In recent years, schema therapy has also been adapted for use in forensic settings, complex trauma and PTSD, and with children and adolescents.
[2] They may be made up of emotional memories of past hurt, tragedy, fear, abuse, neglect, unmet safety needs, abandonment, or lack of normal human affection in general.
[11] The higher-order factor analysis indicated four schema domains—Emotional Dysregulation, Disconnection, Impaired Autonomy/Underdeveloped Self, and Excessive Responsibility/Overcontrol—that overlap with the five domains (listed above) proposed earlier by Young, Klosko & Weishaar (2003).
Life situations that a person finds disturbing or offensive, or arouse bad memories, are referred to as "triggers" that tend to activate schema modes.
[13] Experiential and emotion focused strategies expand on standard Gestalt therapy psychodrama and imagery techniques.
[19] Historically, mainstream psychoanalysis tended to reject active techniques—such as Fritz Perls' Gestalt therapy work or Franz Alexander's "corrective emotional experience"—but contemporary relational psychoanalysis (led by analysts such as Lewis Aron, and building on the ideas of earlier unorthodox analysts such as Sándor Ferenczi) is more open to active techniques.
[20] It is notable that in a head-to-head comparison of a psychoanalytic object relations treatment (Otto F. Kernberg's transference focused psychotherapy) and schema therapy, the latter has been demonstrated to be more effective in treating Borderline Personality Disorder.
[21] Dutch investigators, including Marjon Nadort and Arnoud Arntz, assessed the effectiveness of schema therapy in the treatment of borderline personality disorder when utilized in regular mental health care settings.
[22] Investigators Joan Farrell, Ida Shaw and Michael Webber at the Indiana University School of Medicine Center for BPD Treatment & Research tested the effectiveness of adding an eight-month, 30-session schema therapy group to treatment-as-usual (TAU) for borderline personality disorder (BPD) with 32 patients.
The schema therapy group treatment led to significant reductions in symptoms and global improvement in functioning.