The Therapy scheme was born in the early 2000s from the work of Jeffrey Young, Janet S. Klosko and Marjorie E. Weishaar (2003) as therapy for patients who had pathological personality traits. Over time this approach has also proved to be useful in other areas of application such as anxiety disorders, mood disorders and eating disorders.
The Therapy scheme starts from the assumption that for a healthy development of the individual, satisfaction in the childish age of some is necessary basic psychological needs universal.
The basic needs identified by the Therapy scheme in its initial formulation are:
- Need for safe attachment to others
- Need for autonomy, competence and sense of identity
- Need for freedom to express legitimate needs and emotions
- Need spontaneity and play
- Need for realistic and self-control limits
Three further needs have recently been proposed in the literature that need further research on the matter (Arrntz et al., 2021):
- Need for self -consistency
- Need for justice
- Need for connection with nature
The birth of early maladative schemes
There systematic frustration of basic needs It promotes the birth of early maladative patterns, i.e. cognitive-emotional structures that guide the interpretation of the world and the consequent action.
When an early maladative scheme activates, the person relives sensations of the past that generate intense emotional suffering. At that point the individual no longer reads reality in light of the conditions present, but through the lenses of that past.
The model of fash
Over the years the original model based on the patterns, albeit still valid, has left room for an alternative work model based on the “here and now” of the therapeutic session.
The term was coined fash To indicate the visible methods of behavior with which the schemes express themselves in the present.
In particular, according to Young and Colleghi (2004), a fash It is defined as the operations of one or more patterns (adaptive or maladative) present in the individual at a given time.
THE fash They can therefore be considered as parts within the individual who acquire the scene in the here and now expressing internal contents and instances.
In other words, a fash It is assimilable to a recurring mental state that the person experiences during his daily life.
The classification of fash
THE fash They are grouped into four categories (Roedinger et al., 2018):
- fash child: It is the emotional dimension of the individual. It is characterized by basic emotions such as sadness, anger, anxiety and disgust. It represents the vulnerable part of the patient whose basic needs are not satisfied.
- fash Punitive critic/demanding critic: are the set of internal messages inside first significant relationships. They often manifest themselves through an internal self-critical and/or demanding internal dialogue. Often, such fash They accompany emotions such as shame, embarrassment or humiliation.
- fash of maladative coping: are the set of mental states and the consequent behaviors implemented by the person in order to manage the tension between the fash child and fash Examples are the excessive condescellance, the systematic avoidance of difficult situations, the attack and the blame towards others in order to feel superior.
- fash healthy adult: it is a fash characterized by the ability to recognize others fash and resolve internal conflicts in a functional and flexible way. The person feels in balance and capable of facing difficult situations by satisfying his emotional needs.
Each group can be divided further according to specific characteristics, for example the fash child can take on the characteristics of a fash Vulnerable child if the prevalent emotion is anxiety. Or of a fash Furious child if the prevalent emotion is anger.
In turn and, by way of example, i fash of coping can delineate themselves as a fash detached protector if the experience of the person is of emotional emptiness or self-exemption if at the moment the person feels superior to the others in a contemptuous way.
Remedy the wounds and develop the fash Healthy adult
The Therapy scheme aims to help the person a remedy emotional wounds Received during their development and to contrast what has been dysfunctional, he learned during his childhood and adolescence with respect to herself and their emotional needs.
To this end, the Therapy scheme represents itself as a therapeutic approach that promotes the creativity and use of “unconventional” tools aimed at accessing the fash child, listen to and defend it, if necessary, give fash Critics.
The use of cards
An example of this creativity are the cards proposed by Gitta Jacob and Andrea Hauer (2017).
The set consists of 75 cards aimed at representing all the typical elements of the Therapy scheme. In particular, every type of fash It is represented in a set of cards in its various variations (e.g. punitive parent, compliant surrender, avoidant protector, self-value).
The manipulation of cards aims to make the work in concrete and manageable therapy, in fact the cards offer ideas to define, explore and dialogue.
In other words, these can act as aid to access the person’s emotional dimension and functionally satisfy the basic emotional needs.
For more information see: https://www.erickson.it/it/schema-therapy-kit?default-group=strumenti
Bibliographic references
- ARNTZ, A., Rijkeboer, M., Chan, E., et al. (2021). Reformulated Theory Underlying Towards Therapy Scheme: Position Paper of An International Workgroup. Cognitive Therapy and Research; 45: 1007–20. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10608-021-10209-5.
- Jacob G. & Hauer, A. (2017). Therapy kit scheme. Italian ed. Castellani, I., Baroni, D., & Marsigli, N. (2023).
- Young, Je, Klosko, Js, & Weishaar, Me (2003). Therapy scheme: a Practitioner’s Guide. Guilford Press.
- Rodiger, E., Stevens, B., & Brockman, R. (2018). Contextual Therapy Scheme: an supplementary approach to Personality Disorders, Emotional Dysreguration, and Interpersonal Functioning. Context Press.
