"Schema Couples Therapy: Using Modes to Heal Schemas"

by Travis Atkinson & Poul Perris

How do you use the schema therapy model to work effectively with your couples? In this one-day workshop, Travis Atkinson and Poul Perris will be exploring ways to help therapists apply the schema therapy model to help distressed, unstable couple dynamics shift into satisfying, secure connections that endure.

While many couple therapy models offer solutions to help couples, only a few have shown promising, enduring results. Especially for couples who do not improve with traditional couples therapy, how can a couple therapist help partners shift from intense, negative patterns of relating that do not respond well to standard treatments?

Schema therapy, designed as an antidote for deeply engrained personality disorders resistant to standard therapy, provides answers through an expansive approach that targets chronic, negative beliefs and maladaptive coping modes that often reinforce the worst aspects of each belief.

Aims of the Workshop 

1. Identify core destructive cycles in couple dynamics, linking past and present associations with each partner's modes and schemas. Set therapeutic goals as antidotes based on schemas and mode cycles

2. Effectively restructure negative cycles of a couple to address schemas and create new beliefs reinforced through new patterns of emotional connection

3. Solidify safety and security through continued reinforcement of the healthy cycle in a couple to heal injuries and schemas

Summary 

Join us during this skill and intervention-focused workshop that starts with a brief introduction of how the schema therapy model uses mode work in love relationships to improve outcomes for even the most challenging dynamics within a couple.

Assessment: examining the essentials of schemas, modes, chemistry, mode cycle concept, and mode cycle clash cards;

Interventions: core therapeutic skills in couples work, including rescripting imagery, mode cycle clash cards, schema dialogues, and chairwork

Consolidation: key skills and interventions in the final phase with the couple, including a value road map, dreams of the couple, and how to solidify a secure connection

Each section includes clear illustrations, relevant video demonstrations of real couples, and practical role-plays to help you apply the interventions effectively with your couples. 

Learning Objectives

1. Assess schemas and modes of each partner and the love relationship

2. Apply effective interventions to de-escalate maladaptive mode cycles and to create and reinforce adaptive schemas and modes

3. Consolidate new modes of interaction within the couple, and solidify adaptive schemas in relation to the self, the love relationship, and the world

The workshop is intended for: Beginners through advanced level

Certification Credit: this workshop provides 6 hours of the Couples ST certification program of the Schema Therapy Training Center of New York for those who qualify or 6 hours of Continuing education credits in ST, which are required for all Certified Schema Therapists.

Suggested Readings

Arntz, A. & Jacob, G. (2012). Schema Therapy in Practice: An Introductory Guide to the Schema Mode Approach. John Wiley & Sons.

Atkinson, T. (2012). Schema Therapy for Couples: Healing Partners in a Relationship in Vreeswijk v.M., Nadort M, Broersen J, (eds.) The Wiley-Blackwell Handbook of Schema Therapy. New York: Wiley, p. 323-336.

DiFrancesco C, Roediger E, Stevens B (2016). Schema Therapy for Couples: a practitioner's guide to healing relationships. New York: Wiley.

About the Workshop Facilitators