Strengthening Healthy Adult in Schema Therapy

18^th June, 2027

(Online, UK)

With Dr. Helen Startup, Consultant Clinical Psychologist

The Healthy Adult is often positioned as an ‘essential’ feature of the self with its development being a principal goal of Schema Therapy. However, in many ways the Healthy Adult is poorly articulated and understood both in terms of its content and process features. This workshop will focus on elaborating a clear working definition of the Healthy Adult in schema therapy, that is contrasted with overlapping constructs across other therapies (such as the Wise Mind in DBT, Compassionate Self in CFT). We will then propose methods to build and harness this essential part of the self to support maximum growth through schema therapy.

During this workshop delegates will:

• Learn about the critical importance or ‘meta’ role of the Healthy Adult in managing and overseeing self organisation.
• Creatively use imagery and body-focused strategies to build the Heathy Adult where there may have been little chance for Healthy Adult development.
• Use Chair work to place the Healthy Adult in the ‘driving seat’ and to ‘dial down’ reliance on coping modes and the influence of the Critic.
• Explore the use of Positive Schemas in the development of the Healthy Adult mode.
• Discover cognitive techniques to bolster a Healthy Adult and to support mentalisation where there is fragmentation of the self.
• Use somatic techniques and transitional objects to foster a deeper connection between the Healthy Adult and the needs of a fragile Vulnerable Child part.
• Learn how to integrate creative methods such as the use of toys, puppets and craft to support playful development and integration of a Healthy Adult.
• Therapists will learn about their own contribution to ‘schema chemistry’ and will learn strategies for staying within their own Healthy Adult at times of clinical challenge and rupture.

Throughout the workshop we will present ways of augmenting the core change techniques of Schema Therapy – imagery, chair work, limited reparenting and empathic confrontation – by weaving in body focused techniques to directly address trauma reactions. We will provide ample time for case discussion and for live practice.

TRAINER:

Dr Helen Startup is a Consultant Clinical Psychologist with over 20 years’ experience working in the NHS and Private Practice. Helen has a PhD in psychological mechanisms of anxiety and worry and is interested in the role of complex emotional states as core transdiagnostic processes across mental health presentations. She has worked as a researcher and clinician in specialist settings for those with eating disorders, personality disorders and psychosis. She is passionate about improving outcomes for those with complex mental health needs. She co-directs Schema Therapy School UK

www.schematherapyschool.co.uk

info@brightonpsychologyservice.co.uk