Get Unstuck With Schema Therapy

Sometimes in life we can find ourselves stuck.

We might be stuck in a relationship that isn’t fulfilling or stuck in a job we need but hate.

Some of us get stuck in cycles of self-destructive behavior, drinking too much, over-eating, or failing yet again to stick to a healthy routine that we know will change our lives for the better.

Others of us are stuck in thought loops inside our own heads: struggling with repetitive, anxious or depressive thoughts that keep us from engaging fully in our lives.

For many of us there might not be any obvious reason for feeling stuck, but still we feel it.

In my counselling practice, it’s very common to see clients who, on the outside are doing well ; good career, financial stability, family and friends; yet there is an underlying sense of emptiness and dissatisfaction with life - and they don't know why.

Despite all their success, they remain trapped at the edge of an emotional void - unable to enjoy a life that is ironically the envy of their peers.

If any of the above resonates with you - ,  and have tried countless things to change -

Identifying and working through your schemas could be THE KEY that unlocks the door to change.

Most of you will have heard about neuroplasticity – how the brain changes throughout our lives.

Who we are today, good and bad - is the sum total and combination of every neuro-plastic adaptation our brains have ever made, in response to the world we experience.

So let’s just take a moment and look at what neuroplasticity actually is and how it happens.

It can be helpful to compare it to what happens when we attempt to get in shape.

We know that if we stuff ourselves with junk food, sit on the sofa for hours and never exercise we will very likely become over-weight, unfit, lethargic and have weak, ineffective muscles.

But if we change our habits, eating healthily, exercising, and generally taking care of ourselves our bodies respond accordingly.

It’s the same with the brain. We need to be very aware of what we allow in.

Everything we repeatedly think, feel and do gets wired into the subconscious part of the brain in a kind of pattern loop. The more we repeat the pattern, the deeper it becomes ingrained and the more automatic it becomes.

So, for example, if you repeatedly think that you are useless, a loser, or defective in some way and feel crap because of those thoughts - they will start to become automatic and just churn out endlessly along with the attached feelings. What you usually do when you think and feel this way - say for example -eat, drink, isolate or zone out in front of the TV - this behaviour will also become wired into the automatic firing pattern.

This is what a schema actually is - a deeply embedded automatic pattern that pops up frequently in response to certain triggers and derails us on our path to change.

18 distinct schemas have been identified all with their own specific thought patterns, feelings and behaviours.  Once you've identified which ones are getting in the way of your goals, you can specifically target them with techniques that reduce them.

Our schemas got laid down in our brains way back in childhood - some because we grew up in harsh, abusive or neglectful environments, but some develop because we were over-indulged as children and our brains did not get the practice they needed to function as responsible adults.

Schemas can damage all areas of our lives

Some schemas directly sabotage relationships - such as ABANDONMENT schema or the MISTRUST & ABUSE schema. Other schemas are a result of underdeveloped parts of the brain that enable us to delay gratification and follow through on plans - eg the INSUFFICIENT LIMITS & CONTROL  schema.

One schema, EMOTIONAL INHIBITION develops from constantly having to suppress feelings in childhood and results in weak connections from the emotional brain to the conscious brain - meaning we don't really feel much of anything at all - a key factor leading to certain forms of depression.

So if you have tried many different ways of getting unstuck, the chances are, you never really got to the root of why you are stuck. 

If any of this resonates with you click here to get more detailed information about schemas or why not consider an individual assessment to identify the schemas that are sabotaging your dreams and goals. 

Now I’m certainly not against regular contemplative, self-reflective practices; they are essential for emotional and psychological growth. Regular self reflection, observing thoughts and feelings and focusing on our internal sensations, actually builds up essential functions and pathways in the brain.

Mindful self awareness in any form is VITAL for change.

But it has to practiced, well, mindfully.

I think at this stage it would be beneficial to clarify the difference between the two practices.

Meditation has many different forms but it essentially involves sitting for periods of time observing the mind. It is a more formal, silent practice.

Mindfulness refers to bringing our focus to what is happening in any given moment, observing thoughts feelings and sensations – bringing full conscious awareness to the present.  You can be mindful anywhere.

For many people, these practices do allow the mind to quieten down, for the stress response to settle back to baseline, and to ultimately feel more present and engaged in life.

But for some, they don’t.

If you have a history of trauma, physical, sexual or emotional abuse – or even emotional neglect – tread carefully with any form of meditative practice

In her article about the dangers of mindfulness, Dawn Forster reports the experience of a 37 year old woman, Clare, who was sent on a 3 day mindfulness course as part of her workplace training.

“Initially, I found it relaxing, … (but) within two or three hours of later sessions, I was starting to really, really panic... somehow, the course triggered things I had previously got over - I had a breakdown and spent three months in a psychiatric unit”

Clare isn’t alone in her experience – such is the increase in reports of the negative effects of mediation that some prominent psychiatrists are speaking up.

And these aren’t experts bashing meditation and mindfulness, they are active practitioners and supporters.

Dr Willoughby Britton, Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Brown University has been an avid practitioner of meditation for over 20 years. Yet, because of the stories that she hears about the adverse effect of contemplative practice, she has set up 'the Dark Night Project' – in an effort to investigate the issue.

 “Meditation is not the “warm bath” it’s been marketed as in this country”        Britton states.

And this is the thing. It was never meant to be.

It was meant to be a path to spiritual awakening. And spiritual awakening often requires going to some very dark corners of our mind.

David, a resident at Britton’s ‘Cheetah House’, describes his experience as a result of meditation.

