What is Schema Therapy and how does it fit with a Christian world view

What is Schema Therapy

Schema Therapy is an integrative therapy that focusses on helping clients understand the origin of the issues they want to address. It uses Cognitive-Behavioural, Emotion-focussed techniques, Gestalt interventions and has an attachment focus built in. Schema Therapy sees people as having core emotional needs. These needs include having safe and nurturing relationships with appropriate encouragement of interdependence, freedom to express and achieve as well as a need for play and spontaneity. When these core emotional needs are not met schemas develop.

Let me explain...
In our early years we learn what the world is like, who we are and how reliable people will be in meeting our physical and emotional needs. When those needs are not met, encouraged or supported we develop schemas (called early maladaptive schemas by the professionals!). Schemas imprint on us feelings and thoughts about ourself, connected with memories and body sensations.

So, for example, you may have chronic feeling of emptiness. That emptiness can feel like a stone sitting in your stomach or a hollowness inside. That feeling might be always there, or it might happen only in certain situations, for example when you feel let down by people. That feeling is connected to thoughts like "I'm not worthy of being cared for", or "I'm always left alone and unwanted" and these feelings and thoughts will have memories of times you were let down, abandoned, rejected or hurt. That empty feeling is a schema, an emotional 'button' that gets pressed in certain situations. For some it can feel like it's always being pressed. Schema Therapy aims to help you understand what schemas you have developed and where they were developed, with the goal of being able to bring healing and reduce the impact of the schema in every day life.

There are 18 schemas. Talk to your Schema Therapist about what schemas you have. They may also give you a questionnaire to fill in to help you work out which schemas are relevant to you. Here is a list of all the schemas and here is a more comprehensive overview of Schema Therapy for clients.

Schemas are difficult things to work on, for a few reasons:

You might not notice them. Sometimes feelings are difficult to feel, or put words on. They might be buried under layers of coping. You might have learnt to cope with your schema by ignoring the pain, keeping busy, using drugs/alcohol/porn or other substances, or acting the "opposite" of the schema - focussing on being 'the best' even though you might actually feel 'the worst'.
Schemas fight to keep themselves alive. We can unintentionally re-create situations in our adult life that keep the message of the schema alive. So if you have had very critical and demanding parents and developed a Defectiveness schema or a Failure schema or a Hyper-criticalness (Unrelenting Standards) schema you may find yourself in a situation that has many of those same elements; a critical boss, a job that leaves you open to a lot of criticism, a partner who is critical and cutting. We can gravitate towards situations that re-create what we "know". So ...
It feels like truth. People with a Defectiveness schema often say "I know you might think I'm a nice person, but I know in my gut there's something wrong with me". Or someone with a Dependence schema, might feel completely unable to operate in the world and will resist someone telling them that they are competent, feeling that they know the 'truth'. ST is a powerful approach that works on these very strongly held beliefs using experiential techniques and a unique therapist-client relationship to create change.

How does Christianity fit with Schema Therapy?

Schema Therapy takes seriously the preciousness of humans, the need for safe,
loving relationships and the long term impact of brokenness.

For any therapeutic approach Christians need to think through how well that therapy world view fits with with a biblical understanding. Schema Therapy (ST) fits very well in many ways:

While ST doesn't use the language of 'sin' it provides a helpful way to understand the impact of living in a fallen world; other's sin against us, our own sinful thoughts and feelings and our attempts to make ourselves "ok". While this fits with a Christian world view well, in therapy we are very careful about the language we use. For many Christians who have had unsafe relationships, the word 'sin' has been used in controlling or abusive ways. For this reason, we usually start with neutral language allowing a client to reclaim that word at a later stage from a healthy place, or choose not to.
ST assumes that damage occurs in relationship (or in lack of relationship) and therefore healing also comes in relationship. The therapeutic style of a Schema Therapist is "limited re-parenting", where the therapist provides, within the limits of the therapy relationship, what the client did not receive growing up. So, if a client was brought up in a cold, unsafe and critical environment, the therapy relationship needs to be warm, safe and affirming. In contrast, if a client was brought up in a family where there were no rules, where every urge was given in to, the therapy relationship needs to be warm AND limit setting, confronting entitlement when it shows up. While therapists can be excellent at re-parenting, Christians have the ultimate parent, a heavenly father. This is a powerful resource that Christians can use in healing with ST.
ST encourages clients to think about themselves as being made up of 'parts'. We all think of ourselves in this way at times; "There's a part of me that wants to yell, but there's another part of me that knows I'm in the shops and that isn't a good idea". In ST we name those parts of self and understand their origins. The bible also talks about parts of self. In the Psalms the psalmist often speaks to his "soul" in contrast to what another part of him is feeling. Jesus tells the disciples in John 14:1 to "not let your hearts be troubled", asking the disciples to observe their feelings and address those sides that want to give in to fear. There is also the "old self" that we are to put off in Ephesians 4, Romans 6 and Colossians 3. In ST we identify the modes/parts of self into 4 types:

