Hey Dolly,
I am currently doing schema therapy, or at least I was there but there has been trouble in accessing it. Anyway! It has been the best therapy to date for me - I am diagnosed with BPD and complex PTSD.
It is hard work like all therapies and there is a lot of homework and testing things out but I have found it to be so helpful in understand why I think the way I think and how my "schemas" affect my life but also how I can work on changing them.
Initially when you start schema therapy you are likely to be given lots of questionnaires so they can assess what schemas you have. I think there are 18 schemas but it is unlikely you would have them all because it wouldn't make sense too (for example, one schema is not expecting much for yourself and another is expecting too much for yourself so it would seem unrealistic to have both of this but who knows!). Then from my own experience and knowing a couple of other people, they will probably start working with your top-scoring schemas because they are the ones most likely causing the most problems in your life. Having said that though, when I got my results and each schema was explained I immediately broke down because a) it was like wow, how do they know about me?! and b) I actually identified which one I needed to work on first because it felt more important to me in my life than the top scoring one.
There is a good book which was recommended to me prior to starting schema therapy by two different psychotherapists. It's quite an old book so it doesn't have all the schema's but I did find it quite helpful and like I say, was actually recommended. It's called 'Reinventing Your Life'.
Take care xxx
|
