Emotional Schema Therapy by Robert L. Leahy

How do you feel today? What emotions accompany you at this very moment? An experience shared by many of us is to think that states such as anxiety, fear, anguish and sadness will last forever. When an adverse and complicated event happens to us, such as the loss of a loved one, we take for granted that this suffering will be constant.

We are not wrong if we point out that most of our psychological problems come from the idea that a good part of our emotions are beyond our control; They are shameful, incomprehensible and unacceptable. They disturb us, we anchor ourselves to them until we are eternal captives of a discomfort that almost no one has taught us to manage.

In this way, and almost without realizing it, we acquire deficient regulation strategies that perpetuate ideas and behaviors that do not benefit us. What we do is integrate harmful and unhealthy emotional schemes into our mental register.. This is the conclusion reached by psychologist Robert L. Leahy.

To address this reality that he encountered daily with his patients, he developed a new therapy. It is a therapeutic strategy that integrates the cognitive-behavioral perspective with some interesting reformulations on emotional matters. This particularity makes it a psychological model of great interest.

One of the goals of emotional schema therapy is to teach us that we are forced to deal with stress and adversity.

What is the goal of emotional schema therapy?

Emotional schema therapy is a sociocognitive model that teaches us how people interpret, evaluate and respond to their own emotions and those of others. As Dr. Robert L. Leahy himself explains in a study, this approach aims to show us that We all carry a series of beliefs (schemas) about emotions that are not always the most conducive to well-being..

Likewise, another essential purpose is to provide the correct tools to regulate and align this entire complex emotional universe in our favor. On the other hand, It is interesting to know that the way we manage our emotions is mediated by several scenarios.

On the one hand, there is our family and the way they have raised us. Our parents acted as those primary models that facilitated or vetoed this valuable learning.. Next, there are our experiences and the way we interpret each sensation, feeling and emotion. This can often lead us to assume that states such as despair, anguish, and shame are meaningless.

We also tend to reinforce the belief that only we deal with those internal realities that are also uncontrollable. The emotional schemas that we have validated throughout our lives are those that mediate most of our psychological disorders.

Purposes

The essential purpose of emotional schema therapy is not to completely remove discomfort or unhappiness. What is sought with this approach is to banish misconceptions and empower the person to build a healthier life. This implies understanding that adverse and uncomfortable experiences (emotions) are common. that we must accept and face.

Therefore, the goals that this therapy integrates are the following:

Improve the patient’s self-efficacy. Enhance emotional self-awareness. Facilitate the development of a healthier and more useful vision of emotions. Help them take risks without fear. Improve their ability to solve problems. Future orientation and goal planning. Tolerate frustration. Develop a more positive self-evaluation. Enhance the responsibility and independence of the person. Reduce impulsivity.

What are the characteristics of this therapeutic model?

The therapeutic model designed by Richard L. Leahy does not seek to make the patient feel good at every moment and circumstance. What you want is for people to understand the functions of emotions and to know how to navigate through each of them.. To achieve this goal, use the following strategies:

Socratic dialogue. Emotional validation. Behavioral experiments (talking about behaviors and experiences to analyze emotions). Exploring the person’s values ​​to give them a vital purpose.

Likewise, it is interesting to understand what characteristics define this interesting therapeutic work between the psychologist and the patient. Typically, the following issues are addressed:

1. Validation/Emotional Invalidation

People tend to invalidate the way we feel because the emotion behind it is uncomfortable for us. Emotional schema therapy helps us correct this idea so that Let us understand that all these chaotic experiences serve a purpose.

2. Incomprehensibility

This idea is related to the previous one. Many of us tend to wonder what problematic states such as anxiety, shame or melancholy are for. Achieving a valid and useful understanding of each emotion will make it easier for us to react better to what happens to us.

3. Correct simplistic ideas about emotions

“How can I love and hate my partner? That is not possible!”. “Anger is a negative emotion that I should avoid, but I can’t stop feeling it, there is something wrong with me.”

We have all validated completely distorted ideas about emotions that need to be revised. That is one of the purposes of emotional schema therapy.

Emotional schema therapy empowers us to have a fuller life that is not blocked by adversity.

4. Control and emotional repression

It’s a classic. When states such as fear, anxiety or sadness grip us, we fear losing control and, consequently, we tend towards repression. We stifle, deflect, or avoid the uncomfortable emotion to pretend it’s not there. It’s a mistake.

Psychological well-being is not in emotional control or repression, but in the regulation of the emotion felt.. It is about understanding it, accepting it and carrying out an appropriate response to place that state in our favor.

5. Excessive rationality

There are those who orient their behavior towards what they define as “rational” behavior, assuming that emotions hinder their decisions and actions. The need to be practical, logical and rational vetoes the importance of attending to what we feel. And this is neither useful nor credible.

People are emotional beings who reason and we cannot eliminate either the emotional or the rational plane from this variable.

6. No, emotions don’t last forever

There are complicated experiences that make us think that the pain they give off will last forever. However, neither fear, anxiety, nor pain from a loss or breakup last forever.

7. Emotional expression

Do you find it difficult to express what you feel? Or are you perhaps one of those who hardly put any filters and let yourself be carried away by the emotion you feel? Psychological well-being also depends on how we express what we feel.. Doing it in a balanced, adapted way is an art.

Emotional schema therapy is an enriching model for understanding a part of reality that escapes us. All its value descends from its applied value, that which we can take advantage of.

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