For me, I could understand the evidence that the lifetraps were not true, but I wasn't able to really believe that they were not true, until we did the imagery work. Imagery work targets your emotions rather than your logic, and I found it very powerful.

Then once you have agreed that the lifetraps or schemas are not true and not desirable, you start working on thinking differently, and also behaving differently,using lots of different strategies and techniques.

I also notice that my T is using the therapeutic relationship to teach me about what a healthy relationship looks like - that part is not in the book, because I think the book is designed so it could be a self-help book if your lifetraps are not too difficult to work on alone!

It is in-depth work and it takes a long time, but it has been truly life-changing for me.

The book is called "Reinventing your life" by Jeffrey Young and Janet Klosko.

Perhaps you could find a trained schema therapist who will work by Skype? If you think that would be ok for you. I know that my T advertises that he will work by Skype.
I know it's not really the same as meeting in person though.

Very good idea, I'll look into it, thanks.

Great info!!

Thanks, satsuma

I think we do some version of this. I've been with my T for about three years now but it's not so structured. I wish it was.

Are you talking about Reinventing Your Life?
I just started reading it.
I'm surprised my schemas are identified.
I hope there is something more about how to overcome these.
There are no therapists around here that practice this therapy.
I'm more for helping myself.
I would go to a therapist if a good one was available.
My Lifetraps arent giving me too much trouble at this time.
Although I probably live in a small world.