Schemas--Maladaptive Mindsets

According to Tara Bennett-Goleman, author of "Emotional Alchemy", schemas are maladaptive mind states which consist of negative thougths and feelings. They develop when they help us adapt, because they are "at least partial solutions to an early problem (like) working extra hard to please a hypercritical parent ... Though they helped us cope at the time we acquired them, they do not work so well for us now" Schemas "can be seen as an attempt gone awry to fulfill the basic needs of life: safety, connection to others, autonomy, competence (etc.) ... When these basic needs are left unfilled, however, schemas can take root ... Each schema has its own emotional hallmark, a dinstictive gut-level wrenching feeling that takes us over when the schema has us in its grip. These feelings may repeat the emotions we felt during traumatizing events earlier in life that created the schema."

Although schemas "revolve around compelling needs ... (they) lead us to think and act in ways that keep those needs from being fulfilled" by perpetuating a self-defeating cycle. "For example, someone with a pattern of emotional deprivation, and the accompanying need for conection andcaring, may be drawn over and over again into romantic relationships with lovers who are ungiving and aloof ... The false hope that this time it will be different (drives the self-defeating pattern) ... This time she will find a partner who seems ungiving (which feels comfortably familiar, like home), but who will offer her the love and caring she craves from such a man."

"Maladaptive schemas create neurotic solutions, which "are strategies for filling basic human needs and wishes like being loved, understood and accepted ... (However) they are self-defeating, because they sabotage the very attempt ... Modern psychology (considers) schemas as storage systems that preserve specific emotional learning (like) resentment at feeling treated unfairly ... along with the corresponding range of acts that we have learned to be sensitive to, as well as how we have learned to react when we feel treated that way. These storage systems not only preserve what we have learned but continue to be added to by our experiences throught life. These patterns lie dormant, waiting for a moment when something happens that brings the schemato mind. Then the old feelings, and the old responses automatically recur."

"Maladaptive schemas can be seen as a kind of mental fog, or emotional cloud. They may obscure our minds for a time, but they still only temporarily cover the clarity and spaciousness of our true nature. Mindfulness helps us hold this larger perspective as we explore these emotional clouds ... We can learn about our own conditioning without making it too real, being overwhelmed by it, or any longer being completely defined by the limiting beliefs these mental habits foster in us."

The author next describes common schemas, how they develop in childhood, typical emotional reactions and how an adult can mindfully avoid being overwhelmed by schema reactions. Because my own schemas include: deprivation, subjugation and failure, I will discuss each of those maladaptive mindsets in the next 3 posts. I will include the author's description of each of those schemas as well as her suggestions for recognizing and mindfully changing reactions to those schemas. Then I will share how I developed a particular schema, how I recognized that schema in my life, and how I now challenge maladaptive beliefs of each schema.