Schema Modes
The Schema Therapy mode model describes four types of modes.
The child modes: vulnerable child and angry child
The critic modes: punitive, demanding and guilt inducing
The coping modes: surrendering, overcompensating and avoidant
The healthy modes: The healthy adult and the happy child
In my last blog, I described three ways you can work with the critic modes. This blog focuses on the vulnerable child mode: what is it, our aims and three ways in which we can provide corrective emotional experiences.
The Vulnerable Child Mode
The vulnerable child mode (also known as abandoned, anxious, abused, lonely, dependent or humiliated child) holds the feelings, thoughts and physical sensations the individual experienced when their psychological needs were not met as a child. For example, as an adult, someone may connect deeply with their abandoned child mode when a friend forgets to turn up to a lunch date. Their feelings of sadness and fear of being alone are more intense than would be expected for the situation, because a network of experiences of being abandoned as a child get activated too.
When in the vulnerable child mode, the individual may appear and feel as though they are much younger than their actual age. They may struggle to access their usual coping strategies and problem solving skills as their healthy adult mode is inaccessible. Clients often share with me how overwhelming and confusing it is when they experience this rush of feelings and physical sensations. For individuals with complex trauma, the intensity of the emotions triggered can be so overwhelmingly distressing that they try to take their own life. Connection with strong feelings of the vulnerable child mode often activates the critic modes as it feels over the top for the situation, adding a layer of shame to the primary emotions experienced.
Schema Therapy Aims:
To educate clients about the emotional needs of children and validate the feelings of their vulnerable child mode
To process memories where the child’s needs were not met, reducing the intensity of the emotions and increasing flexible thinking.
To help individuals care for their own needs and get their needs met in relationships. I’ll describe the concept of the vulnerable child mode, our aims and three ways in which we can provide corrective emotional exexperiences.
Limited Re-Parenting Stance
Before describing three interventions I use to reparent the vulnerable child mode I want to describe the limited re-parenting stance, which aims to thread corrective emotional experiences throughout sessions via the therapeutic relationship. As schema therapists we aim to attune to the needs of the vulnerable child: warmly welcoming all feelings, offering praise, encouragement and emotional support, as well as demonstrating care with words and actions which might include transitional objects. We are explicit about being on the side of the patient and having their best interests at heart. Limited reparenting is especially important when clients are in their vulnerable child mode as the corrective emotional experience has more impact. For example, letting the abused child know that they can choose the pace of the sessions or letting the lonely child know that you want to be there for them. When using the exercises below, I work to provide the limited re-parenting stance throughout.
The Wall of Needs - For Education & Validation
This visual exercise is helpful to educate clients about the normal needs children have. It is useful for clients who don’t understand why they struggle in the present or think that their childhood was ‘fine’.
Steps
1. You will need ‘post it notes’ and a wall to stick them on
2. Generate ideas with your client about what children need when they are growing up.
3. Write each idea on a post it note and stick to the wall to create your ‘wall of needs’.
4. Reflect on this together.
5. Remove the post it notes for the needs that were not met when they were little and validate the impact this has had on their functioning – e.g. ‘it’s no wonder you find relationships so hard/you have had to work so hard to survive’
6. Discuss how meeting the needs of the vulnerable child mode now can help to lessen the impact of the unmet needs.
The wall of needs exercise can also be used as an introduction to imagery rescripting, whereby you can discuss with clients examples of how they would have liked their needs to be met as a child.
Imagery Rescripting for Processing Memories
In imagery re-scripting distressing memories are re-written to meet the child’s needs. In the early stages of schema therapy revisiting old memories can be used as a way of assessing which needs were and were not met for the child. In addition, imagery can be used to understand how the child perceived the events that took place. Using this information, the therapist enters the image to provide the child with support, empathy, soothing, protection and an alternative understanding of the event. For example, the therapist enters an image just before the child is going to be beaten by a parent for breaking a glass. The therapist protects the child and stops the parent, letting the child know that people accidentally break things all the time, that it’s wrong the parent is hurting them and they don’t deserve this to be happening.
Recording imagery rescripting sessions to be listened to outside of therapy can help to process memories more deeply. As therapy progresses, the client will take a more activate role in imagery rescripting, using their healthy adult to provide re-parenting to the vulnerable child.
Helping Clients Care for their Own Needs
When clients come to sessions with a situation to discuss I will help them to ‘walk through the modes’, putting the coping modes and the critic on a chair and exploring the different thoughts and behaviours for each. We pay extra attention to the chair denoting the vulnerable child mode, as this mode helps us to understand painful feelings triggered by the situation and what the person needed. When we have worked out what the vulnerable child mode needs, we practice using soothing words towards the vulnerable child chair to meet those needs. I demonstrate first and then my client has a go at repeating my words, or adding words of their own. For first example above, where the friend didn’t turn up to the lunch date I might say “It’s really upsetting and scary when your friend doesn’t turn up. That’s because all of those old memories when your mum didn’t come home at night are being triggered. That’s why this feels so overwhelming. I’m here for you. When this feels less intense we can work out what happened to your friend. She might have got the dates mixed up. Right now, I think you might feel safer if we wrap this blanket around you”
To help clients integrate this new way of tuning into and looking after their needs, you can record these messages onto the client’s phone so they can listen to them and practice them between sessions.
If you would like to learn more about schema therapy, please see the workshops I am running here.