Treatment and Management of Maladaptive Schemas the Complexity of Thought-Process: Artistic Interpretation by Christopher Kreuter Eric A
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Treatment and Management of Maladaptive Schemas The complexity of thought-process: artistic interpretation by Christopher Kreuter Eric A. Kreuter • Kenneth M. Moltner Treatment and Management of Maladaptive Schemas Foreword by Laurence Allen Steckman, Esq., M.Phil. and Lodze Steckman, M.D., FACS Afterword by Cathleen M. Kreuter, MS-MFT 1 3 Eric A. Kreuter Kenneth M. Moltner Yorktown Heights New York New York New York USA USA ISBN 978-3-319-06816-9 ISBN 978-3-319-06817-6 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-06817-6 Springer Cham Heidelberg New York Dordrecht London Library of Congress Control Number: 2014940858 © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014 This work is subject to copyright. 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Printed on acid-free paper Springer is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com) Foreword Laurence Allen Steckman, Esq., M.Phil. and Lodze Steckman, M.D., FACS Maladaptive Schemas and the Transfiguration of Core Beliefs— When and How Paradigms of Consciousness Shift—an Introduction to Dr. Kreuter’s and Counselor Moltner’s Analysis and Recommendations Regarding Counseling and the Treatment of Certain Psychic Disorders Introduction Dr. Kreuter and counselor Kenneth Moltner integrate philosophical and psychologi- cal insights regarding the treatment and/or mentoring of persons whose past experi- ences prevent them from attaining life goals and achieving optimal psychic health. Their goal is to examine “the phenomenology of adapting or not adapting well to stimuli,” and to suggest strategies which may be helpful to persons seeking to achieve more integrated and fulfilling lives. We introduce vocabulary and key con- cepts of schema-focused therapies, which the authors discuss as successful change modalities for many persons suffering so-called maladaptive schema. We comment, as well, on certain philosophical insights the authors provide as guidance to mental health professionals and others engaged in therapeutic/transformational efforts. A. Vocabulary and Key Concepts Schemas are psychic structures that some mental health practitioners and research professionals believe play an important role in the maintenance and expression of many personality disorders (Young et al. 2003). Manifesting themselves as patterns of memories, emotions, and perceptions, schema structures are hypothesized to form during early stages of human maturation, largely due, in many cases, to early, serious trauma and/or parental failure to provide a child’s basic needs (Young et al. 2003). They are hypothesized to strongly influence later-life behaviors, playing a substantial causal role in the etiology, maintenance, and recurrence of maladaptive personality traits (Young et al. 2003). v vi Foreword The term “schema” has been variously defined in cognitive science literature, inter alia, as a “structure, theme, or pattern of cognitive content” or a “blueprint imposed on experience” to help individuals explain it, to mediate perception, and to guide responses (Cockram 2009, p. 32). Schema are thought to partly determine how people interpret, evaluate, and categorize their experiences and, for this reason, hypothesized to be constitutive of who we are and who we experience ourselves to be. Among those who posit their existence, schema are regarded as difficult to modify, even when one is fully aware of them and motivated to change, and even where professional help is available to facilitate such change (Young 2003; Cockram 2009). “Maladaptive schemas” are schema thought to contribute to later life cognitive or behavioral dysfunctions. They may give rise to unreasonable or exaggerated fears of abuse, a sense of deprivation, or a mistrust of people or groups; they may result in feelings of isolation, shame, inadequacy, or a sense that one is doomed to fail, with disaster looming just over the horizon, when little objective basis for such feelings may exist (Young et al. 2003). Such schema may impair a person’s ability to achieve goals or life satisfactions, resulting in feelings of hopelessness; in a vi- cious circle, they may create the situations persons so afflicted, fear most. “Paradigms” are global systems of hypotheses, beliefs, rules, and principles, frequently discussed in scientific and social science literature, as making up the fabric of human knowledge domain. In certain respects, they are similar to schema. Thomas Kuhn, author of “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions” ( Structure), is generally credited with popularizing the concept of “paradigm,” as now understood. In Structure, Kuhn argued science history shows scientific knowledge evolves un- evenly through revolutionary shifts in paradigms which have the effect of altering, in fundamental ways, how science proceeds. The phrase “paradigm shift,” for Kuhn, denotes the movement from the com- plex of prevailing views constituting a subject knowledge domain, to a new, better adapted complex. Frequently cited examples of paradigm shifts include replace- ment of Ptolemy’s earth-centered universe with Copernicus’ sun-centered universe and Einstein’s replacement of Newton’s clockwork universe with relativity; each providing superior predictive and explanatory capacities relative to the replaced paradigm. Understanding how paradigms deform and shift, the authors suggest, provide considerable insight into ways therapeutic tools may be designed and used to help clients alter or eliminate maladaptive schema underlying many psychic dis- orders. B. Paradigms and Paradigm Shifts in Science—The Inability to See What Is Actually Before One’s Eyes Structure was Kuhn’s most famous attempt to describe what paradigms are and the way in which scientific knowledge evolves within the global networks of definitions, causal hypotheses, and experimental protocols of what he called “normal science.” Structure became a classic in philosophy of sciences and the humanities, generally, Foreword vii in large part because it challenged a then widely held view that scientific knowledge increases in a linear manner, with experimental results simply adding one upon another, growing society’s store of correct facts. It was commonly believed scien- tists apply neutral theories in experiments which reveal nature’s truths, verifying or refuting theories, in a straightforward manner, adding to science knowledge through unbiased verification of science theories (the “Traditional View”). Kuhn, in contrast, argued scientific knowledge evolves, in large measure, through nonlinear science “revolutions” in which radically new idea complexes re- place whole systems of previously confirmed definitions, theories, and experimen- tal, interpretive, and assessment protocols. Scientists, he observed, spend most of their careers engaged in “puzzle-solving” within frameworks that not only provide the instruments, theories, and procedures to address current science problems, but which, as well, define how experimental results will be interpreted and their signifi- cance understood. He referred to this as “normal science.” Because existing paradigms are the result of many successful experiments, prac- titioners of normal science puzzle-solving tend to be highly confident in paradigm- endorsed theories and procedures. From that well-reasoned optimism, however, flows a specious overconfidence that paradigm instrumentalities will be adequate to solve all presenting problems in the science domains in which they operate as they largely determine scientist expectancies, influencing postexperiment understand- ings of data and data significance, in a paradigm-preserving manner. Nevertheless, scientific instruments and procedures become more precise over time allowing scientists to probe ever more deeply into the universe. With new and more precise data disclosed, researchers may be confronted with “anomalies,” i.e., experimental outcomes difficult or impossible to explain within