a Vulnerable (child-like) self, as well as perhaps an Angry Child self - these parts hold the pain of the schemas
a Critic mode - an internal voice that can be harsh or critical. Often the message of the schema is being repeated by this part of self
parts of us that coped with the pain of schemas (perhaps an avoidant side, a compliant side or an attacking side) - there are a few different Coping modes - see the arch in the diagram to the right.
healthy parts - a Healthy Adult self and a Happy Child part that we want to grow and have more of

ST encourages clients to grow a strong "Healthy Adult mode", that can soothe the vulnerable part of the client, set limits on behaviour that's unhelpful (Coping modes) and develop rich relationships to get emotional needs met. For Christians, this is the "new self" that is growing in response to being saved by faith, the mind that is renewed (Romans 12:2) and the part that can "be still and know that I am God" (Ps 46:10).
ST provides a way of understanding "stuckness" or other issues in our relationship with God. Ideally we learn to see our heavenly father as a perfect version of our earthly parents, but if our experience of being parented has been very poor it impacts our capacity to relate to God. We might be relating to God as if He is the same as our Demanding Critic/Parent, or our Punishing or Guilt-Inducing Critic/Parent. Or we may be relating to God from our Compliant Surrenderer mode, perhaps because that's what we were taught being a Christian is. We can relate to God from any of our modes and ST helps us understand how that has happened and gives tools to re-form our relationship with God and ourselves. Understanding our schemas and modes provides really helpful ways to understand our own complicated and unique situations.

There are some areas where Christians need to be cautious:

While ST asserts that all ongoing unhelpful patterns are a result of core unmet needs without reference to sin, Christians would assert that our most basic need is to be in relationship with our creator. Therefore ultimate healing comes from being in right relationship with God through Jesus. However, it is important that we welcome clients where they are and work with them towards their goals. It is not a therapist's job to 'convert' a client, but to see signs of grace and show care for clients, no matter what their decision about their spiritual perspective.
Counterintuitively, from a biblical perspective, schemas may be pointing to a theological truth about humans. Christians point out that humanity is in a dire situation that we don't always see. For example, the defectiveness we feel if we have a Defectiveness schema is a partial reflection of the bad news that the bible gives. Standing before God we are more defective than we even feel. Yet, because Jesus took on every single one of our defects on the cross he has cleansed us from defectiveness (2 Cor 5:21). So, schemas can be pointing us to something that needs resolving in a spiritual sense.

Here are some ways that Jesus 'becomes' our schemas in order to free us from their power

Jesus became abandoned, so we would not have to be abandoned (Abandonment/Instability schema)
Jesus came to truly understand us as cosmically misunderstood people (Emotional deprivation), so we could be completely seen by God
Jesus was forsaken and rejected by everyone so we could experience acceptance and welcome (Social Isolation).

The good news is that Jesus took on every one of our core schemas such as abuse, emotional deprivation, defectiveness, social isolation, failure, incompetence, vulnerability to harm ...
Schemas identify ways in which brokenness has impacted us (the sin that was done to us, and the entrenched sin that we thought up ourselves). So, when we work on healing our schemas, we are "catching up " with what Jesus has already done. We are understanding and feeling the impact of the gospel in a very deep way.

So, when we work on healing our schemas, we are "catching up " with what Jesus has already done. We are understanding and feeling the impact of the gospel in a very deep way.

Ruth Holt, Clinical Psychologist, Advanced Schema Therapist