Skills training is an important part of preparing clients for Schema Therapy. As children, we had to rely on our caregivers to help us meet our needs. Unfortunately, a lot of us didn’t get those needs met adequately and consistently enough as we were growing up. When this happens, we sometimes compensate by using our innate survival skills. Overuse of these survival skills may hinder the development of more advanced skills, especially if we learn to use them in circumstances where they might not be necessary. By learning more advanced skills, we can work to replace habitual with deliberate skill use.

Amie focuses and adapts skills for training Schema Therapy clients based on research grounded in Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT). Studies show that using skills training by itself can help people with many problems, including overwhelming emotions, depression, anxiety, and harmful behaviors. It can also reduce things like self-harm and hospital visits. You can read more here: The State of the Science.