About Schema Therapy

Schema therapy is an innovative psychotherapy developed by Dr. Jeffrey Young to treat entrenched, chronic psychological disorders. It is designed to make deep personality changes that allow clients to break free of these problems.

Schema therapy integrates elements of cognitive therapy, behavior therapy, object relations, psychoanalysis and gestalt therapy into one unified, systematic approach to treatment.

Many clients who have spent years gaining valuable insight, but who are frustrated by their lack of progress in other types of psychotherapy, respond well to schema therapy’s direct and structured approach. Therapists take an active role in sessions to help clients foster real changes in their lives.

Schema therapy has been used extensively with:

• Personality disorders
• Chronic depression and anxiety
• Eating disorders
• Intractable couples problems
• Relapse prevention for depression and anxiety, substance abuse, and criminal offenders.

Schema therapy gets beyond common therapeutic impasses such as:

• Rigid, self-defeating behavior patterns that won’t change
• Difficulty accessing feelings or experiencing deep connections to others
• Clients who won’t do homework or self-help assignments
• Clients with good intellectual insight, but their feelings & behaviors seem resistant to change

Schema therapy provides fresh, original ways to maximize the therapeutic relationship by working with the client’s and therapist’s own emotional vulnerabilities (schemas). It offers non-defensive strategies with clients who, for example:

• Can’t seem to connect to the therapist
• Become angry, hostile, critical, or oversensitive in sessions
• Chronically complain that therapy isn’t helping, while ignoring the therapist’s advice & suggestions
• Cling to the therapist, have difficulty accepting limits, & make excessive demands