# Schema Modes



## yeah_yeah_yeah (Mar 27, 2007)

Some people have asked what schema modes are. Within Schema Focused Therapy (SFT) there are the more known about individual schemas such as Abandonment, Defectiveness and Shame, Vulnerability to harm and so on. These can usually be the focus of therapy for someone who has only a few major schemas and the therapist and person will work on one at a time.

However, in some people there are just too many schemas, OR they have done such a good job of suppressing and compensating for them that they are no longer able to see them. In these cases, the collection of schemas tend to kind of clump together and have their combined influence on the persons behaviour. For each person the particular schemas may differ, but the influence on the behaviour is known as a MODE. 

For example, someone with Defectiveness and Shame may feel ashamed of some act or other they have done, and then immediately flip into a self punishing mode, often called the Punitive Parent as its tone reflects that of a scolding, unforgiving parent. This would reflect the Punitiveness Schema, but it interacts with Defectiveness and produces an inward attack, or the mode. The flip into the mode will be subconscious - but what you will notice will be a sudden cascade of different emotions in one.

For healthier folk, the modes are more integrated and tend to calm the others down. But as you get more towards the personality disordered end of the spectrum, or if you have a lot of schemas you are overcompensating for and cannot 'see', so the modes become more individual. You experience them as 'pure modes' - so for example you punish yourself unreservedly for a long period of tie, and none of your healthier modes are able to intervene to say "hey hold on, its only a mistake". You just punish and punish. This can feel like internal mental pain, or in some of the Personality Disorders this can take the form of self injury and cutting.

There are several modes, and I have attached the sheet my therapist typed out for me to illustrate the different modes.


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