Healing Relationships: Schema Therapy and the Dynamic-Dimensional Mode Model for Treating Couples and Individuals by Eckhard Roediger

The schema therapy model proposes that core unmet needs can lead to maladaptive schemas and coping behaviors. "Schema chemistry" plays an important role in partner selection, i.e., choosing someone who fits the familiar and reminiscent role of a parent or caregiver, especially the offending/depriving ones. Longings and needs are kept alive in the context of the familiar, along with opportunities for “button-pushing” in the escalation of conflict and the activation of schema mode cycles

• Unlike most other approaches to couples treatment... schema therapy offers a protocol that does not insist on exclusive conjoint work. The ST model appreciates the value of flexibility where individual treatment and conjoint treatment are part of an integrated plan when necessary.

• The workshop addresses (1) commencing treatment with one partner and subsequent inclusion of the other, as well as (2) initiating treatment with the couple conjointly, from the start.

• The workshop provides a theoretical framework and describes (via slides, demonstration, and video) how mode cycles work and how they can be changed by realizing the frustrated core needs. Participants will also learn strategies for facilitating emotional reconnection through imagery and dialogues between the Healthy Adult modes. The diagnosis of mode cycles, bypassing self-defeating patterns, and creating functional communication and connection will be demonstrated and practiced in role plays.

For those seeking Certification in Schema Therapy for Couples... this workshop counts as the basic module of the Couples-ST Curriculum.

Readings:

Simeone-DiFrancesco, C., Roediger, E., Stevens, B. (2015). Healing Relationships: Schema Therapy for Couples, Oxford, UK: Wiley-Blackwell.