Schema Therapy For Shame and Guilt-Based Difficulties

24^th-25^th September, 2026

(Online, UK)

With Helen Startup & Janis Briedis, Consultant Psychologists

Early life trauma can profoundly disrupt a person’s sense of self, leaving shame and guilt woven into the core of identity. In Schema Therapy, these presentations are often understood through a mode map dominated by Punitive, Guilt‑Inducing, and Invalidating Critic modes. For many clients, the Vulnerable Child becomes fused with a powerful inner Critic, creating a deep sense of defectiveness, dissociative states, and rapid shifts between harmful coping strategies. As a result, core emotional needs remain unmet and therapeutic engagement can feel fragile or unsafe.

This specialised workshop is designed for therapists with some existing knowledge of schema theory and experience working with trauma. It offers a focused space to deepen understanding of shame and guilt within complex trauma presentations, and to develop practical ways of helping clients safely access, explore, and work with these states. Participants will learn how to navigate intense critic modes, support reconnection with the Vulnerable Child, and create the conditions for meaningful therapeutic change.

The workshop will cover:

• Evolutionary, developmental, and attachment perspectives on the formation of the self and emotional world
• An overview and critical review of leading trauma theories and their approach to shame and guilt
• The conceptualisation of shame and guilt through a schema mode framework
• The value of moving beyond labels such as ‘Personality Disorder’, Complex PTSD, and Dissociative Spectrum Disorders and instead learning to get alongside transdiagnostic states of shame, guilt, and dissociation
• Relational implications when working with highly shame‑prone and dissociative parts, including implications for limited reparenting and empathic confrontation
• Opportunities to observe and practise strategies for working with shame as an embodied, pre‑verbal trauma state
• Opportunities to observe and practise key interventions for supporting highly traumatised individuals
• The exploration of approaches for un‑fusing blended Critic states from the Vulnerable Child

How you’ll learn:

• Bespoke videos and live demonstrations of core schema therapy techniques
• Guided practice in imagery, chair work and relational ways of working
• Interactive exercises and case-based discussion
• Reflective space to explore your own schema activation around these sensitive topics
• Delegates will receive the workshop recording, slides and handouts

Janis Briedis is a Consultant Psychologist, advanced level Schema Therapist, Supervisor and Trainer with many years of clinical experience in the NHS and private practice. He teaches regularly schema therapy, CBT and trauma-focused approaches in a variety of NHS and academic settings. Janis has worked in primary care, drug and alcohol, LGBT services, community mental health teams and specialist psychology services and has a wide range of clinical experience working particularly with complex trauma, dissociation, personality disorders and relationship difficulties. Janis is a co-director at Schema Therapy School UK.

Dr Helen Startupis a Consultant Clinical Psychologist with over 20 years’ experience working in the NHS andPrivate 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

janispsychologist@gmail.com

@schematherapyschool

@body_focused_schema_therapy