Schema Psychologist

Schema therapy is a medium to long term therapy approach which has been shown to be effective for individuals struggling with problematic romantic or family relationship dynamics, perfectionism, depression, addiction, unhelpful relationships with food or your body, and persistent negative self-talk. Clients report finding this style of therapy to be empathetic and engaging, and that it offers them insight into their lifelong patterns of thinking, feeling and reacting.

Schema therapy consists of first identifying core schemas that you carry and have developed over your lifetime that now form templates for your thoughts/emotions/beliefs around others, self and the world around you. Schemas are triggered at times of stress and can lead to negative thoughts, painful feelings and memories of past experiences. To cope with these schema triggers we tend to use survival defence mechanisms such as avoidance, people pleasing or being perfectionistic. These coping methods usually make things worse in the long run, however we often fall into old patterns of using the same methods despite their cost. In therapy we challenge the parts of you that may be used as defences in life, in relationships, and even within therapy. Schema therapy differs from other types of therapy in that we focus heavily on working directly with difficult emotions in sessions – focusing on doing and experiencing rather than talking about issues.