🌳 Understanding Schema Coping Modes
In Schema Therapy, we often look at how early unmet needs shape long-lasting beliefs about ourselves and the world. These are known as schemas — and they influence how we cope when we're distressed or triggered.
This tree shows how our coping modes grow from those early roots:
🌱 The Roots: Core Emotional Needs
Our core emotional needs are necessary for healthy emotional development. Schemas like “I’m not good enough,” “I will be abandoned,” or “I’m a failure” begin in childhood experiences when our core emotional needs are not being met. They become the emotional soil we react from as adults.
🌳 The Trunk: Maladaptive Coping Modes
When these schemas are triggered, we develop coping strategies that help us survive — but often keep us stuck.
👩👩👦 With Parent Modes, therapy can help you to negotiate with your Demanding Parent and banish your Punitive Parent — whilst strengthening your Healthy Adult to form a model for a Good Parent. Child modes can also be responded to appropriately: soothing the Vulnerable Child, validating the Angry Child, and encouraging joy and spontaneity with the Happy Child. Healing is possible when we can meet these parts with compassion and clarity.
🌿 The Branches: The Healthy Adult Mode, Happy Child, Good Parent
With support and practice, we can grow into new ways of coping. The Healthy Adult mode helps you:
Recognise when you’re triggered
Soothe yourself without shutting down
Set boundaries without overcompensating
Make space for your needs, not just others’
Sources: Young, J.E., Klosko, J.S., & Weishaar, M.E. (2003). Schema Therapy: A Practitioner’s Guide.
Helpful resource: https://irp.cdn-website.com/df8feb75/dms3rep/multi/Schema+Handout+-+Mode+DIAGRAM+%284%29.png
📌 Disclaimer: This post is for psychoeducational purposes only. It does not replace professional mental health care.
#schematherapy #copingmodes #mentalhealth #innerchildhealing #selfawareness #therapytools #TheSparrowhawkPractice #psychologistnl #MentalHealthAwareness