Aims:

When we talk about Schema-Coaching for Parents (SCP) we mean a special form of psycho-education and parent work, often in addition to the child-focused therapy. The workshop SCP gives insight into how a parent’s upbringing and childhood events – positive as well as problematic – has resulted in a parent’s EMS, including “family schemas” that have been developed and fostered over generations. This deeper insight provides the parents with understanding and helps to disempower old (often trans-generational) maladaptive schemas and modes, finally helping them understand and meet their own emotional needs and their child’s needs.

Teaching Methods:

Powerpoint Presentation, picture material, life demonstrations, and role-play in groups of three or four participants ensure the consolidation and deepening of what has been learnt.

Learning Objectives:

The individual steps of SCP ...
• investigate each parent’s present schema landscape (exploring each parent’s childhood using the YSQ-questionnaire, Couple interview, etc.)
• define how the child’s behavior triggers modes in the parents (the “emotional buttons” of the parents)
• go back into the parent’s childhood in order to clarify which needs were not met (e.g. using chair work, imagery techniques)
• consider what kind of childhood the parent’s own parents had (including which schemas they had and still have)
• sketch a ”schema-genogram“ (over 3 generations)
• use a family-board - a wooden board with wooden figures that represent family members, and - as a further development - assign the schema a figure/symbol in order to get an impression of how the family relationships change when the schema enters and leaves the family
• use the family-board in a double-layer-structure. The ground floor of the model is the family constellation of a parent (when the father/mother was a child) and the first floor shows the current family constellation (in the present). How does the schema effect the family?

Workshop Intended For:

Intermediate (Participants have had basic ST training)

Relevant Background Readings on Topic:

Loose, C. (2019). Schema-Coaching for Parents. ISST-Bulletin, Issue 17.
Loose, C. & Graaf, P., (2014). Video-Learning: Schematherapie mit Kindern. DVD. Weinheim: Beltz.
Loose, C., Graaf, P. & Zarbock, G. (2013). Schematherapie mit Kindern und Jugendlichen. Weinheim: Beltz. (For Dutch, Italian, Polish, Turkish and soon Farsi speakers, the book is available in the usual bookstores).
We are anticipating the publication of “Schema Therapy for Children and Adolescents” (Editors: Loose, Graaf, Zarbock, & Holt) in 2019/2020 by Pavilion Publisher (UK). This book contains three chapters outlining SCP in more detail, with step-by-step information and treatment strategies.

About the Presenter:

Christof Loose

Christof Loose, PhD, Clinical Psychologist, CBT for Children and Adolescents, Advanced level certified Schema Therapist for Children & Adolescents; Supervisor and Trainer (ISST e.V.), affiliated with the Institute for Schema Therapy in Cologne (IST-K), Munich (IST-M), Basel (IST-Basel) and Graz (IST-Graz), and in research with Institute of Experimental Psychology,

Department of Clinical Psychology, Heinrich-Heine-University Dusseldorf. He works in his own

Private Practice in Dusseldorf, Germany, and is editor and author of ST-CA books and Video-

Learning (DVD), translated into Dutch, Italian, Polish, Turkish and soon in English (2019/20). He

conducts workshops and seminars in ST-CA worldwide