Schema Therapy Standard Workshop

Accredited by the International Society of Schema Therapy and presented by Dr Christopher Lee.

Workshops delivered traditional face to face format

Fee for traditional training format: Earlybird $595 up to 3 weeks before workshop date, Standard Fee $655 applies after that.
$100 discount for Full Time students. Contact us with proof of Full Time status to receive the discount code BEFORE registering.

In this workshop you will

• Review the extensions of cognitive behaviour therapy by Aaron Beck and Jeffrey Young
• Review current state of evidence on schema focused therapy including research conducted by the presenter
• Learn how to assess the key developmental tasks of childhood, and how these affect schema development
• Learn a range of ways to assess problematic schemas and practice these in small group exercises
• Explore the methods by which clients subtly maintain their self defeating schemas
• Learn how to challenge client’s schema maintaining strategies
• Practice emotive, interpersonal, cognitive and behavioural interventions designed to regulate emotions
• Learn experiential interventions to highlight the link between current emotions and earlier learning
• Develop practical strategies to consolidate emerging beliefs which are more adaptive
• Receive extensive background notes and client handouts

Background

Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) enjoys its popularity mainly from its proven success in treating problems such as depression, PTSD and anxiety disorders. Its application to the treatment of personality disorders, chronic depression or anxiety, and “borderline” conditions has until recently been problematic both at a practical and theoretical level. These client populations present with broad ranging problems, and any therapy is often difficult.

Schema therapy was derived from traditional CBT and incorporates practices from other psychotherapies, including psychodynamic, emotional focused therapy, and Gestalt. It differs from traditional CBT in five substantive ways. Compared to traditional short term cognitive therapy, SFT places more emphasis on: childhood origins of problems and working directly with associated memories; 2) use of identified core schemas to drive formulation and treatment; 3) the use of experiential or affect-based techniques; 4) use of the therapy relationship to assess psychological themes and provide corrective experiences; and 5) use of ‘mode’ theory.

We are actively involved in widely-read research on Schema Therapy. As of November 2023, our 1999 publication has been cited 470 times. Our 2022 paper in which we tested the efficacy of schema Therapy in an international multi-site randomised control trial (RCT) has already been cited 39 times. It is the largest RCT of a psychotherapy for a personality disorder ever undertaken.

Pre-workshop Preparation

There is some preliminary work that would help with understanding the material that I will present.

If you haven’t read Chapter One of Jeffrey Young’s book then that would be useful to do so especially the first 37 pages.
Click here to download the chapter.

In addition you need to administer the YSQ-R to yourself.  It would also help to give it to a client. It is also useful to score the YSQ-R. This can be done using the computer programme in the link below. Note you don’t need to administer the SMI that is for the advanced schema workshop.

Resource Material Links

References:

Arntz, A., Jacob, G. A., Lee, C. W., Brand-de Wilde, O. M., Fassbinder, E., Harper, R. P., . . . Farrell, J. M. (2022). Effectiveness of Predominantly Group Schema Therapy and Combined Individual and Group Schema Therapy for Borderline Personality Disorder: A Randomized Clinical Trial. JAMA Psychiatry, 79(4), 287-299. doi:10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2022.0010

Lee, C.W., Taylor, G., and Dunn J. (1999) Factor Structure of the Schema Questionnaire in Large Clinical Sample. Cognitive Research and Therapy.

Yalcin, O., C. Lee, and H. Correia, (2020) Factor Structure of the Young Schema Questionnaire (Long Form‐3). Australian Psychologist, DOI: 10.1111/ap.12458

All workshops conducted in accord with our Terms and Conditions.