Find out what your coping style is according to Jeffrey Young

What to do if a patient has several disorders? How to intervene in ‘difficult patients’? What happens if the problem has become chronic? Jeffrey Young, an American psychologist, has been developing schema therapy for 20 years to provide a solution to these problems. In this article we are going to focus on a cornerstone of his method: Young’s coping style.

Schema therapy is integrative and combines elements that come from the cognitive-behavioral school, attachment theory, gestalt and constructivist and psychodynamic models. It has been mainly applied in personality disorders, although lines of research are being developed into its effectiveness in other disorders such as anxiety, depression, or eating disorders.

For schema therapy, the healthy human being from a psychological point of view is one who is capable of adaptively satisfying these needs.

Basics of therapy

Before delving into the coping styles proposed by Young, it is advisable to take a brief look at the basic concepts that underpin the therapy, in order to shed light on his approaches and therapeutic elements.

1. Early dysfunctional scheme

Young’s model puts the spotlight on the early dysfunctional schema (EDT). A scheme that works as a guide that tells us how to behave, how to think, feel and perceive; It develops and is elaborated throughout a person’s entire life. The characteristics of EDTs, according to Young, are the following:

They are a priori truths. They are self-perpetuating. They are resistant to change. They are dysfunctional; That is, they produce discomfort. Normally, they are generated and activated by environmental experiences. They produce intense and elevated affective states. They arise from the interaction between temperament and dysfunctional evolutionary experiences.

EDTs are a reflection of how the beliefs we have about ourselves are organized. in relation to what surrounds us and are the product of stressful eventssometimes traumatic, with the people who were significant and important to us when we were little, fundamentally our family.

2. Origin of the schemes

EDT arise as a consequence of the dissatisfaction of emotional needs in childhood that are basic and nuclear:

The need to establish affection and secure bonds with other people. Knowing how to be autonomous, competent and having a sense of identity. Being free to express one’s own needs and emotions; and know that they are valid. Be spontaneous and play. Establish realistic limits and develop the capacity for self-control.

3. Early life experiences and schemas

The schemes that usually have the greatest impact on the lives of patients are those that originate at a young age and within the family. 4 types of early life experiences have been found to predispose the development of EDT:

Toxic frustration of needs. It occurs when the child receives “too little of a good thing.” This experience promotes the development of schemas such as: emotional lack or abandonment/instability. They arise because something important such as love, understanding or stability was lacking in the child’s environment.Traumatization. It occurs when the child is harmed, criticized or humiliated. As a result, the child is likely to develop schemas such as distrust/abuse, imperfection, or vulnerability to danger.Experimentation of something too good. It is the counterpart of the toxic frustration of needs. In this case, the parents have given the child something that is healthy when given in moderation, but is no longer healthy when given in excess. Generates dependency/incompetence type schemes.Selective internalization or identification with significant others. It occurs when the child adopts and internalizes the parents’ own schemes, making the fears and phobias of his parents his own. The scheme that is generated is frequently that of vulnerability.

Coping style according to Young

Young’s therapy is very extensive and it is for this reason that we have just given a few basic outlines of the most relevant concepts in order to better understand Young’s coping style.

Imagine that you are walking along a path and a snake appears. You can deal with the situation in three ways: the first would be to give up, freeze and do nothing to get to safety, accepting the fact that it is going to bite you. The second way would be to avoid, that is, “I will never go on trails again because there are snakes.” The third way is called “overcompensation” and it basically consists of doing the opposite of what the scheme dictates. If the scheme is “social isolation”, overcompensating will be the opposite pattern: socializing.

The coping style arises because in the past it allowed us to reduce the emotional intensity that we experienced in one or more situations. Although it had a function in the past, in the present it produces discomfort: it perpetuates and maintains the problem.

1. Surrender to the scheme

Surrendering to a scheme means postponing the fight against it.. It is not even avoided, but rather the scheme is accepted as an absolute, unmodifiable, certain and true truth. Emotional pain is experienced directly and, in turn, reaffirms the schema.

In the beginning of schema therapy, the “schema surrender” coping style was called “schema maintenance.” For example, a woman with a distrust-abuse scheme may opt for romantic relationships with a man who is prone to being unfaithful. This would confirm the patient’s beliefs that sooner or later she will be betrayed.

2. Avoid the scheme

Avoid the scheme involves consciously ignoring thoughts, affects, and behaviors to avoid emotional intensity what it means to experience it.

It refers to any activity we do that prevents a schema from activating, from thinking to blocking thoughts and images, or distracting, or avoiding experiencing a feeling, and also overeating or drinking.

To cure a schema, you have to reduce its intensity, according to Young.

3. Scheme overcompensation

Imagine that you are in a canoe in the middle of a river with a waterfall ahead, what would you do? The most appropriate response would be “paddle against the current to escape the waterfall.” This is overcompensating.

Overcompensation occurs when you decide to fight the scheme through opposite thoughts, feelings, behaviors and relationships with others. As if the scheme was wrong.

Overcompensation is a fairly healthy attempt to fight the scheme, even if it means that the scheme continues to perpetuate itself.

For Young, curing a scheme means reducing the intensity, the volume, of the elements that make up a scheme.: memories, emotions, bodily sensations, thoughts… Curing a schema involves changing our behavior and learning to replace our maladaptive coping style, according to Young, fundamentally surrender and avoidance with a healthier one.

You might be interested…