The Third Day of ISST Summer School: What Will You Attend?

Take a moment to read through the descriptions of the workshops ISST is offering for the third day of Summer School in St. Petersburg, June 13th, then click the "Register" button below to make your choice for Day 3.

Option 1: Couples Group Schema Therapy

by Paul Kasyanik & Elena Romanova

Group Schema Therapy (GST) for Couples is a new integrative approach blending the  power of group therapeutic factors with dyadic couples work. This workshop presents the model basics with demonstrations of core interventions.

In this approach collaborative assessment experiences provide couples with a deeper understanding of “the schema chemistry” fueled by core unmet needs which attracted them and eventually set them against each other. The group setting provides important vicarious learning opportunities. Couples observe how different schemas and coping modes influence the relationships of others, allowing them to better identify and resolve their own “core cycles and schema clashes.”

Protected intimacy of in-couple communication and group exercises provides corrective emotional experiences like “mutual reparenting” and couples imagery rescripting. Happy Child Mode exercises supply positive emotional energy and facilitate more optimistic attitudes towards their partnership.

Learning Objectives

- Understand and apply the GST model and interventions to couples’ treatment;

- Learn how to teach partners strategies for identifying, accepting and deactivating dysfunctional modes and schemas in group 

- Learn how to facilitate couples re-parenting & imagery rescripting

-Experience opportunities to do interventions in demonstrations 

Training modalities: didactic and experiential

Option 2: Overcoming "Stuckness," the Client's and Your Own: Learning the "ABCs" of Schema Therapy

by Joan Farrell and Ida Shaw

This workshop focuses on of group and individual ST interventions to prepare, motivate and engage clients in the change process.

The ABCs of Schema Therapy are steps we have identified to increase client's:

A=awareness of emotions and needs

B=behavior change

C=connection

The ABCs are a way to present to client’s the Schema Therapy work needed to take on their maladaptive coping and dysfunctional critic modes of clients. They are also a helpful mnemonic for therapists.

Since Schema Therapy works by mode rather than symptom it is seen as transdiagnostic: the ABCs apply independent of diagnosis. The importance of integrating experiential, cognitive and behavioral interventions in a manner salient to clients is stressed. The training will incorporate didactic sections, demonstrations by trainers in which the workshop participants play a group of clients, and opportunities for participants to practice these interventions with coaching and feedback. 

Option 3: Two Separate Workshops

Morning Workshop: Research into Schema Therapy in Your Clinical Practice 

by Arnoud Arntz

A workshop for clinicians and clinical researchers who want to investigate ingredients of schema therapy, new applications, or contribute to the evidence base. 

In this workshop I will discuss designs and methods that clinicians and clinical researchers can use to test relevant issues for the evidence base of Schema Therapy (ST) in relatively small samples (from 6 patients on). I will also discuss some of the most important issues on the research agenda of ST.

The focus will primarily be on:

1. (i) case series designs to test ST in new types of patients or to replicate previous findings
2. (ii) experimental designs to test central techniques in ST that can be done in small samples

The workshop includes didactic presentation but will also invite participants to play with their ideas and think out designs to test them, whilst feedback from the workshop leader is given. Moreover, participants can also bring in their own plans to have them discussed. 

The workshop will focus more on conceptual thinking rather than on (statistical) techniques. 

Note. The workshop is not about psychometric studies. 

Afternoon Workshop: Training in Schema Therapy Using the Competency-Spiral Approach

by Gerhard Zarbock

10 Steps into Individual Schema Therapy: An Invitation to Experience, Discover and Reflect 

This mini-workshop uses a newly developed teaching device, the Competency-Spiral Approach, to introduce you to individual schema therapy, developing your understanding and offering essential schema therapeutic skills in a systematic manner. 

At the beginning of the workshop we jump right into the theme by exploring a mode activation via imagery. We then reflect on how a mode activation feels from the inside. After this experience we define conceptually a mode and provide you with a verbal map showing the landmark terms of the model. As teaching tools we will use self experience, imagery, peer practice, short lectures, group discussion, creative art work and short demonstrations on stage.

You will experience the basic schema therapeutic strategies (e.g., contact vulnerable child, circumvent detached protector, protect vulnerable child, dis-empower punitive parent, console and re-educate vulnerable child). The workshop ends with your personal feedback, addressing your positive experiences as well as your reservations and problems with the schema approach. At the end you will get some written material listing the essential features of individual schema therapy to take home for further training. 

Have You Decided? Make Your Choice By Clicking 'Register' Below

ISST Summer School will take place June 11th through the 13th. The conference venue will be the centrally located Holiday Inn St. Petersburg Moskovskye Vorota. 

Don't miss this opportunity to explore the magical St. Petersburg White Nights Festival together with fellow ISST colleagues. Reunite with your ISST friends and make new connections with fellow colleagues who share your passion for schema therapy from around the world.

Visit the new ISST website for more details about the conference, including program listings, and exciting social adventures. Don't Miss Out: Register Now.