The Avoidant Protector Mode
The avoidant protector mode is a coping mode that functions to avoid activating schemas. If someone has a failure schema the avoidant protector helps them to avoid activating their failure schema (memories, feelings, sensations and beliefs that go with ‘I’m always going to fail at everything’) by not taking on any new challenges. The mode says ‘if I don’t do things that I find hard, or feel unsure about, then I won’t get them wrong and feel like a failure.’
This is very powerful in the short term, as the individual doesn’t have to battle with feelings of doubt and anxiety about not knowing how to do something. In the long run, however, this mode blocks the possibility of learning how to take steps forwards and achieve things that are hard. There are no feelings of satisfaction or mastery, so the schema gets maintained.
The avoidant protector will avoid activating different schemas in different ways.
Schema | The avoidant protector might look like: |
Abandonment/Instability | Avoid relationships to prevent abandonment |
Emotional Deprivation | Super independence - I never need support |
Defectiveness/Shame | Don't reveal true self so no one can see faults |
Social Isolation | Avoid socialising so they don't feel different |
Mistrust/Abuse | Never reveal vulnerabilities to others |
Look broadly for the signs of the avoidant protector. Some functional activities may serve to help avoid distress and interfere with moving forwards. For example, clients may feel confident at their job but yet in their personal life they feel totally lost. As a consequence, they invest so much of their energy into work, that there is no energy left for making big changes personally.
The avoidant protector mode repeats a pattern the person experienced as a child. Parents may have turned away from the child when they were in distress or never talked to their child about emotions and the difficult things going on in their lives. Avoidance may have been modelled explicitly by adults themselves.
The consequence of the avoidant protector mode is that the vulnerable child is stuck experiencing the same distressing feelings over and over again. The feelings are only temporarily relieved by the avoidance of an immediate challenge.
How is the Avoidant Protector Different to the Detached Protector?
The detached protector, which is also an avoidant coping mode is more focused on detachment from feelings and distressing thoughts. A client with a strong detached protector may present as having no feelings or always being ‘on a level’ emotionally. The avoidant protector is more focused on behavioural avoidance.
Working with the Avoidant Protector Mode
Schema therapy offers a myriad of ways to work with the avoidant protector. Here are a few ideas for lessening the strength of this mode.
Heal the Vulnerable Child Mode
In all schema therapy work, we aim to firstly work with the vulnerable child mode to meet their unmet needs and with the critic modes, to reduce their volume and power. Clients with a strong avoidant protector have spent so long stuck feeling the same way, that they may find it tricky to understand that they have developed schemas from their past experiences.
Example: A client with a mistrust and abuse schema is likely to misinterpret situations, believing that someone is intentionally hurting them when the other person is just being thoughtless or they are prioritising something else. The schema activates terror in the vulnerable child mode and the belief “I’m going to get hurt”. The avoidant protector steps in and cuts off the relationship, relieving the terror in the short term. Unfortunately, the belief that people are out to hurt them and the behavioural pattern of avoiding people to protect themselves are both reinforced.
Imagery rescripting helps to develop different perspectives about the self, the world and other people. It helps clients to understand their schemas and how they have developed. Shifting clients from believing that their schemas are truths, to recognising they are an interpretation of events to support their survival.
To help avoidant clients recognise their schemas, create a list or write a letter containing their core schemas (4 maximum) and the meaning of those schemas for them. The next step is to allocate a task to the healthy adult mode to spot the schemas being triggered during the week. This task can later develop into noticing what the vulnerable child needs and meeting those needs.
Sally’s schema list
1. I never think that I am good enough (defectiveness)
2. People intentionally hurt me (mistrust and abuse)
3. No one will stay in my life (abandonment)
4. There will be a backlash when I share my feelings (subjugation)
If your client has more than four schemas, choose the schemas related to the life pattern that you are working on only (read more about life patterns here) or the schemas that get triggered the most frequently.
If the avoidant protector persists in blocking change, it suggests that the schemas haven’t been healed sufficiently and further emotion focused work needs to take place with the vulnerable child mode. It can be tempting move towards behavioural pattern breaking too soon with clients with a strong avoidant protector. Clients may have experienced decades of their needs not being met and so it takes time for the reparative messages to the vulnerable child to heal the schemas. This work is essential for behavioural pattern breaking to be a success.
Clear Goals & Empathic Confrontation
Developing goals and sticking to these goals is likely to be challenging for clients with a strong avoidant protector. Working towards a significant change in life brings about lots of fears and so the avoidant protector may step in regularly to relieve these fears and make it challenging to drive towards goals. As a therapist, it is important to be clear about the goals of the work and regularly bring these goals to the attention of clients and identify when the avoidant protector is getting in the way.
Deepening the focus on therapeutic goals after developing schema awareness will help with identifying the patterns that need to change and increase readiness to commit to goals.
Empathic confrontation is a key tool for bringing attention to the impact of the avoidant protector on movement towards the therapeutic goals. Empathise with the fear of taking steps forwards and confront the consequences of continuing to use the avoidant protector. Take an in-depth look at empathic confrontation in this video tutorial here.
Chair Work with the Avoidant Protector Mode
This exercise can be helpful to bring awareness to clients about the role their avoidant protector takes now and in the past. Therapists can also assess the readiness of the healthy adult mode to manage the avoidant protector. If the healthy adult has developed strength, behavioural pattern breaking can be introduced.
Set out three chairs in a triangle. Chair one represents the avoidant protector. Ask your client to describe how this mode looks and what the mode might say (using a specific scenario if that helps to bring the mode to life).
Client sits in chair two and speaks to the avoidant protector about how it is a friend to them. Encourage the client to tell the avoidant protector how they have helped them now and in the past.
Client sits in chair three and speaks to the avoidant protector about how it is a foe to them. You can ask your client to talk to this mode about how it holds them back and what this mode has stopped them from achieving.
Client and therapist stands up and assume the posture of their healthy adult. Encourage client to review the two perspectives and think about what is needed for the future. Client speaks to the avoidant protector about how they would like things to change.
Sit back down in original positions to discuss the exercise and think about the impact that it has had on the client.
Pitfalls
It is easy to get lost in your schema therapy work if the avoidant protector is strong, as your client may find it hard to hold in mind where they want to get to and they may struggle to make progress outside of sessions.
There is the potential for the therapist to work much harder than the client, as they overcompensate for the client’s avoidance.
Schema therapists need to keep an eye on their own demanding critic as the lack of progress in the work could activate their own failure or defectiveness schema and bring about frustration with the client for not making progress quickly enough.
Conclusion
The avoidant protector mode can be a tricky mode to overcome as it brings about huge relief from distress in the short term and blocks the positive feelings of satisfaction and success from overcoming a challenge. When this mode is strong, therapy can lack direction and the therapist’s demanding critic can get activated.
To help to bring about change, ensure clients have a clear idea of their schemas and don’t move towards behavioural pattern breaking and away from schema healing too soon. Use empathic confrontation to bring awareness to the presence of the mode and challenge its usefulness. Chair work exercises can enhance awareness of the mode and allow the therapist to assess readiness for behavioural pattern breaking.
Above all else, therapists need to take good care of themselves and access regular supervision so their own schemas (defectiveness, failure, unrelenting standards) don’t get triggered and interfere with the therapeutic work.
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