Nurturing our healthy adult in schema therapy
Jan 01, 2023
I love the use of story and metaphors in therapy. In recent years, many stories I draw from reflect the interests of a small child who calls me 'mummy'. Over Christmas, we watched Matilda, The Musical. Could there be a better metaphor for the relationship between our healthy adult and our inner child than Miss Honey and Matilda?
I specialise in long-standing relationship patterns, cluster B personality disorders, including issues of narcissism. Many people come to therapy frustrated and angry with themselves and expecting a firm, scolding, critical and demanding stance from me.
Nothing could be less effective. When we need to tackle longstanding patterns, it is helpful to recognise where they have come from with compassion for ourselves.
Old habits like withdrawing from intimacy, becoming aggressive in conflict, becoming defensive, denying mistakes, people-pleasing or going quiet when someone is hurting us all likely served a purpose at some point. Perhaps they allowed us to cope with painful and inescapable situations in childhood. We can recognise the harms our old patterns cause for us and others without judging ourselves harshly and with a sincere desire to alleviate the suffering they cause.
When that is the case, we need to nurture a healthy adult, a good inner parent who can show up for us and kick down the doors if needed and give us the guidance and comfort we need. As adults, we can learn to cultivate this powerful ally within us, creating a safe haven of peace, courage, and strength inside ourselves. Our inner parent can help us overcome our toughest challenges, holding us in its embrace when things get difficult and leading us into new and healthier patterns. With the support and wisdom of our own inner parent, we can create bold and beautiful stories for ourselves that redefine how we see ourselves and our relationships.
As we do, we may find those older coping mechanisms can relax, take a step back, and allow new stories to emerge.
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