Jenny Broersen
Clinical psychologist and psychotherapist at G-Kracht Psychomedisch Centrum Amsterdam and GGZ Delfland in Delft, The Netherlands. She is senior lecturer at Rino Groep, Rotterdam and teacher at Rino Groep, Utrecht, and Rino Noord-Holland, Amsterdam. She is co-editor of the Wiley Handbook of Schema Therapy and author of several books on schema therapy. J. Broersen is certified supervisor for individual and group therapy ISST and the Dutch society of ST.
Working with positive concepts in schema therapy: what are the experiences of adult outpatients?
In recent years there has been a growing interest in the integration of positive concepts in schema therapy and the relationship with well-being and mental health. Louis et al. (2018) found evidence that the positive schemas and negative schemas are separate constructs and related in a different way with mental health. This finding suggests the need for additional interventions to activate the positive schemas and to integrate positive interventions in schema therapy. As far as we know, there is one effect study of schema therapy integrated with positive schemas. This study is specific for older outpatients with a cluster C personality disorder (Van Donzel et al., 2021). The results of this study are not published yet. Preliminary results suggest that the older patients seem to find it relevant to work with positive schemas. The question that arises is whether it is clinically relevant to combine schema therapy with positive schemas and positive interventions for the adult outpatients. In the last year we explore this for adult outpatients with a personality disorder. In this presentation, we’ll share the findings from our pre pilot phase. What are the experiences of the adult outpatients? Which interventions are used? And what are the results?
References:
van Donzel, L., Ouwens, M.A., van Alphen, S.P.J., Bouwmeester, S., & Videler, A.C. (2021). The effectiveness of adapted schema therapy for cluster C personality disorders in older adults: integrating positive schemas. Contemporary Clinical Trials Communications, 21, 100715.
Louis, J. P., Wood, A. M., Lockwood, G., Ho, M. H. R., & Ferguson, E. (2018). Positive clinical psychology and Schema Therapy (ST): The development of the Young Positive Schema Questionnaire (YPSQ) to complement the Young Schema Questionnaire 3 Short Form (YSQ-S3). Psychological Assessment, 30(9), 1199
All you need is: Tough love to live your life fully in a healthy state.
Co-presenting with Michiel van Vreeswijk
Sometimes you get stuck in schema therapy. Patients understand their schemas and modes and what they should do to change, but seem not to dare their life at the fullest. Patients who seem to undermine their progress in becoming more resilient. Almost clinging to maladaptive modes every time there is a chance to change. Trying to tackle all the different schemas and modes individually has not been successful and seem to lead to desperateness. When you are at this point in schema therapy it is time to change strategy. To throw overboard all the separate schemas and modes and focus solely on the Undermining mode (with all it different colours). In this workshop we demonstrate a form of chair technique in which the client and the patient surpass the Undermining mode and actively work on creating a working alliance between the Healthy adult and Vulnerable child of the patient using though love as a limited reparenting style.