“I started having thoughts like, 'Let me take over you,' combined with confusion and tons of terror……I had a vision of death with a scythe and a hood, and the thought 'Kill yourself' over and over again."

Many of the clients I see in my practice, initially can’t sit with their thoughts and feelings for more than a couple of minutes – it’s far too distressing.

Our ability to tolerate cognitive (thoughts) and emotional distress, is a direct result of the kind of childhood we have. If we’ve had an adequately warm, nurturing and emotionally supportive childhood, our capacity to handle difficult internal states is quite high. 

This doesn’t mean that our childhood was necessarily all rosy and without difficulty.

We need to periodically experience stress and distress for our brains to develop the capacity manage them.

But without emotional support, and help with processing stressful events, our brain doesn’t develop this capacity well. 

Dan Siegel, Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at UCLA, calls this capacity the “window of tolerance”.

If you have a wide window of tolerance, you can handle a range of emotions of varying intensity, without being de-railed. But with a narrow window, difficult emotions can send you into a ‘hyper-aroused’ state – anxious, panicky, manic or even psychotic. Or a ‘hypo-aroused’ state – dissociated, depressed, even suicidal.

Mediation and mindfulness can catapult you out of your window of tolerance.

But done slowly, carefully and ‘mindfully’, they will help you to widen your window and as a result, learn to tolerate and experience a wide range of emotions.

If you are contemplating starting a meditation or mindfulness practice – don’t be put off. Psychological growth involves facing difficult internal experiences.

Just take it slowly and be mindful of being mindful.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this topic - so please leave a comment below. 

If you have difficulty managing emotions, our online coaching programme can help. Click here for details

For years I was a people pleaser – not wanting to hurt other people’s feelings, not wanting to appear selfish or mean.

It wasn’t that I was submissive in any way. In fact, I was quite outspoken and would voraciously stand up for the rights of others and myself, especially if I thought there was some kind of injustice being perpetrated.

I’m not sure I was even seen as a people pleaser – I certainly didn’t really consider myself to be one. I just ‘liked’ doing things for other people. I liked listening to people’s problems. I liked being the person people could turn to for help. I liked ‘fixing’ people and helping them to solve their problems.

I think I was always on some kind of mission to ‘save’ someone.

What I didn’t realise back then was the person that needed saving was actually me

Often, when we spend our time overly focused on other people, it's not necessarily out of altruism it’s more likely because of a deeply wired pattern in our brain called the Self-Sacrifice Schema.

 This schema develops when we grow up in a home where the primary care-givers are unable to take care of us or themselves very well.  They might have been physically or mentally unwell, struggling with addictions or overworked and stressed. 

As a result, we end up taking on adult responsibilities at an early age – perhaps looking after younger siblings, cooking and cleaning because no one else is going to do it, or emotionally supporting the adults in the family – propping them up – sometimes literally - and listening to their problems, trying to make them feel better and their lives easier.

When we grow up in an environment like this, there is no space for our own feelings and needs, so without even realizing it, we start to ignore them or suppress them. We never really explore what we want out of life, what interests us or what we feel and need.​

Our brain starts to wire around focusing on others. Our sense of purpose and meaning is tied up with our role as care-taker; our self-worth attached to how much we are needed. We develop a heightened sensitivity to other people's feelings and needs and our identity is built around being 'good', 'kind' 'selfless', 'a rock' or 'a trouper'.

Over time, the way we think and act becomes so deeply wired into the automatic subconscious part of the brain that it feels like this is who we are.

Our ‘personality’ traits include:

• Feeling responsible for other people.
• Never saying ‘no’ to people in need.
• Going above and beyond the call of duty.
• Listening to others and rarely talking about ourselves.
• Constantly giving advice and suggestions.
• Feeling guilty if we can’t help someone.
• Trying to fix and rescue people not as ‘strong’ as we are.

For years we can happily continue like this but eventually, self-sacrifice takes its toll.

One of the first things we tend to experience is an underlying emptiness and dissatisfaction with life that feels like depression or shows up as a lack of energy and lethargy. It feels like something is missing – and there is, it’s YOU. YOUR feelings and needs – who you are at the core -  have been ignored for so long.

We also start to experience a lot of emotional difficulties, which is quite alien to a self-sacrificer. When our emotional needs go unmet – we are biologically programmed to experience uncomfortable emotions such as stress, anger, sadness, frustration and loneliness.

But we have learnt to suppress these from our conscious awareness – we have been so busy ‘doing’ that we never really feel. The thing is – these emotions don’t go away, they build up until there is nowhere left for them to go but out.

As we start to feel more and more exhausted, empty, and dissatisfied, we start to feel resentful of people taking up our time and not showing appreciation for the things that we’ve done for them. And this resentment rubs against our ‘values’ of selflessness, service, loyalty and generosity – producing a level of guilt that’s difficult to bear.

We just don’t know what to do with this emotional pile up and we start to experience anxiety and confusion. We become depleted - stuck in an emotional swamp and we don’t know where to turn for help. Asking for help has never been our forte. It just feels too - well - needy.

Self-Sacrifice will eventually erode your physical health.

Dr Gabor Mate – an expert in the field of stress and disease has this to say.

Emotional stress is a major cause of physical illness, from cancer to autoimmune conditions and many other chronic diseases. The brain and body systems that process emotions are intimately connected with the hormonal apparatus, the nervous system and in particular the immune system.

If any of this resonates with you, you very likely have the self-sacrifice schema.

It’s initially hard to let go of at first -as it feels so wrong to think about what YOU need. But let go you must.